Chapter IV.

Description of Alamoot — Fruitless Attempts to (ecover it — Extension of the Ismailite Power — The IsmaVUtet in Syria — Attempt on the life of Ahoo-Hafd Issa — ^Treaty made with Sultan Sanjar — Death of Hass^ — pis Gh^cacter.
Alamoot, a name so famous iii th^ l^tetory of the East, signifies the Vulture's N^st, ^n appellatipn de- rived from its lofly site. I( was built in tba yfiar 860, on the summit of 9 \d\\ wliich bears a fancied resemblance to a lion couchipg with his nose to the ground, situated, according to Hammer, in 50^*^ E. long, and 36° N. l^t. It was regarded as the strongest of 50 fortresses pf the s^-me kind, which were scat- tered over the district pf Roodbar (River^land)^ the mountainous region lYhich forms the border between Persian Irak and the i^ore northerly provinces of Dilem and Tab^ristaq, ^nd is wa(;er^d by the stream called the I^^iug^s River {Shahrood)- As soon as Hassan saw himself master of this important place he directed his thoughts to the m^^^us of increasing its strength, fie repaired the original walls, and added new ou^s ; be sunk wells, and dug a caiial, which conveyed water from a considerable distance to the foot of the fortress. As the possession of Alamoot made him master of the surrpuuding coun- try, he learned to regard the inhabitants as his sub- jects, and he stimulated them to agriculture, and made large plantations of fruit-trees around the eminence on which the fortress stood.
But before Hassan had time to commence, much less complete these plans of improvement, he saw
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himself in danger of losing all the fruits of his toil. It was not to be expected that the emir, on whom the sultan had bestowed the province of Roodbar, would calmly view its strongest fort in the possession of the foe of the house of Seljook. Hassan, there- fore, had not had time to collect stores and provisions when he found all access to the place cut off by the troops of the emir. The inhabitants were about to quit Alamoot, but Hassan exerted the usual influence of a commanding spirit over their minds, and confi- dently assured them that that was the place in which fortune would favour them. They yielded faith to his words and staid; and at length their persever- ance wore out the patience of the emir, and Alamoot thence obtained the title of the Abode of Fortune. The sultan, who had at first viewed the progress of his ex-minister with contempt, began soon to grow apprehensive of his ultimate designs, and in 1092 he issued orders to the emir Arslantash {Lion-stone) to destroy Hassan and his adherents. Arslantash advanced against Alamoot. Hassan, though he had but 70 men with him, and was scantily supplied with provisions, defended himself courageously till Aboo AH, the governor of Casveen, who was in secret one of his dais, sent 300 men to his aid. These fell suddenly, during the night, on the troops of the emir ; the little garrison made at the same time a sortie; the sultan's troops took to flight, and Ala- moot remained in the possession of the Ismai'lites. Much about the same time Malek Shah sent troops against Hussein Kaini, who was actively engaged in the cause of Hassan Sabah in Kuhistan. Hussein threw himself into Moominabad, a fortress nearly as strong as that of Alamoot, and the troops of the sultan assailed him in vain. It was now that Hassan began to display the system which we shall presently unveil. The aged vizir, the great and
goodNizam-a.l-Moolk, pcrislied by the dapigers of his emissaries, aud the sultan liimself speedily roUowed r to the tomb, not without suspicion of
CircuDista titles were now particularly ruvourabte to the plans of Hassan Sabah. On the death of sultan Matek Shah a civil war broke out among his eons , for the succession. All the niiiitary chiefs and per- sons of eminence were engaged on one side or the other, and none had leisure or inclination to attend to the progress of the Ismailitea. These, therefore, went on gTadnally extending their power, and fortress after fortress fell into their hands. In the course of ten years they saw themselves masters of the princi- pal liill-forts of Persian Intk; they held that, of Shnhdovr* (King's peari), and two other fortresses, close to fsfahan; that of Khalankjian, on the borders of Fars and Kuhistaii ; Damnghan, Kirdkoo, and Firoozkoo, in the district of Komis ; and Lamseer and several others in Kuhistan. It was in vain that the most distinguished imams and doctors of the law issued their jHuas against the sect of the IsmaTlites, and condemned them lo future perdition ; in vain they called on the orthodox lo employ the
• This castle woa built by sullan Malek Shah. The fol- lowing vug its origin; — An Malek Shah, who was h grtat lover of the chase, was out iiii hounili weat Bslray ud the nearly inai'cei^sible lOck un which Ihe caitle was aftecwacds elected. The ambassBilur of thu Byxaulina emperor, who was af Ihe [mity, absvrrod to thu sultan, that in his mastor'a donimions so adTantageous a situalioD would not b« Ml nnoccnpiad, but would lung sioco ha«B buen crowned with a ciistle- The sultan fuUowed the amhasaador's advice, and erected the castle of the King's Pearl on this lufly tuck. When the casUe t«tl inlo ihc hands uF Ihe Ismailites, pious Moslems rcmarkeil that it cuuld irat bBYe hetttr luck, since its site hod been pointed out b]>^ B dug (an undeui beast iu tlieii eyes), uid its elediua advised by aa infidel.
