The Assassins were never popular, but they had a plan. Like all good strategies, the Assassins’ plan was simple but profound. It had four elements – castles, conversion, carnage and chaos.
With a remote network of mountain castles in your possession, you had safety and a place to regroup. From the security of those bases it was possible to launch conversion programmes, building up a greater base of followers who could provide economic support to the group. Using the targeted carnage of political assassination you could create fear and exert leverage far beyond the normal scope of your more obvious military assets. And selectively killing your opponents’ leaders created chaos, leaving them continually off-balance. This was a masterful strategy for an underdog.
The acquisition of remote but powerful castles, in areas which would provide security and self-sufficiency, was an obvious centrepiece of the strategy. Using Alamut, and the fertile Alamut Valley, as their model, Hasan Sabbahand his successors expanded their reach in Persia. Missionary groups were sent to likely areas with a brief to target potential converts and attractive castles.
Ultimately, the way in which these castles were taken was irrelevant – achieving the objective was the only important thing. As one, admittedly very jaundiced, Sunni chronicler wrote:
‘Hasan exerted every effort to capture the places adjacent to Alamut or that vicinity. Where possible he won them over by the tricks of his propaganda, while such places as were unaffected by his blandishments he seized with slaughter, ravishment, pillage, bloodshed, and war. He took such castles as he could and wherever he found a suitable rock, he built a castle upon it.’
Hasan’s plan was ruthless—and extremely successful.
Building a Network of Power
Map showing areas of Nizari Ismailis control – map by Itchy_Low_8607 / Reddit
As with all effective resistance movements, each base had its own semi-independent authority and a high degree of autonomy. But, thanks to Hasan’s force of will and the willingness of local commanders to accept orders from Alamut, the cohesion of the whole remained intact – the Assassins retained their unified sense of purpose and direction.
Targeted murders were, in the absence of large armies, also vital. But they had an obvious downside – they were not calculated to generate affection. Assassination attempts, regardless of success or failure, generally triggered a massacre of anyone thought to be associated with the killers. This was a blunt instrument of retribution for the recipients of the attack, but one which brought some instant gratification, regardless of justice or accuracy. Depending on location, massacres could include Shi’ites in general, Ismailis in particular, or indeed anyone who stood out as a foreigner.
But the Ismailis were used to unpopularity – they had been on the wrong side of massacres for some time. Sectarian rumours about Ismailis murdering travellers had led to the entire community in Isfahan being burnt alive in the town square in 1093. Other vicious massacres took place in Persia in 1101 and 1104. Ismailis, and particularly the Nizari Ismailis, were often disliked, and using murder as a political tool did not improve their reputation. But, for Hasan, a man who had executed his own sons; the collateral damage was acceptable.
This was brutal logic, but it was not entirely wrong. The overwhelming military strength of the Seljuk Turks, and their ferocious steppe cavalry, meant that they were unbeatable in circumstances of their own choosing. Subterfuge and targeted murders were the only ways in which the Assassins could project political power against their foreign overlords. There was little alternative if they were to deal with an enemy that possessed a vastly superior war machine.
The first recorded attack took place in the late eleventh century, perhaps even before the capture of Alamut. A group of Ismailis went on missionary work in Isfahan. They tried a little too hard, however. As the hostile Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir later wrote, ‘they preached their message to a muezzin, a man from Saveh, who was living in Isfahan but he did not respond to their call. Fearing that he might report them, they killed him. He was their first victim. Suspicion [of involvement] fell on a carpenter, called Tahir.’ Guilty or not, Tahir’s punishment was harsh and public, as a visible way of deterring further missionary activity in the area. He was ‘killed as a warning to the public and dragged by a leg through the markets. He was their first “martyr”.’
Planned political assassinations came soon after. Their initial target was suitably ambitious – the Seljuk commander in Persia, Vizier Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092). Hasan asked for volunteers to carry out the hit, and the challenge was accepted by a follower named Bu Tahir Arrani. A few days later, dressed as a Sufi (a form of Muslim mystic), the Assassin walked up to the vizier. The elderly Seljuk leader was being carried towards his harem in a litter. But his attacker dodged the guards, lunged towards him and killed him with a dagger. The ‘spectacular’ nature of the murder was fully recognised at the time. Hasan was reputed to have gloated that ‘the killing of this devil is the beginning of bliss.’
