The Assassins (12 page)

The solemn and ritual violation of the law - the congregants with their backs towards Mecca, the afternoon banquet in the midst of the fast - mark the culmination of a millenarian and antinomian tendency which is recurrent in Islam, and has obvious parallels in Christendom. The law has served its purpose, and its reign is ended; the secrets are revealed, the grace of the Imam prevails. By making the faithful his chosen personal servants, he has preserved them from sin; by proclaiming the Resurrection, he has saved them from death, and brought them, living, to that spiritual Paradise which is the knowledge of the Truth, and the contemplation of the Divine Essence. `Now the essence of this futile creed ... was that following the Philosophers they spoke of the world as being uncreated and Time as unlimited and the Resurrection as spiritual. And they explained paradise and hell ... in such a way as to give a spiritual meaning to these concepts. And then on the basis of this they said that the Resurrection is when men shall come to God and the mysteries and truths of all Creation be revealed, and acts of obedience abolished, for in this world all is action and there is no reckoning, but in the world to come all is reckoning and there is no action. And this is the spiritual [Resurrection] and the Resurrection promised and awaited in all religions and creeds is this, which was revealed by Hasan. And as a consequence hereof men have been relieved of the duties imposed by the Shari`a because in this period of the Resurrection they must turn in every sense towards God and abandon the rites of religious law and established habits of worship. It was laid down in the Shari'a that men must worship God five times a day and be with Him. That charge was only formal, but now in [the days of] the Resurrection they must always be with God in their hearts and keep the faces of their souls constantly turned in the direction of the Divine Presence for such is true prayer.', 6

The new dispensation brought an important change in the status of the Lord of Alamut. In the sermon in the castle courtyard, he is declared to be the vicar of the Imam and the Living Proof; as the bringer of the Resurrection (q yama), he is the Qa'im, a dominating figure in Ismaili eschatology. According to Rashid al-Din, after his public manifestation Hasan circulated writings in which he said that, while outwardly he was known as the grandson of Buzurgumid, in the esoteric reality he was the Imam of the time, and the son of the previous Imam, of the line of Nizar. It is possible that, as some have argued, Hasan was not claiming physical descent from Nizar, which in the age of the Resurrection had ceased to signify, but a kind of spiritual filiation. There are indeed precedents in early Islamic messianic movements for such claims to spiritual or adoptive descent from the house of the Prophet. The later Ismaili tradition is, however, unanimous in asserting that Hasan and his descendants were of the true line of Nizar, though there are different versions as to how the substitution took place. Hasan himself is held in special veneration, and is always named as Hasan ala dhikrihi'l-salam - Hasan, ,on his mention be peace'.

Most of the Ismailis readily accepted the new dispensation. There were some, however, who refused to be delivered from the yoke of the law, and against them Hasan used the severest punishments to impose freedom. `Hasan maintained both by implication and by clear declaration, that just as in the time of the Law if a man did not obey and worship but followed the rule of the Resurrection that obedience and worship are spiritual, he was punished and stoned and put to death, so now in the time of the Resurrection if a man complied with the letter of the Law and persisted in physical worship and rites, it was obligatory that he be chastised and stoned and put to death.' 17

Among the recusants was Hasan's brother-in-law, the scion of a noble Daylami house. He, according to Juvayni, was one of `those to the nostrils of whose hearts there still came some scent of piety and religion ... This man was unable to endure the propagation of those shameful errors. God have mercy on him and reward him for the goodness of his intention! On Sunday the 6th Rabi' I, 561 [9 January 1166] he stabbed the seducer. Hasan in the castle of Lamasar and he departed from this world "unto God's burning fire".'' 8

Hasan was succeeded by his nineteen-year old son Muhammad, who proceeded to confirm that his father and therefore he himself were descendants of Nizar, and Imams. He is said to have been a prolific writer, and during his long reign the doctrine of the Resurrection was developed and elaborated - but it seems to have made remarkably little impact on the outside world. It is significant that the whole episode of the Resurrection at Alamut passed unmentioned in contemporary Sunni historiography, and only became known after the destruction of Alamut, when the writings of the Ismailis came into the hands of Sunni scholars.