sword of juslice in freeing the earth from this godless and abominable race. The sect, strong in its secret bond of unity and determination of purpose, went on end prospered ; the dagger avenged the fate of those who perished by the sword, and, as the Oriental- ized European historian of the society expresses it*, *',head9 fell like an abundant harvest beneath the twofold sickle of the sword of justice aad the dagger of murder."
The appearance of the Ismaiiiles, under their new form of organization, in Syria, happened at the same time with that of the crusaders in the Holy Land. The SilJDokian Turks had made the conquest of that country, and the different chiefs who ruled Damascus, Aleppo, and the other towns and their districts, soma of whom were of Turkish, others of Syrian extraction, were in a constant stale of enmity with each other. Such powerful auxiliaries as the followers of Hassan Sabah were not to he neglected ; Itisvan, Prince of Aleppo, so celebrated in the history of the crusades, was their declared favourer and protector, and an Ismailite agent always resided with him. The first who occupied this post was an astrologer, and on his death Ihe olhce tell to a Persian goldsmith, named Aboo Taher Essaigh. The enemies of Risvan felt the effects of his alliance with the Ismaliites. The Prince of Emessa, for example, fell by their daggers, as he was about to relieve the castle of the Koords, to which Raymond, Count of Toulouse, bad laid siege.
liisvan put the strong castle of Sarmiu, which lay about a day's journey south of Aleppo, into the hands of Aboo-'!-Fettah, the nephew of Hassan Sabah, and his Dai-el-Kebir {Great Mmioiiary) for the province of Syria. The governor of this Ibrtress was Aboo Taher Essaigh. A few years afterwards(ll07) the people of Apamea invoked the aid of Aboo Taher ' Haminerj 97.
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Aboo
against Khalaf, their Egyptian governor. Taher took possession of the town in tlie name ni , but Tancred, who was at war with that and attacked it, it was forced to Aboo Taher stipulated for free egress for himself; but Tancred, in violation of the treaty. brought him to Aatiooh, where be remained till his rausom was paid. Aboo-' !■ Fell ah and the other Ismailites were given up to the vengeance of the sons of Khalaf. Tancred took from tliem at the same e another strong fortress, named Kefrkna. This is to he noted as the first collision between the Crusaders and the Assassins, as we shall now begin to call them. The origin of this name shall presently be es plained.
On the return of Aboo Taher to Aleppo a veiy remarkable attemjit at assassination took place. There was a wealthy merchant, named Aboo-Hard Issa*, a sworn foe to the Ismailites, and who had spent lai^e sums of money in his efforts to* injure them. He was now arrived from the borders of Toorkislan with a richly laden caraVan of 500 camels. An Isma'ilite, named Ahmed, a native of Rei, had secretly accompanied him from the time he left Khorasan, with the design of avenging Ihe death of his falher, who had fallen imder the blows of Aboo-Hard's people. The Is- mailile, on arriving at Aleppo, immediately commu- nicated with Aboo Taher and Riavan. Revenge, aiitl the hope of gaining the wealth of the hostile merchant, made them yield assent at once to the project of assassination. Aboo Taher gave Ahmed
• Th»t il, Jesua. It moy Le here olnecvei that the proper nameiofthi: Old Tusts.nient ace still usfd In the Eusl. Ibra- him. iMniiiel, YHhyu, Jaossiif, Mousss,DBUOd, Sulviiuiin, lam, Rre Abraham, lahmBcl.Jatob, Joseph, Moses, David, Soloinon, nnil JuabuiL, at Ji'sua.