Assassination of Nizam al-Mulk in 1192 depicted in a medieval manuscript – Topkapi Palace Museum, Cami Al Tebari TSMK, Inv. No. H. 1653, folio 360b
The effect of the killing on the Assassins’ popularity amongst the local Sunni communities was predictable. As one contemporary charmingly put it, ‘to shed the blood of [an Ismaili] heretic is more meritorious than to kill seventy Greek infidels [i.e. Christians].’ The Assassins’ age of bloodshed had started in earnest.
But Hasan was never interested in winning popularity contests. By the end of his time as leader, the Assassins had achieved a far more secure position in Persia than they might have dreamt. They had castles and mountain ranges of their own, supported by prosperous villages and converts. They had taken the fight against the Seljuk Turks to a new level and had empowered many provinces to rebel against their overlords. They had followers in the countryside, but also, on occasion, felt comfortable enough to act openly in major cities such as Isfahan.
But then, just as things were going so well, factionalism kicked in.
From Ismailis to Nizaris
As if the splits from Sunni Islam and mainstream Shi’ism were not disruptive enough, in 1094 the Ismailis in Egypt split once more. The Fatimid caliph at the time, Imam al-Mustansir bi’llah died. He left his eldest son, Abu Mansur Nizar, as his heir. The vizier, responsible for most of the day-to-day administration for the regime, had a better idea, however. He launched a palace coup and took power for himself, ruling in the name of one of Nizar’s more malleable younger brothers.
Nizar and his men were understandably unimpressed by the new arrangements. Civil war broke out. The following year, he and his army were defeated in battle by the vizier’s forces. Nizar, still seen as the legitimate caliph by his supporters, was taken back to Cairo. There, in order to bring final closure to the uprising, he was executed.
This should have been an end to the matter.
A Fatimid gold dinar minted in 488/ 1095 during the reign of Abu Mansur Nizar. Photo by Bassam Zahra / Wikimedia Commons
But his execution was a beginning, rather than an ending. In a manner which presaged their later steely determination, the new ‘Nizari’ supporters chose to regroup rather than to disband. Nizar’s son, Al-Hadi ibn Nizar, became their new leader. Unwelcome in Fatimid Egypt or Sunni-controlled Syria, they made their way to Hasan and his followers in north-west Iran.
This left Hasan with a major problem. Which side should he and his people support in the civil war and religious schism? Typically, he made the radical choice. Rather than take orders from Cairo, he would do his own thing. Alamut was being developed into an informal principality. And the war against the Seljuks was proceeding well. Hasan and his followers in Persia decided to support the Nizari branch of Ismailism. They cut off relations with Egypt.
This was a turning point for the sect. The strains of geography and the lack of Fatimid political influence in Persia would inevitably have loosened ties with Egypt over time – but the schism made the split formal and final. The vizier al-Afdal’s brutal personal ambitions had alienated most of the Ismaili communities outside Egypt. Hasan had already started to take a semi-independent path, but the Nizari imams of Persia were now officially in control of their own sect. The process of state-building had been driven by nationalism and was given a major boost by the acquisition of Alamut – but it now had a new religious imperative as well.
Hasan continued in his position as leader of the Assassins until his death – he passed away at the age of about 70 in June 1124. His mausoleum in Rudbar became a major Nizari shrine and pilgrimage site until it was destroyed by the Mongol armies in 1266.
Under his extraordinary leadership, the Assassins, a tiny group of unpopular heretics, waged a nationalistic, religious, and revolutionary war against the Seljuk Turks in Persia. And they had established their own sect, free from the constraints of control from Egypt. But Hasan had also left a blueprint for his successors – a strategic plan which was designed to help them survive and grow in an increasingly hostile world.
The time was right for them to branch out – to Syria.