Politically too, the reign of Muhammad II was uneventful. The men of Alamut continued to raid their neighbours, and the fida'is killed a vizier of the Caliph in Baghdad, but little else of significance happened. A story told by Rashid al-Din and other authors relates to the great Sunni theologian Fakhr al-Din Razi. In his lectures to theological students in Rayy, Fakhr al-Din made a special point of refuting and reviling the Ismailis. Hearing of this, the lord of Alamut decided to put a stop to it and sent a fida'i to Rayy. There he enrolled himself as a student, and attended Fakhr al-Din's lectures daily for seven months, until he found an opportunity of seeing his teacher alone in his room, on the pretext of discussing a knotty problem. The fida'i at once drew a knife, and menaced the theologian with it. `Fakhr al-Din jumped aside, and said: "Man, what do you want?" The fida'i replied: "I want to slit your honour's belly from the breast to the navel, because you have cursed us from the pulpit."' After a tussle, the fida'i threw Fakhr al-Din to the ground, and sat on his chest. The terrified theologian promised to repent, and to refrain from such attacks in the future. The fida'i allowed himself to be persuaded, and, accepting a solemn undertaking from Fakhr al-Din to mend his ways, produced a bag containing 365 gold dinars. This, and a similar amount every year, would be paid to him in return for his compliance. Thenceforth, in his lectures on the sects of Islam, Fakhr al-Din took good care to avoid expressions offensive to the Ismailis. One of his students, noting this change, asked the reason for it. The professor replied: `It is not advisable to curse the Ismailis, for they have both weighty and trenchant arguments.'19 The story has the appearance of a fable - but it may be noted that in this writings Fakhr al-Din Razi, while not accepting the doctrines of the Ismailis, condemns one Sunni theologian for trying to refute them with fanatical and illinformed abuse, and praises another for correctly citing an Ismaili text.- Razi's point, of course, is not that the Ismailis are right, but that theological controversy must be based on correct information and an intelligent understanding of an opponent's point of view.

In the meantime great political changes had been taking place in the eastern lands of Islam. The Seljuq Great Sultanate, which for a time had restored the unity and reaffirmed the purpose of Sunni Islam, was disintegrating; in its place a new pattern of principalities emerged, founded by Seljuqid princes or officers, and, to an increasing extent, by the chiefs of nomadic Turkoman tribes whom successive waves of Turkish migration had brought from Central Asia into the Middle East. The Turkish expansion had for the moment reached its territorial limits; the Turkish imperial structure of the Seljuqs had fallen in ruins - but Turkish penetration and colonization continued, deepening and strengthening the conquest that had already been achieved. Changes of regime brought no change of substance; the successor princes found it simpler to maintain the political, military and administrative practices of the Seljuqs, including their firm commitment to religious orthodoxy. Here and there, where Turks were few, local groups, of Persian, Kurdish or Arab origin, raised their heads and achieved some measure of independence - but in the main the Turkish chiefs, however divided by political allegiance, pursued their common aim of displacing and supplanting the old, native lords. In this they were largely successful.

Towards the end of the twelfth century a new power emerged in the East. South of the Aral Sea lay the land of Khorazm, seat of an old and prosperous civilization, protected by a cordon of deserts from the convulsions that were shaking the neighbouring countries. Like most of Central Asia, it had been conquered and colonized by Turks; its ruling dynasty was descended from a Turkish slave sent there as governor by the Seljuq Great Sultan Malikshah. These rulers had prospered, and had signalized their identification with the country which they ruled by adopting the old native title of Khorazmshah, Shah of Khorazm - at first as vassals of the great powers, then as independent rulers. Amid general chaos the prosperous and well-armed Khorazmian monarchy was a haven of security; it was not long before the monarch felt obliged to extend the benefits of his rule to other lands and peoples. In about 119o the Khorazmshah Tekish occupied Khurasan, thus becoming master of eastern Iran, and a major power in Islam. The Caliph al-Nasir in Baghdad, hard-pressed by the last of the Seljuqs of Iran, Tughrul II, appealed to Tekish for help and thus provided the occasion for the Khorazmian armies to advance westwards, to the conquest of Rayy and Hamadan. It was at Rayy that, in 1194, the last of the Seljuqs was defeated and killed.

