Samarkand (18 page)

‘Thus was the fate of Omar Khayyam.

‘The third was a man of belief. He walked toward the panther with his hands open, with a dominating demeanour and an eloquent
words. “You are welcome to these lands,” he said to the panther. “My companions were richer than I and you despoiled them.
They were prouder than I and you have laid them low.” The beast listened, seduced and subdued. The man had the advantage over
the panther, and managed to train it. Since then no panther has dared to approach him and men keep away.’

The
Manuscript
concludes: ‘When the time of upheavals arrived, no one could stop its course, no one could flee it but some managed to use
it. Hassan Sabbah, more than anyone, knew how to tame the ferocity of the world. He sowed fear all around him in order to
make a tiny piece of calm for himself in his redoubt of Alamut.’

No sooner had he gained control of the fortress than Hassan Sabbah undertook actions to assure that he was sealed off from
any contact with the outside world. His first priority was to render impossible any enemy penetration. With the help of some
clever building he thus improved the already exceptional quality of the site by blocking off the slightest passageway between
two hills.

However these fortifications were not enough for Hassan. Even if an assault was impossible, the besiegers would still hope
to starve him out or cut off his water. It is thus that most sieges end. And it was on this point that Alamut was particularly
vulnerable, having
only meagre stocks of drinking water. The Grand Master found the answer. Instead of drawing his water from the neighbouring
rivers, he had an impressive network of cisterns and canals dug in the mountain to collect rainwater and the melting snows.
The visitor to the ruins of the castle today can still admire, in the large room where Hassan lived, a ‘magic basin’ which
filled itself up with as much water as was taken out from it, and which, by a stroke of ingenuity, never overflowed.

For provisions, the Grand Master had storage shafts fitted out for oil, vinegar and honey, he also stockpiled barley, sheep
fat and dried fruit in sufficient quantities to get them through an almost total blockade – which, at that time, was far beyond
the capacity of any besiegers, particularly in a region which had a harsh winter.

Hassan thus had an infallible shield. He had, one could say, the ultimate defensive weapon. With his devoted killers, he also
possessed the ultimate offensive weapon. How can precautions be taken against a man intent on dying? All protection is based
upon dissuasion, and we know that important personages are surrounded by an imposing guard whose role is to make any potential
attacker fear inevitable death. But what if the attacker is not afraid of dying, and has been convinced that martyrdom is
a short-cut to paradise? What if he has imprinted in his mind the words of the Preacher: ‘You are not made for this world,
but for the next. Can a fish be afraid if someone threatens to throw it into the sea?’ If, moreover, the assassin had succeeded
in infiltrating the victim’s entourage? Nothing could be done to stop him. ‘I am less powerful than the Sultan but I can harm
you more than he can,’ Hassan wrote one day to a provincial governor.

Thus, having forged the most perfect tools of war imaginable, Hassan Sabbah installed himself in his fortress and never left
it again; his biographers even say that during the last thirty years of his life he only went out of his house twice, and
both times it was to go up on the roof! Morning and evening he was there, sitting cross-legged on a mat which his body had
worn out but which he never wished to change or have repaired. He taught, he wrote, he set his killers on to his enemies,
and, five times a day he prayed on the same mat along with whoever was visiting him at the time.

For the benefit of those who have never had the opportunity to visit the ruins of Alamut, it is worth pointing out that this
site would not have acquired such historical importance if its only advantage had been its inaccessibility and if the plateau
at the mountain’s summit had not been large enough to support a town, or at least a very large village. At the time of the
Assassins it was reached by a narrow tunnel to the east which emerged into the lower fortress with its tangle of alleys and
little mud houses in the shadow of the walls; the upper fortress was reached by crossing the
maydan
, the large square, the only meeting area for the whole community. This was shaped like a bottle lying on its side, with its
wide base in the east and its neck toward the west. The bottleneck itself was a heavily guarded corridor at the end of which
lay Hassan’s house whose single window looked out on to a precipice. It was a fortress within a fortress.

By means of the spectacular murders which he ordered, and the legends which grew up around him, his sect and his castle, the
Grand Master of the Assassins terrorized the Orient and the Occident over a long period. In every Muslim town high officials
fell and even the crusaders had two or three eminent victims to lament. However it is all too often forgotten that it was
primarily at Alamut that terror reigned.

What reign is worse than that of militant virtue? The Supreme Preacher wanted to regulate every second of his adherents’ lives.
He proscribed all musical instruments; if he discovered the smallest flute he would break it in public and throw it into the
flames; the transgressor was put in irons and given a good whipping before being expelled from the community. The use of alcoholic
drinks was even more severely punished. Hassan’s own son, found intoxicated one evening by his father, was condemned to death
on the spot; in spite of his mother’s pleadings he was decapitated at dawn the next day as an example. No one ever dared to
swallow a mouthful of wine.

The justice of Alamut was, to say the least, speedy. It was said that a crime had been committed one day within the fortress
and
that a witness had accused Hassan’s second son. Without attempting to verify the fact, Hassan had his last son’s head cut
off. A few days later, the real culprit confessed; he in turn was decapitated.

Biographers of the Grand Master mention the slaughter of his son in order to illustrate his strictness and impartiality; they
point out that the community of Alamut became a haven of virtue and morality through the blessing of such exemplary discipline,
and this can very easily be believed; however, we know from various sources that the day after these executions Hassan’s only
wife as well as his daughters rose up against his authority, and that he ordered them thrown out of Alamut and recommended
that his successors do the same in the future in order to avoid the womenfolk having any influence over their correct judgement.

To loose himself from the world, create a void around his person, surround himself with walls of stone and fear – such seems
to have been Hassan Sabbah’s demented dream.

