The Assassins: A Redical Sect in Islam

Home > Other > The Assassins: A Redical Sect in Islam > Page 17
The Assassins: A Redical Sect in Islam Page 17

by Bernard Lewis


  Yet the undercurrent of messianic hope and revolutionary violence which had impelled them flowed on, and their ideals and methods found many imitators. For these, the great changes of our time have provided new causes for anger, new dreams of fulfilment, and new tools of attack.

  Notes

  Abbreviations

  BIE Bulletin de 1’Institut égyptien (d’Egypte)

  BIFAO Bulletin de 1’Institut français d’archéologie orientale

  BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental [and African] Studies

  EI(1) Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1st edition

  EI(2) Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition

  IC Islamic Culture

  JA Journal asiatique

  JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society

  JBBRAS Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

  RCASJ Royal Central Asian Society Journal

  REI Revue des études islamiques

  RHC Recueil des historiens des Croisades

  s. Persian Solar year

  SI Studia Islamica

  ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft

  Transcription

  Diacritical marks have been omitted from the text, but are retained, for the convenience of the specialist reader, in the notes and index. The transcription in the passages cited from published translations has been slightly modified to accord with the system used in this book.

  Chapter l (pages 1–19)

  The treatment of the Assassins in mediaeval Western literature has been discussed by C. E. Nowell, ‘The Old Man of the Mountain’, in Speculum, xxii (1947), 497–519, and by L. Olschki, Storia letteraria delle scoperte geografiche, Florence 1937, 215–22. A brief survey of Western scholarship on the Assassins and related sects is included in B. Lewis, ‘The sources for the history of the Syrian Assassins’, in Speculum, xxvii (1952), 475-89. Bibliographies of Ismaili studies were prepared by Asaf A. A. Fyzee, ‘Materials for an Ismaili bibliography: 1920-34’, in JBBRAS, NS. xi (1935), 59–65, ‘Additional notes for an Ismaili bibliography’, ibid., xii (1936), 107-9; and ‘Materials for an Ismaili bibliography: 1936-1938’, ibid., xvi (1940), 99-101. More recent articles (but not books) are listed in J. D. Pearson, Index Islamicus 1906–1955, Cambridge 1958, 89-90, and Supplement, Cambridge 1962, 29. On the origins and use of the term reference may be made to the standard etymological and historical dictionaries of English, French, Italian and other European languages, and to the article ‘ashīshiyya’ in EI(2).

  1 Brocardus, Directorium ad passagium faciendum, in RHC, E, Documents arméniens, ii, Paris 1906, 496-7.

  2 Villani, Cronica, ix, 290-1; Dante, Inferno, xix, 49-50; cit. in Vocabulario della lingua italiana, s.v. assassino.

  3 The report of Gerhard (possibly, as the editor suggests, an error for Burchard), vice-dominus of Strasburg, is cited by the German chronicler Arnold of Liibeck in his Chronicon Slavorum, vii, 8 (ed. W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Stuttgart-Berlin 1907, ii, 240).

  4 William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, xx, 31, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia, cci, Paris 1903, 810-1; cf. English translation by E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, A history of deeds done beyond the sea, ii, New York 1943, 391.

  5 Chronicon, iv, 16, ed. Wattenbach, 178-9.

  6 F. M. Chambers, ‘The troubadours and the Assassins’, in Modern Language Notes, lxiv (1949), 245-51. Olschki notes a similar passage in a sonnet probably written by Dante in his youth, in which the poet describes the devotion of the lover to his love as greater than that of the Assassin to the Old Man or the priest to God (Storia, 215).

  7 Cont. William of Tyre, xxiv, 27, ed. Migne, Patrologia, cci, 958-9; Matthew of Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rerum britannicarum medii aevi scrip tores, 57, iii, London 1876, 488–9; Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, chapter lxxxix, in Historiens et chroniqueurs du moyen âge, ed. A. Pauphilet, Paris 1952, 307-10.

  8 Nowell, 515, citing the French translation in Collection des memoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, xxii, 47 f.; Latin text in his Historia Orientalis, i, 1062, in Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, Hanover 1611.

