They are not assasin any more, but Pakistan's NLI is mostly ismaili.

Hasan Sabbah and his fake heaven of hashisch...

Hello to you all.

I read a post about Assassins earlier and I thought I must give some account of them from the Arabic sources that I have.

The Assassins are simply history’s deadliest terrorist organization that ever existed. Bin Laden himself should be shy for calling himself a terrorist if we compare what he did with what they did. The origins of the assassins lay in the Batini (باطني) Ismaili sect who recognizes only the first seven imams of the shias and Ismail ibn Jaafar as the rightful successor to Jaafar rather than Musa Al Kazim. There origins are obscure but it is agreed that Abdullah ibn Maymon Al Qaddah (عبد الله بن ميمون القداح) was the first to publicize this sect in Tunis. The Fatimids who claim descent from Ali supported this sect and in the end established their state. Since direct military conflict against the Abbasids who were supported by the shia Buyehids who considered Ismailis heretics was not possible, they started organizing religious missionaries to convert the population to Ismailism and then when time comes extend their government there. From this missionary work they managed to establish two of the most destructive movements in Islam, first the Qarmatians (القرامطة) in Bahrain and then the assassins.

The founder of the assassins was not a die hard Iranian freedom fighter who wanted to liberate Iran from the Arabs as Zagros want him to be, he was actually an Arab himself Al-Hassan ibn Al-Sabbah Al-Himyari (الحسن بن علي بن جعفر بن الحسن الصباح الحميري). His father came from Yemen and settled with the Yemeni community in Arrai (near today’s Tehran) and converted to the Twelver shia sect from his Zaidi shia sect. Al-Hassan studied there and after finding one the preachers for the Ismailis inArrai converted and joined Abu Najm Assarraj (أبو نجم السراج) who was also a mathematician and astronomer. Al-Hassan went to Cairo after that to meet with Al-Mustansir the Fatimid caliph but failed to do so. When Al-Mustansir died and the chiefs of the state chose Al-Musta’li rather than the older Nizar, Al-Hassan tried to organize a coup with Nizar’s supporters only to fail and to flee Egypt. He went to Yazd, Isfahan, Firman (فرمان) and finally Damighan (دامغان) all the time preaching for his sect. It was in those days that he started to build a military force of assassins and to plan for his next move, establishing a state. He scouted several locations and castles in both Koohistan (Zagros Mountains) and Qazvin Mountains (Elbruz Mountains) and he chose the latter because Sunni Islam was never strong there (the Qazvin region has always been a shia stronghold in Iran). He tried to take Al-Mut (Eagle nest) castle several times finally taking it in 1090 after secretly converting the entire population into the Ismaili sect. His methods that were used to subdue this castle became the model for other castles across Iran and Syria. Throughout his campaign to establish his dominion over Iran he built a core group of suicidal maniacs that were trained on absolute obedience so much so that if he ordered them to kill themselves they would do it. He used to kidnap kids from neighboring villages and train in secret would be slaves to blindly do what they were told to do. He established the firmest espionage organization ever built and to this day no body knows for shore how did the orders came from Al-Mut and executed in a speedy way despite that the castle itself was under siege. In the end Al-Hassan became dominant and after the death of Mulk-shah the seljuq sultan whom he feared the most he decided that it was time to unleach the deadly destructive force of the Assassins.

In beautiful autumn day in Isfahan or (Shiraz) on the 17^th of October 1092, only one day after Mulk-Shah’s death   Nizam Al-Mulk the cornerstone of the Seljuq rule and minister to them was the first victim of Al-Hassan’s Terror machine. It is worth to mention here that the legend of the three companions (Khayyam, Nizam and Al-Hassan)is anything but true. Actually in an other source that I forgot what it is they never met and another said that Nizam gave Al-Hassan a job as a civil servant in one of the diwans. But whatever is true one thing is certain, Al-Hassan began a wave of assassinations that terrorized the Middle East for two centuries and this was when the weapon of choice was a poisoned dagger. Imagine if the weapons of terror that we have today were there?