Steve Tibble, an honorary research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London, has a new book out – Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood – from Yale University Press. It tells the true history behind the hugely popular video game Assassin’s Creed and the medieval world’s two most extraordinary organisations, tracing their origins, strategies, violent clashes, and enduring legacy in myth and memory.
You can get your copy of Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood through
By Steve Tibble
The Assassins were never popular, but they had a plan. Like all good strategies, the Assassins’ plan was simple but profound. It had four elements – castles, conversion, carnage and chaos.
With a remote network of mountain castles in your possession, you had safety and a place to regroup. From the security of those bases it was possible to launch conversion programmes, building up a greater base of followers who could provide economic support to the group. Using the targeted carnage of political assassination you could create fear and exert leverage far beyond the normal scope of your more obvious military assets. And selectively killing your opponents’ leaders created chaos, leaving them continually off-balance. This was a masterful strategy for an underdog.
The acquisition of remote but powerful castles, in areas which would provide security and self-sufficiency, was an obvious centrepiece of the strategy. Using Alamut, and the fertile Alamut Valley, as their model, Hasan Sabbah and his successors expanded their reach in Persia. Missionary groups were sent to likely areas with a brief to target potential converts and attractive castles.
Ultimately, the way in which these castles were taken was irrelevant – achieving the objective was the only important thing. As one, admittedly very jaundiced, Sunni chronicler wrote:
‘Hasan exerted every effort to capture the places adjacent to Alamut or that vicinity. Where possible he won them over by the tricks of his propaganda, while such places as were unaffected by his blandishments he seized with slaughter, ravishment, pillage, bloodshed, and war. He took such castles as he could and wherever he found a suitable rock, he built a castle upon it.’
Hasan’s plan was ruthless—and extremely successful.
Building a Network of Power
As with all effective resistance movements, each base had its own semi-independent authority and a high degree of autonomy. But, thanks to Hasan’s force of will and the willingness of local commanders to accept orders from Alamut, the cohesion of the whole remained intact – the Assassins retained their unified sense of purpose and direction.
Targeted murders were, in the absence of large armies, also vital. But they had an obvious downside – they were not calculated to generate affection. Assassination attempts, regardless of success or failure, generally triggered a massacre of anyone thought to be associated with the killers. This was a blunt instrument of retribution for the recipients of the attack, but one which brought some instant gratification, regardless of justice or accuracy. Depending on location, massacres could include Shi’ites in general, Ismailis in particular, or indeed anyone who stood out as a foreigner.
But the Ismailis were used to unpopularity – they had been on the wrong side of massacres for some time. Sectarian rumours about Ismailis murdering travellers had led to the entire community in Isfahan being burnt alive in the town square in 1093. Other vicious massacres took place in Persia in 1101 and 1104. Ismailis, and particularly the Nizari Ismailis, were often disliked, and using murder as a political tool did not improve their reputation. But, for Hasan, a man who had executed his own sons; the collateral damage was acceptable.
This was brutal logic, but it was not entirely wrong. The overwhelming military strength of the Seljuk Turks, and their ferocious steppe cavalry, meant that they were unbeatable in circumstances of their own choosing. Subterfuge and targeted murders were the only ways in which the Assassins could project political power against their foreign overlords. There was little alternative if they were to deal with an enemy that possessed a vastly superior war machine.
The first recorded attack took place in the late eleventh century, perhaps even before the capture of Alamut. A group of Ismailis went on missionary work in Isfahan. They tried a little too hard, however. As the hostile Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir later wrote, ‘they preached their message to a muezzin, a man from Saveh, who was living in Isfahan but he did not respond to their call. Fearing that he might report them, they killed him. He was their first victim. Suspicion [of involvement] fell on a carpenter, called Tahir.’ Guilty or not, Tahir’s punishment was harsh and public, as a visible way of deterring further missionary activity in the area. He was ‘killed as a warning to the public and dragged by a leg through the markets. He was their first “martyr”.’