  9 The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, translated and edited by W. W. Rockhill, London 1900, 118, 222; The texts and versions of John de Plano Carpini and William de Rubruquis, ed. C. R. Beazley, London 1903, 170, 216, 324. Other versions speak of 400 assassins.

  10 The book of Ser Marco Polo, trans, and ed. Sir Henry Yule, 3rd edn. revised by Henri Cordier, i, London 1903, chapters xxiii and xxiv, 139-43.

  11 Ibn Muyassar, Annales d’Egypte, ed. H. Massé, Cairo 1919, 68; Al-Bondāriī, abridged from ‘Imād al-Dīn, Histoire des Seldjoucides de l’Iraq, ed. M. Th. Houtsma, Recueil de textes relatifs à l’histoire des Seldjoucides, i, Leiden 1889, 195; Kitāb al-Radd alā’l-mulidīn, ed. Muh. Taqī Dānishpazhūh in Revue de la Faculté des Lettres, Université de Tabri, xvii/3 (1344 s), 312. In some versions of Marco Polo’s narrative the actual word Assassin does not appear at all.

  12 ‘Mémoire sur la dynastie des Assassins . . .’, in Mémoires de l’Institut Royal, iv (1818), 1-85 (= Mémoires d’histoire et de literature orientates, Paris 1818, 322-403).

  13 J. von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen aus morgenländischen Quellen, Stuttgart 1818; English translation, The history of the Assassins, trans. O. C. Wood, London 1835, 1-2, 217-18.

  14 ‘Mémoire sur les Ismaélis et les Nosairis de la Syrie, addressé á M. Silvestre de Sacy par M. Rousseau . . .’ in Cahier xlii, Annales de Voyages, xiv, Paris 1809-10, 271 ff.; further details in Lewis, ‘Sources . . .’, 477-9.

  15 W. Monteith, ‘Journal of a journey through Azerbijan and the shores of the Caspian’, in J.R.Geog.S., iii (1833) 15 ff.; J. Shiel, ‘Itinerary from Tehrán to Alamút and Khurramabad in May 1837’, ibid., viii (1838), 430-4. See further L. Lockhart, ‘Hasan-i-Sabbah and the Assassins’ in BSOAS, v (1928-30), 689-96; W. Ivanow, ‘Alamut’, in Geographical Journal, lxxvii (1931), 38-45; Freya Stark, The valleys of the Assassins, London 1934; W. Ivanow, ‘Some Ismaili strongholds in Persia’, in IC, xii (1938), 383-92; idem, Alamut and Lamasar, Tehran 1960; P. Willey, The castles of the Assassins, London 1963; L. Lockhart and M. G. S. Hodgson, article ‘Alamut’, in EI(2); Manučehr Sutūdah, ‘Qal’a-i Alamūt’, in Farhang-i Īrān amīn, iii (1334 s), 5-21,

  16 Annales des Voyages, xiv (1818), 279; cit. St Guyard, Un grand maître des Assassins . . . repr. from J A, Paris 1877, 57-8.

  17 J. B. Fraser, Narrative of a journey into Khorassan, London 1825, 376-7.

  18 A full account of these events is given in an unpublished London University M.A. thesis by Zawahir Noorally, The first Agha Khan and the British 1838-1868 . . . presented April 1964. The Arnould judgement, published in Bombay in 1867, was reprinted in A. S. Picklay, History of the Ismailis, Bombay 1940, 113-70.

  19 E. Griffini, ‘Die jüngste ambrosianische Sammlung arabischer Handschriften’, in ZDMG, 69 (1915), 63 f.

  20 W. Ivanow, ‘Notes sur l’“Ummu’l-Kitab” des Ismaёliens de l’Asie Centrale’, in REI (1932), 418 f.; V. Minorsky, article ‘Shughnān’ in EI(1); A. Bobrinskoy, Sekta Isma‘iliya v russkikh i bukharskikh predelakh, Moscow 1902. For a brief account of a recent Soviet expedition to the Pamir see A. E. BertePs, ‘Otčet o rabote pamirskoy ekspeditsii . . .’ in Ivestya Akad. Nauk Tadhikskoy SSR, 1962, 11-16.