During the century and a half since the coming of the Seljuqs, the great Sultanate which they had established had become an accepted part of the Islamic pattern of authority. The death of the last Seljuq had thus created a vacancy - and the triumphant Khorazmshah was the obvious person to fill it. Tekish now sent a message to the Caliph al-Nasir, demanding that he accept and recognize him as Sultan in Baghdad. Al-Nasir, however, had other ideas - and Tekish, who had hoped to grow from the Caliph's ally to the Caliph's protector, found that instead he had become the Caliph's enemy.

Since the accession of al-Nasir in I18o, the Abbasid Caliphate had enjoyed a striking revival. For some three centuries the Caliphs had been little more than puppets - the nominal heads of Sunni Islam, but effectively under the domination of the military rulers, the emirs and later the sultans. The decay of Seljuq power in Iraq created an opportunity that al-Nasir was quick to seize. His aim was two-fold; to restore the religious unity of Islam and the moral authority of the Caliph as its head, and to establish a Caliphal principality in Iraq under the effective rule of the Caliph - a sort of state of the Church, free from any outside control or influence, to serve as the base for his religious policies. The second, and limited objective he pursued by political and military action, against Tughrul and later against Tekish; the first - and probably main - objective of an Islamic restoration was furthered by a series of religious, social and educational initiatives, including approaches to both the Twelver Shia and the Ismailis. With the second of these he achieved a surprising measure of success.

On i September 12io the lord of Alamut, Muhammad i i, died, possibly of poison, and was succeeded by his son Jalal al-Din Hasan. Already during his father's lifetime, Hasan had shown signs of dissatisfaction with the doctrines and practices of the giyama and of a desire for acceptance in the larger brotherhood of Islam. `During his childhood,' says Juvayni, `his father had designated him as his successor. When he grew up and showed signs of intelligence, he rejected his father's creed and felt disgusted with the customs of heresy and libertinism. His father having guessed what his feelings were, a sort of hostility sprang up between them and they were apprehensive and mistrustful of one another ... Now Jalal al-Din Hasan, whether because of the orthodoxy of his beliefs or because of his hostility towards his father, conspired against Muhammad and sent secretly to the Caliph of Baghdad and the sultans and rulers of other lands to claim that, unlike his father, he was by faith a Muslim and that when his turn came to reign he would abolish the Heresy and reintroduce the observance of Islam ... From the very moment of his accession Jalal al-Din professed Islam, and severely rebuked his people and party for their adherence to the Heresy, and strictly forbade them continuing therein, urging them to adopt Islam and follow the rites of the Shari'a. He sent messengers to the Caliph of Baghdad, Muhammad Khorazmshah and the maliks and emirs of Iraq and elsewhere to notify them of these changes; and because of his having prepared the way during his father's lifetime by announcing his position to them all, they now believed his word, especially in Baghdad, where a decree was issued confirming his conversion to Islam, and all manner of favours were shown to him: a correspondence was opened with him and he was addressed with titles of honour ... He became known as Jalal al-Din the Neo-Muslim and during his reign his followers were called Neo-Muslims.' The psychologist may also note that while differing from his Ismaili father, Hasan seems to have been strongly attached to his devoutly Sunni mother.

The people of Qazvin, not unnaturally, expressed some doubts about the genuineness of this conversion on the part of their old neighbours and enemies, and jalal al-Din Hasan was at great pains to convince them of his sincerity. He made direct approaches to the city notables, and induced them to send a delegation to Alamut, to inspect the library and remove the works of which they disapproved. These included treatises by Hasan-i Sabbah and by jalal al-Din Hasan's own ancestors and predecessors. jalal al-Din,' says Juvayni, `ordered these works to be burnt in the very presence of those Qazvinis and at their prompting; and he uttered curses and maledictions against his forefathers and the authors of that propaganda. I have seen a letter in the hands of the notables and cadis of Qazvin, which had been dictated by jalal al-Din Hasan and in which he spoke of his adoption of Islam, and acceptance of the rites of the Shari'a, and deliverance from the heresy and belief of his forefathers and ancestors. And Jalal al-Din had written a few words in his own handwriting upon the front of that letter and in mentioning his deliverance from their religion, when he came to the names of his fathers and ancestors, he added the curse: "May God fill their graves with fire!" '2I