About History: Assassins

Hashīshīn

During the 12th- and 13th-century Crusades in the Middle East Europeans encountered the “Order of Assassins”, members of the Nizari Isma'ili, a Shia Muslim sect in the mountains of Lebanon. Renowned as militant fanatics, the sect ruled part of northern Persia (1094–1256) after the capture in 1090 of Alamut Castle in the Alborz Mountain range which went on to serve as the Assassins' headquarters. The Alamut and Lambsar castles became the foundation of a network of Isma'ili fortresses throughout Persia and Syria that formed the backbone of Assassin power, and included Syrian strongholds at Masyaf, Abu Qubays, al-Qadmus and al-Kahf. Members of the sect were small in number, and at the outset lacked economic assets, but they did have a terrifying secret weapon: the fida'i, a cadre of elite killers possessing unquestioning loyalty.

In their remote bases in Syria, the Assassins trained and perfected their squads of fida'i. Only the most committed and able, both mentally and physically, were chosen to receive the rigorous training needed to complete their highly dangerous missions. Most of their attacks were on high-profile individuals, often in very public places, with slim chances of survival. Every member of a fida'i team therefore had to be courageous and committed to the cause. Admirers of the Assassins saw them as dedicated and skilful while their enemies described them as fanatical, even brainwashed. Either way, the fida'i were an extremely focused and effective force in the 12th-century Middle East.

By the middle of the century, the Assassins had become feared across the region, a reputation reinforced under the rule of Rashid ad-Din Sinan, the de facto leader of the Nizari Isma'ili state in Syria and Persia in AD 1162. Known as Sinan, he strengthened the Assassins’ network of mountain fortresses and professionalised the fida’i. More formalised and better training produced increasingly highly motivated men and perfected their deadly craft. Sinan became known as shaik-al-jibal, which translates as the “Old Man of the Mountain”, presumably echoing the sect’s mountainous bastions. Originally a personal honorific, the title would become synonymous with Assassins’ leader creating a sense of fear transcending death such that regardless of who was in charge, there was always an “Old Man of the Mountain”.

The Arabic nickname for the sect was hashīshīn, the plural of hashishiyy, literally meaning “hashish-eater”. This undoubtedly derogatory term implied that the supposedly erratic behaviour of the members of the sect was because they were intoxicated by hashīsh. This was certainly the understanding of Marco Polo whose works introduced the Western world to the Assassins. In western European minds of the 12th- and 13th-centuries, this pejorative notion stuck, and the Nizari Isma'ili gained a reputation for murdering opposing leaders while intoxicated. While the salacious tale preys on western prejudices, the Nizari Isma'ili did assassinate various political targets, but there is no evidence that they used hashīsh.

The plural suffix -in was mistaken in Europe for part of the word. So, hashīshīn became hassasis or assasis in Old French and Assissini or Assassini in Italian. From the start of the 14th-century, and into the 15th-century, the Nizari Ismaili sect's nickname came to mean, in Italian at least, any sort of person who murdered for political or religious reasons. By the 1530s the familiar meaning of the term “assassin” entered French, followed a little later by English.

Assassination

While the “Order of Assassins” typically refers to the entire sect, in reality only a small group of disciples known as the fida'i engaged in conflict. Allegedly their preferred method of killing was by dagger, nerve poison or arrows. Over the course of nearly 200 years, the Assassins killed hundreds – including three successive Rashidun caliphs (Umar, Uthman Ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib), a ruler of Jerusalem and several Muslim and Christian leaders. Murders were carried out for political reasons but also to intimidate, for revenge, for money, out of personal animosity or, frequently, a combination of these reasons.

Assassination, however, is one of the oldest tools of power politics. It is thought that the Old Kingdom Sixth Dynasty (23rd-century BC) Egyptian pharaoh Teti was the earliest known victim of assassination, although the evidence is inconclusive. Records do survive of the assassination of Middle Kingdom Twelfth Dynasty (20th-century BC) pharaoh Amenemhat I in his bed by his palace guards but for what reason is again unknown. Likewise, contemporary judicial records relate the assassination of New Kingdom Twentieth Dynasty monarch Ramesses III in 1155 BC as part of a failed coup attempt. Further east seven Persian kings of Achaemenid Dynasty were likewise assassinated between 550 BC and 330 BC, and the practice was also well known in ancient China. Around the same time (336 BC) Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II of Macedon, was stabbed to death by Pausanias of Orestis, one of the king’s seven bodyguards.

While many assassinations were performed by individuals or small groups, larger specialised units also existed. Predating the Middle Eastern Nizari Ismaili sect and Japanese shinobi-no-mono by centuries, the earliest were a group of Jewish assassins known as the Sicarii. They were active throughout Judaea in the years leading up to and during the First Jewish–Roman War (AD 66 to AD 74). The Sicarii mounted a high-profile campaign of targeted assassinations of Romans and their Jewish collaborators and later would became notorious for a reported mass suicide during the Siege of Masada in AD 72 to AD 73. The group's signature weapon, and namesake, was a type of large dagger known as a sica [2]. By concealing such weapons in their cloaks, Sicarii could covertly approach their targets at public gatherings, strike and thereafter blend in with the crowds to escape undetected. By such actions the Sicarii epitomise modern notions of assassins and assassinations. Bon appétit!

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Endnotes:

1. Although we write English using the Latin alphabet, the Romans themselves did not use the letter “J”. Instead they used the letter “I” possibly because it is easier to carve in stone than a cursive “J”; the same argument could be made for “V” and “U”. What is more, in classical Latin “I” was voiced as “Y” in modern English so Caesar’s gens (kin or clan name) was pronounced phonetically as “Yew-lee-oos” rather than “Jew-lee-us”. At some point in the Middle Ages “J” became separated from “I” and likewise “U” from “V”. The alphabet also had the letter “W” (originally a joining of two “V”s) added to represent sounds from the Germanic languages which did not exist in mediæval Latin. It was only after the Renaissance that the convention of treating “I” and “U” as vowels, and “J” and “V” as consonants, become established. ▲

2. The sica is a short sword or large dagger used by ancient Illyrians, Thracians, and Dacians. It is a shorter, one-handed form of the larger, two-handed falx (or rhomphaia). Both versions have a curved blade sharpened on the inside edge and may have derived from an agricultural scythe or sickle. The distinctive shape was designed to stab or slash around the sides of an opponent's shield. The sica was used by the Sicarii in Judaea and in ancient Rome. In gladiatorial combat, the usual opponent of the Thraex, a type of gladiator armed in the Thracian style, was the scutum (large shield) carrying Murmillo. To get around the shield, a weapon such as the sica was both necessary and made the contest more balanced and, presumably, more exciting. ▲