  Chapter 2

  The most comprehensive book on the Assassins is M. G. S. Hodgson, The order of Assassins, The Hague 1955. Though mainly concerned with the period after 1094, it includes some account of the earlier period. A shorter account of the religious development of the sect was written by W. Ivanow, Brief survey of the evolution of Ismailism, Leiden 1952. Mr Ivanow is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with particular aspects of Ismaili religion, literature and history. A history and description of the Ismailis, with special reference to India, are given in J. N. Hollister, The Shī‘a of India, London 1953. A. S. Picklay, History of the I
smailis, Bombay 1940, is a popular account written by an Ismaili author for Ismaili readers. Among modern Arabic works, mention may be made of two general books by a Syrian Ismaili author Muafā Ghālib, a history, Ta’rīkh al-da‘wa al-Ismā‘īliyya, Damascus n.d., and a biographical dictionary, A’lām al-Ismā‘īliyya, Beirut 1964, and of a general account by an Egyptian(non-Ismaili)scholar, Muammad Kāmil usayn, Tā’ifat al-Ismā‘īliyya, Cairo 1959. Aspects of the early history of the sect have been examined by B. Lewis, The origins of Ismā‘īlism, Cambridge 1940; W. Ivanow, Ismaili tradition concerning the rise of the Fatimids, London–Calcutta 1942, idem, Studies in early Persian Ismailism, Bombay 1955; W. Madelung, ‘Fatimiden und Bahrainqarmaten’, in Der Islam, xxxiv (1958), 34-88; idem, ‘Das Imamat in der frühen ismailitischen Lehre’, ibid., xxxvii (1961), 43-135; P. J. Vatikiotis, The Fatimid theory of state, Lahore 1957, and in numerous articles by Ivanow, Gorbin, and S. M. Stern, listed by Pearson. There are many studies on Nāsir-i Khusraw; that of A. E. Bertel’s, Nasir-i Khosrov i Ismailim, Moscow 1959, includes an extensive discussion of the historical background and significance of Ismailism in his time. Ghazālī’s major polemic work against the Ismailis, written in 1094-95 for the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustahzir, was analysed by I. Goldziher, Streitschrift des Gaālī gegen die Bāinijja-Sekte, Leiden 1916. Another anti-Ismaili tract by Ghaālī was edited and translated into Turkish by Ahmed Ate§, ‘Gazâli’nin belini kiran deliller’i. Kitâb Ḳavāim al-Bāiniya’, in Ilâhiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (Ankara), i-ii (1954), 23-54. Both of these are directed against the new doctrines of the Ismailis of his time. Ghazāli’s attitudes to Ismailism are discussed by W. Montgomery Watt, Muslim intellectual; a study ofal-Ghaali, Edinburgh 1963, 74-86.

  On the place of the Ismailis within the larger framework of Islamic religion and history, reference may be made to H. Laoust, Les schismes dans l’Islam, Paris 1965; M. Guidi, ‘Storia della religione del Islam’, in P. Tacchi-Venturi, Storia delle religioni, ii, Turin 1936; A. Bausani, Persia religiosa, Milan 1959; W. Montgomery Watt, Islam and the integration of society, London 1961; B. Lewis, The Arabs in history, revised edn., London 1966, and to the relevant chapters in L’Elaboration de l’Islam, Paris 1961, and The Cambridge Medieval History, iv/I, new edn., Cambridge 1966.

  1 H. Hamdani, ‘Some unknown Ismā‘īli authors and their works’, in JRAS (1933), 365.

  Chapter 3

  The best account of asan-i abbā (Arabic form, Al-asan ibn al-abbā) is that given by Hodgson in The order of Assassins and, more briefly, in the article asan-i abbā in EI(2). There are earlier accounts in the general works on Ismailism, already mentioned, and in E. G. Browne, A literary history of Persia from Firdawsi to Sa‘di, London 1906, 201 ff. The struggle of asan-i abbā against the Seljuqs is discussed, within the larger framework of the events of the time, by Ibrahim Kafesoğlu, in his book, in Turkish, on the Seljuq Empire in the time of Malikshāh (Sultan Melikah devrinde büyük Selҫuklu imparatorluğu, Istanbul 1953). A popular modern Ismaili presentation is given by Jawad al-Muscati, asan bin abbā English translation by A. H. Hamdani, 2nd edn., Karachi 1958.

