Jalal ad-Din Hassan

Jalal ad-Din Hassan , or Hassan III. ( Arabic جلال الدينحسن, DMG Ǧalāl ad-Dīn Ḥasan ; † November 1221 ), was the 25th Imam of the Shia of the Nizari-Ismailis and the sixth ruler of Alamut . He was the son of the 24th Imam Nur ad-Din Muhammad († 1210).

According to rumors, Hassan is said to have hastened his father's death by poisoning, as he had argued with him about the beliefs of their Shia. In any case, immediately after assuming power, he publicly broke with the teaching of his fathers based on the “resurrection” of the Imam and the dawn of “Judgment Day” , committed himself to the orthodox Islam of the Sunna and reinstated the Sharia . Caliph an-Nasir had a fatwa read out in Baghdad in August 1211 , in which the conversion of the ruler of Alamut was proclaimed and he was accepted into the community of believers as a “new Muslim” (nou musalmān) . In order to confirm the change of faith, Hassan had the heretical writings of his large library burned in Alamut, which is why no written evidence from the Ismaili community of the Middle Ages has survived to this day. With the permission of the caliph he married four daughters of the Sunni prince of Kutam (province of Gilan ) and made his mother go on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1212/13 , which was received by the caliph in Baghdad. In his Shia the return to Islamic orthodoxy was received differently. The measure of his subjects did not follow him and stood in a kind of civil war against him and those who followed him willingly. In contrast, in Sunni historiography, see Dschuwaini , in contrast to his fathers, he was considered positively.

Hassan then spent several years at the courts of neighboring princes and allied himself with the Atabeg of Azerbaijan , Muzaffar ad-Din Özbeg , against the ruler of Iraq , Nasir ad-Din Mengli . After he was defeated in 1214/15, he received rule over the cities of Abhar and Zanjan . During his reign, the conquest of the Mongols began under Genghis Khan , who had advanced as far as Central Asia. The first ruler "this side of the Oxus " (ie the Islamic world) who established diplomatic contact with the conqueror and swore submission to him was Hassan.

Hassan died of dysentery in the middle of the month of Ramadan 618 AH (November 1221). It was suspected, however, that his wives had poisoned him, which the vizier used as an excuse to have all adult members of the Imam family executed. Hassan's successor, Ala ad-Din Muhammad , who was only a few years old , was therefore initially under foreign influence. After his death, the Nizarite congregation immediately returned to the teaching proclaimed by the 23rd Imam, which they still hold on to today.

literature

• Farhad Daftary , The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press 1990.
• Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʿilis. London 1994.
• Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies. London 2004.
• Heinz Halm, Caliphs and Assassins: Egypt and the Near East at the Time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. Munich 2014, pp. 336–346.

swell

• Ata al-Mulk Dschuwaini , "History of the World Conqueror" ( Ta'rīkh-i Jahāngushāy ) : ed. as a translation into English by John Andrew Boyle, Genghis Khan, the history of the world conqueror (1958), pp. 698-704.
• Hamd Allah Mustawfi , "Selected Story" (Ta'rīkh-i-guzīda) : ed. as a translation into English by Edward G. Browne, The Ta'ríkh-i-guzída or "Select history" of Hamdulláh Mustawfí-i-Qazwíní, Part 2 (1913), pp. 129–130.

predecessor	Office	successor
Only ad-Din Muhammad (II.)	25. Imam of the Nizari Ismailis 1210–1221	Ala ad-Din Muhammad (III.)
Only ad-Din Muhammad (II.)	Ruler of Alamut 1210–1221	Ala ad-Din Muhammad (III.)