The terror that they unleashed targeted any one that opposed their plans and I mean every one from Kings and caliphs to ordinary Dick, Jo and Harry. They included judges, scholars, civil servants, mayor, governors, military commanders, local vassals and even some of their own ranks. Here is a very short and incomplete list of the heads of state that they murdered:

First: Caliphs: 1- AL-Mustarshid on the 29^th of August 1135.

2- Al-Rashid: the son of the above only moths after his father.

3- Fatimid Al Amir biAhkam Allah  (الآمر بأحكام الله)  in 1130.

Second: Princes and Kings:1- Aq Sangar of Musil.

2- Moudood of Musil.

3- Dawood of azerbijan.

4-Behemond of Tripoly.

And many others.

Al-Jassas ibn Murrah

Al Jassas. Thanks for the references and the wealth of information. I especially like it that your lettering is re-sized to the visible norm.

Hello To You All

Well Zagros, I will inshallah discuss Babek with much detail later but first to our topic. I did more research into the subject and I found out several conflicting stories but all of them agree that he was killed in ramadhan after breaking the fast in the evening by a Daylamite boy (named Dhahir Arrani ضاهر عراني) who approached the Vizier asking for money. The difference is that when (the exact date) it took place and where, most (ibn Khaldun, Al-Sayooti) but the book above says it was in Nahavend. The one historian that was contemporary but I cannot quote him right now since the book is not available is ibn Al-Athir who is the source for both historians above.

Al-Jassas

Also, Iraq, Syria and northern Middle East were not traditionally Arab homelands. 

Hello to you all.

Zagros my friend I am fairly disappointed from your reply earlier. How can you assume that I was not talking about Babak (Babik as he was known to Arabs) Khorramdin (AL-Khorrami) and that I was suffering a case of mistaken identity. Second, you even didn’t know the guy that I was presumed to have meant in my post. Abu Bakr died of natural causes 2 years after the death of the prophet (13 A.H). The guy you were referring to is Abu Lo’loah Fayrooz, a Persian windmill maker and sword smith who was a slave of Al-Mugherah ibn Shu’bah who tired to assassinate Omar the second caliph in 23 A.H mortally wounding him with a double headed dagger with a handle not a hilt, the caliph died 3 days later. The guy, who was either Nestorian or most likely Zoroastrian ironically became a hero to the shia after some 300 year from that instance despite the fact that shia don’t even recognize Zoroastrians as dhimmie and in shia jurisprudence should either convert of leave the lands of islam and thus we see that the Safavids forcibly kicked them out of Iran or converted them despite them being a considerable minority up to the 16^th century. Compare that to Christians who were at least 30% of the population in sunni countries in the middle east by 1860. It was after the unfortunate events in Lebanon in that year when Christians chose exudes. If all of the descendents of those immigrants returned today they will make up to 30% of the population compared to the current 10%. Finlly, Babik did not revolt as a result of the murder of Abu Muslim (his father was a childe then) those who revolted were known as the Javandians (الجاونديون) and they were a political party that wanted to restore Persian rule. Babik later would join and eventually lead them and try to preach his religion of Mazdakism against the alliance of the Zoroastrian priests and Abbasid government.

Anyway this thread is about assassins and we took a long detour , when time comes I will put up inshallah a thread about Babik and early resistance to Arabs rule in Persia and other provinces so I hope we stick to our subject and be patient because the Arabs (actually it is a famous rule in Islamic law) say: he who hastily wants to be rewarded before time comes will be punished by preventing his from obtaining that reward he deserves (It works better in Arabic ).

Thank you

Al-Jassas ibn Murrah    

Hello Zagros

I am very sorry and do apologize for bringing religion into the discussion a thing that I should have never did and I know better than that and if I could take what has been written back I would do it .