  asan-i abbā has also attracted the attention of modern Iranian and Arab scholars. Prof. Nasrullah Falsafī has included an account of his career, with an edition of some documents, in his Čand Maqāla, Tehran 1342 s., 403-44, and Karīm Kashāvarz has published a semi-popular but documented biography, asan-i abbā, Tehran 1344 s. There are two books in Arabic by Syrian Ismaili authors, ‘Ārif Tāmir, ‘Alā abwāb Alamūt, arīsa [1959], and Muafā Ghālib, Al-Thā’ir al-imyari al-asan ibn al-abbā, Beirut 1966. The first is an historical novel, the second a popular biography.

  The most important single source for asan’s life is his autobiography, known as Sarguasht-i Sayyidnā (the adventures of our lord). No copy has so far come to light, but the book was available to Persian historians of the Mongol period, who had access to the spoils of Alamūt and perhaps of other Ismaili fortresses and libraries. It was used, and in part quoted, by three Persian historians of that time, who wrote detailed accounts of asan-i abbā and his successors, based largely on captured Ismaili sources. The earliest and best known is ‘Atā Malik Juvaynī (1226-83), whose history was edited by Mīrzā Muammad Qazvīnī (Ta’rīkh-i Jahān-gushā, 3 vols., London, 1912-37), and translated into English by J. A. Boyle (The history of the world-conqueror) 2 vols., Manchester 1958). The history of the Ismailis comes in the third volume of the text, second of the English translation. Part of the section dealing with the Ismailis was translated into French, from a Persian manuscript, by Charles Defrémery (JA, 5e série, viii, 1856, 353-87; xv, i860, 130-210). Juvaynī describes how he found the Ismaili chronicles in the library of the captured fortress of Alamūt, copied what he thought of interest, and then destroyed them. He seems to follow his sources closely, taking care only to invert praise and blame, and to add the pious imprecations appropriate to an orthodox historian of a heterodox sect.

  The second major source is a slightly later historian, Rashīd al-Dīn (c. 1247-1318), who included in his universal history a lengthy account of the Ismailis that is clearly based, directly or indirectly, on the same sources as were used by Juvaynī. Rashīd al-Dīn, however, obviously had fuller information available to him than appears in the extant text of Juvaynī. Despite some omissions, Rashīd al-Dīn seems to follow the text of the Ismaili sources more closely than did Juvaynī, and preserves many details omitted by his predecessor. Rashid al-Dīn’s history of the Ismailis has been known in manuscript for some time, and was used by Browne, Ivanow, Hodgson, and other scholars. The Persian text was published in 1958 (Falī a Jāmi‘ al-tāvārīkh. . tārīkh-i firqa-i rafīqān va Ismā ‘īliyyān-i Alamūt, ed. Muhammad Dabir Siyāqī, Tehran 1337 s.) and republished, in another edition, in 1960 (Jāmi‘ al-tavārikh; qismat-i Ismā‘īliyyan. . ed. Muhammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh and Mu. Mudarrisī Zanjānī, Tehran 1338 s.). References are to the second of these editions. For earlier discussions of Rashīd al-Dīn see R. Levy, ‘The account of the Isma‘ili doctrines in the Jam? al-tawarikh of Rashīd al-Dīn Fadlallah’, in JRAS (1930), 509-36, and H. Bowen, ‘The sargudhasht-i sayyidnā, the “Tale of the Three Schoolfellows”, and the wasaya of the Niām al-Mulk’, ibid., (1931), 771-82. Scholars have been puzzled by the problem of how Rashīd al-Dīn could give a fuller and closer rendering of sources which Juvaynī alone had seen and then destroyed, and Bowen had suggested that Rashīd al-Dīn may have used an earlier and fuller draft which Juvaynī made and later discarded (cf. Hodgson, Assassins, 73 n. 34). The dilemma seems an artificial one; there were other Ismaili castles besides Alamūt, and it is reasonable to assume that some of them had libraries with copies of the sectarian histories. In addition to Juvaynī’s work, which he obviously made use of, Rashīd al-Dīn may thus also have had direct access to copies of some of the books which Juvaynī had used.