However this void started to stifle him. The most powerful kings have jesters or jovial companions to lighten the oppressive
atmosphere which surrounds them. The man with the bulging eyes was incurably alone, walled up in his fortress, shut up in
his house, closed to himself. He had no one to talk to, only docile subjects, dumb servants and awestruck disciples.

Of all the people he had known, there was only one to whom he could still talk, if not as friend to friend then at least as
man to man and that was Khayyam. He had thus written him a letter in which despair disguised itself behind a thick façade
of pride:

‘Instead of living as a fugitive, why do you not come to Alamut? Like you, I have been persecuted but now it is I who persecute.
Here you will be protected, looked after and respected. No emir on earth will be able to harm a hair of your head. I have
founded a huge library where you will find the rarest works and will be able to read and write at leisure. In this place you
will find peace.’

Since he had left Isfahan, Khayyam had been leading effectively the existence of a fugitive and a pariah. When he betook himself
to Baghdad, the Caliph forbad him to speak in public or to receive his numerous admirers who presented themselves at his door.
When he visited Mecca, his detractors sniggered: ‘A pilgrimage of servility!’ When, on his return, he passed through Basra,
the sons of the
qadi
of the city came to ask him, in the politest of terms, to cut short his stay.

His fate then was unsettling in the extreme. No one contested his genius or his erudition; wherever he went large groups of
intellectuals gathered around him. He was questioned on astrology, algebra, medicine and even religious problems and he was
listened to warmly. However, without fail, a few days or weeks after his arrival, a clique would emerge and would disseminate
all sorts of lies. He would be called an infidel or a heretic, and his friendship with Hassan Sabbah would be recalled. Sometimes
the accusations of being an alchemist, raised against him of old in Samarkand, were dredged up. Ardent opponents were sent
to break up his discussions and those who dared shelter him were threatened with reprisals. Usually, he put up no opposition.
As soon as he felt the atmosphere become uncomfortable he would feign illness in order not to appear in public again, and
he would then not linger, but would go away
to somewhere new where his stay would be just as short and precarious.

Honoured and cursed, with no companion other than Vartan, he was constantly in search of a roof, a protector and a patron
too; the generous pension which Nizam had allotted to him was no longer being paid out since his death and he was forced to
visit princes and governors and prepare their monthly horoscopes. However, even though he was often in need, he managed to
get himself paid without bowing his head.

It was told that a vizir, astonished to hear Omar demand a sum of five thousand golden dinars, remarked:

‘Do you know that I myself am not paid that much?’

‘That is quite normal,’ retorted Khayyam.

‘And how so?’

‘Because there is only a handful of intellectuals like me every century, while one could name five hundred vizirs like you
every year.’

The chroniclers state that the man found this extremely amusing and went on to satisfy Khayyam’s demands, courteously recognising
the correctness of such a haughty equation.

‘No Sultan is happier than I, no beggar sadder,’ Omar wrote during this period.

The years passed and we find him again in 1114 in the city of Merv, the old capital of Khorassan, still famous for its silks
and its ten libraries, but deprived for some time now of any political role. To restore some lustre to its tarnished court,
the local sovereign was trying to attract the celebrities of the time. He knew just how to seduce Khayyam – by offering to
build him an observatory identical to that of Isfahan. At sixty-six years of age, Omar no longer dreamt of anything else and
he accepted with adolescent enthusiasm and set right down to work on the project. Soon the building was rising up on a hilltop
in the district of Bab Senjan in the middle of a garden of daffodils and white mulberries.

Omar was happy for two years and he worked feverishly. We are told that he carried out astonishing experiments in weather
forecasting, his knowledge of the sky allowing him to note exactly the changes of climate over five successive days. He also
developed his mathematical theories which were way ahead of his time. It was not until the nineteenth century that European
researchers recognized him to be the brilliant precursor of non-Euclidean geometry. He also wrote
rubaiyaat
, stimulated, we must believe, by the outstanding quality of Merv’s vineyards.

For all that, there was evidently a negative side. Omar was obliged to be present at endless palace ceremonies and to pay
homage solemnly to the sovereign at each feast, whenever a prince was circumcised, upon the sovereign’s return from the hunt
or the country, and to be in frequent attendance at the
diwan
, ready to utter a witticism, a quotation or a fitting verse. These sessions exhausted Omar. As well as the impression of
having put on the skin of a performing bear, he was always aware of losing precious time at the palace which he could have
turned to better use at his work table, not to mention the risk of unpleasant encounters.

Like the one which took place that cold February day, when someone picked a memorable quarrel with him over a youthful quatrain
which had fallen into jealous ears. That day the
diwan
was packed with beturbaned intellectuals and the monarch was overjoyed as he blissfully contemplated his court.

When Omar arrived, debate was already raging on a subject which fascinated the men of religion: ‘Could the universe have been
created better?’ Those who replied ‘yes’ laid themselves open to accusation of impiety since they implied that God had not
taken sufficient care over his work.

Those who replied ‘no’ were also open to accusation of impiety, as they were giving to understand that the Almighty was incapable
of doing better.

They were in hot discussion, with much gesticulating. Khayyam was happy absent-mindedly to watch everyone’s expressions. However
a speaker called him, heaped praise upon his erudition and asked for his opinion. Omar cleared his throat. He had not yet
uttered a single syllable when the grand
qadi
of Merv, who had never appreciated Khayyam’s presence in his city, nor the considerations
constantly shown to him, jumped up from his place and pointed an accusing finger at him.

‘I did not know that an atheist could express opinions on the questions of our faith!’

Omar gave a tired but worried smile.

‘Who gives you permission to treat me as an atheist? At least wait until you have heard me out!’

‘I have no need to hear you. Is it not to you that this verse has been attributed: “If You punish with evil the evil I have
done, tell, what is the difference between You and me?” Is not the man who puts forward such words an atheist?’