Planned political assassinations came soon after. Their initial target was suitably ambitious – the Seljuk commander in Persia, Vizier Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092). Hasan asked for volunteers to carry out the hit, and the challenge was accepted by a follower named Bu Tahir Arrani. A few days later, dressed as a Sufi (a form of Muslim mystic), the Assassin walked up to the vizier. The elderly Seljuk leader was being carried towards his harem in a litter. But his attacker dodged the guards, lunged towards him and killed him with a dagger. The ‘spectacular’ nature of the murder was fully recognised at the time. Hasan was reputed to have gloated that ‘the killing of this devil is the beginning of bliss.’
The effect of the killing on the Assassins’ popularity amongst the local Sunni communities was predictable. As one contemporary charmingly put it, ‘to shed the blood of [an Ismaili] heretic is more meritorious than to kill seventy Greek infidels [i.e. Christians].’ The Assassins’ age of bloodshed had started in earnest.
But Hasan was never interested in winning popularity contests. By the end of his time as leader, the Assassins had achieved a far more secure position in Persia than they might have dreamt. They had castles and mountain ranges of their own, supported by prosperous villages and converts. They had taken the fight against the Seljuk Turks to a new level and had empowered many provinces to rebel against their overlords. They had followers in the countryside, but also, on occasion, felt comfortable enough to act openly in major cities such as Isfahan.
But then, just as things were going so well, factionalism kicked in.
From Ismailis to Nizaris
As if the splits from Sunni Islam and mainstream Shi’ism were not disruptive enough, in 1094 the Ismailis in Egypt split once more. The Fatimid caliph at the time, Imam al-Mustansir bi’llah died. He left his eldest son, Abu Mansur Nizar, as his heir. The vizier, responsible for most of the day-to-day administration for the regime, had a better idea, however. He launched a palace coup and took power for himself, ruling in the name of one of Nizar’s more malleable younger brothers.
Nizar and his men were understandably unimpressed by the new arrangements. Civil war broke out. The following year, he and his army were defeated in battle by the vizier’s forces. Nizar, still seen as the legitimate caliph by his supporters, was taken back to Cairo. There, in order to bring final closure to the uprising, he was executed.
This should have been an end to the matter.
But his execution was a beginning, rather than an ending. In a manner which presaged their later steely determination, the new ‘Nizari’ supporters chose to regroup rather than to disband. Nizar’s son, Al-Hadi ibn Nizar, became their new leader. Unwelcome in Fatimid Egypt or Sunni-controlled Syria, they made their way to Hasan and his followers in north-west Iran.
This left Hasan with a major problem. Which side should he and his people support in the civil war and religious schism? Typically, he made the radical choice. Rather than take orders from Cairo, he would do his own thing. Alamut was being developed into an informal principality. And the war against the Seljuks was proceeding well. Hasan and his followers in Persia decided to support the Nizari branch of Ismailism. They cut off relations with Egypt.
This was a turning point for the sect. The strains of geography and the lack of Fatimid political influence in Persia would inevitably have loosened ties with Egypt over time – but the schism made the split formal and final. The vizier al-Afdal’s brutal personal ambitions had alienated most of the Ismaili communities outside Egypt. Hasan had already started to take a semi-independent path, but the Nizari imams of Persia were now officially in control of their own sect. The process of state-building had been driven by nationalism and was given a major boost by the acquisition of Alamut – but it now had a new religious imperative as well.
Hasan continued in his position as leader of the Assassins until his death – he passed away at the age of about 70 in June 1124. His mausoleum in Rudbar became a major Nizari shrine and pilgrimage site until it was destroyed by the Mongol armies in 1266.
Under his extraordinary leadership, the Assassins, a tiny group of unpopular heretics, waged a nationalistic, religious, and revolutionary war against the Seljuk Turks in Persia. And they had established their own sect, free from the constraints of control from Egypt. But Hasan had also left a blueprint for his successors – a strategic plan which was designed to help them survive and grow in an increasingly hostile world.
The time was right for them to branch out – to Syria.
You can get your copy of Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood through
Yale University Press website
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca
Amazon.co.uk
To learn more about Steve, please visit his website or follow him on Instagram
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