  In 1964 a third version came to light, by a contemporary of Rashīd al-Dīn, called Abu’l-Qāsim Kāshānī The text has been published by Muh. Taqi Dānishpazhūh (Tārikh-i Ismā‘īliyya, Tabriz 1343 s.). Kāshānī’s text is very similar to that of Rashīd al-Dīn, and is probably related to it. It does, however, differ from it at some points, and contains details missing in both Rashīd al-Dīn and Juvaynī.

  In addition to his autobiography, asan-i abbā also appears to have written theological works. None of these are extant in their original form. Fragments, however, survive, in more or less modified versions, in later Ismaili literature (on which see W. Ivanow, Ismaili literature: a bibliographical survey, 2nd edn., Tehran 1963), and an important passage is cited, in an Arabic adaptation, by the twelfth-century Sunni theologian al-Shahrastānī (Al-Milal wal’l-nial, ed. W. Cureton, London 1846, 150-2; ed. A. Fahmī Muammad, i, Cairo 1948, 339 ff; English trans. Hodgson, Assassins, 325-8).

  Two documents, of disputed authenticity, are cited in later Persian collections, and purport to be an exchange of letters between Sultan Malikshāh and asan-i abbā. In the first the Sultan accuses asan of starting a new religion, mis
leading some ignorant mountain dwellers and renouncing and abusing the rightful Abbasid Caliph of Islam. He is to abandon these evil ways and return to Islam, failing which his castle will be razed to the ground and he and his followers destroyed. In a polite and elegantly expressed reply, asan, writing in a strongly autobiographical vein, defends his faith as the true Islam; the Abbasids are usurpers and evil-doers; and the true Caliph is the Fatimid Imam. He warns the Sultan against the false claims of the Abbasids, the intrigues of Niām al-Mulk, and the misdeeds of various oppressors, and urges him to take action against them; if he did not, another, more just ruler would arise and do it in his place. These texts, in slightly variant forms, were published by Mehmed Şerefuddin [Yaltkaya] in Darülfünun Ilahiyat Fukültesi Mecmuast (Istanbul), vii/4 (1926), 38-44, and again, independently, by Narullah Falsafīin Iilā‘āt-i Māhāna (Tehran), 3/27, Khurdād 1329 s., 12-16 (reprinted in idem, Čand maqāla, Tehran 1342 s., 415-25). The authenticity of the letters is accepted by both editors and, more cautiously, by Osman Turan (Selҫuklular tarihi ve Türk-Islam medeniyeti, Ankara 1965, 227–30), but is rejected by Kafesoğlu (Sultan Melikah . . ., 134-5, nn.). A comparison of the letter ascribed to asan with the known facts of his life on the one hand, and with extant specimens of Ismaili letter-writing on the other, would seem to confirm Kafesoğlu’s doubts.

  Accounts of asan-i abbā and his successors at Alamūt by later Persian historians are based in the main on Juvayni and Rashīd al-Dīn, with some additions of obviously legendary origin. There are however other sources of information. Much valuable information about the Ismailis can be gathered from the contemporary and near contemporary chronicles of the Seljuq Empire, including works in both Arabic and Persian, dealing with both general and local history. One of the best is the famous Arabic historian Ibn al-Athir (1160-1234), whose history (Al-Kāmil fi ’l-ta’rīkh) 14 vols., ed. C. J. Tornberg, Leiden-Upsala, 1851-76; reprinted Cairo, 9 vols., 1348 ff.: both editions are cited), besides much relevant information, includes a short biography of asan-i abbā, which is obviously independent of the Sarguasht. A fuller version of this biography, the source of which is unknown, is given by a later Egyptian chronicler (Maqrīzī, al-Muqaffā, Ms. Pertev Pasha 496, Istanbul). On the historians of this period in general see Claude Cahen, ‘The historiography of the Seljuqid period’, in B. Lewis and P. M. Holt, edd., Historians of the Middle East, London 1962, 59-78. In addition to the literary sources, there is a growing body of archaeological evidence. Works dealing with the remains of the Ismaili castles in Iran are mentioned in n. 15 to ch. 1, above, and in n. 22 to ch. 3, below.

 

‹ Prev