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a sufficient number of assistants ; Risvan promised the aid of his guards; and one day, as the merchant was in the midst of his slaves, counting liis camels, the murderers fell on him. But the faithful slaves valiantly defended their master, and the Ismai'lites expiated their guilt vdth their Uves. The princes of Syria heaped reproaches on Risvan for this scandal- ous violation of the rights of hospitality, and he vainly endeavoured to justify himself by pretending ignorance of the fact. Aboo Taher, as the in- creasing hatred of the people of Aleppo to the sect made that town an unsafe abode, returned to Persia, his native country, leaving his son, Aboo-'l-Fettah, to manage the affairs of the society in his stead.
The acquisition of castles and other places of strength was now the open and' avowed object of the society, whose aim was evidently at the empire of Asia, and no mean was left unemployed for the effecting of this design. lu the year- 1108 they made a bold attempt at making themselves masters of the strong castle of Khizar, also in Syria, which belonged to the family of Monkad. The festival cf Easter being come, when the Mussulman garrison was in the habit of going down into the town to partake in the festivities of the Christians, during their absence the Ismailites entered the castle, and barred the gates. When the garrison returned towards night, they found themselves excluded ; but the Ismailites, in their reliance on the strength of the place, being negligent, the women drew up their husbands by cords at the windows, and the intruders were speedily expelled.
In the year 1113, as Mevdood, Prince of Mosul, was walking up and down, on a festival day, in the mosk of Damascus, with the celebrated Togteghin, he was fallen on and slain by an Ismai'lite. The murderer was cut to pieces on the spot.
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This year was, however, near proving fatal to the society in Syria. Risvan, their great protector, died ; and the eunuch Looloo, the guardian of liis young son, was their sworn enemy. An order for their indiscriminate destruction was forthwith issued, and, in consequence, more than 800 men, women, and children were massacred, while 200 more were thrown into prison. Ahoo-'i-Feltah was put to death with torture; his body was cut to pieces and burnt at (he gale iookinir towards Irak, and his head sent through all Syria. They did not, how- ever, fall totally unavenged ; the daggers of the society were directed against tbe governors and men in power, many of whom became their victims. Thus, in the year 1115, as the Attabeg Togtegtiin was receiving an audience at the , court of the khalif of Bagdad, the governor of Rhorasan was fallen upon by three Ismailites, who probably mistook him for tlie Attabeg, and he and Ihey perished. In 1119 as BediT, the governor of Aleppo, was journeying with his i^ons to the court of the emir Il-Gtiazi, they were fallen upon by two assassins; Bedii and one of bis sons fell by their blows; his other sons cut the murderers down ; but a third then sprang forth, and gaw the finishing stroke to one of the young men, who was already wounded. The murderer was taken, and brought before Togteghin and il-Ghazi, who only ordered him to be put in prison; but he drowned himself to escape their vengeance, from which he had, perhaps, nothing to apprehend.
In fact at this time tbe dread of the folktwers of Hassan Sabah had sunk deep into the hearts of all the princes of the East, for there was no security against their daggers. Accordingly, when tiie next year (liao) Aboo Mohammed, the head of them at AIcp])o, where they had re-established themselves, sent to the powerful U-Ghazi to demand of him pos-
session of the castle of Sherif, near that town, he feared to refuse ; tut the people of Aleppo, at the persuasion of otte of their fellow- citizens (who speedily (laid for his advice with his bloorl), rose cm mowe, levelled the walls, tilled up the ditches, and united the castle to the town. Even the great Noor-ed-deen (hamj) of Religion) was sonie years afterwards obliged to have recourse to the same artifice to save the castle of BeJtlaha from becoming one of their stRing-holds.
The same system was pursued in Persia, where sultan Sanjar, the son of Maiek Shah, had united under his sceptre the greater part of the dominions of his father and Fakhr-al-Moolk (Fame of the Realm). The son and successor of Nizam -al-Moolk and Chakar Beg, the great uncle of the sultan, pe- rished by the daggers of the emissaries of Hassan Sabah. Sultan Sanjar was himself on his march, intending to lay siege to Alamoot, and the other ^trong-hulds of the Ismailites, when one morning, on awaking, he found a dagger struck iu the ground close to his pillow. The sultan was dismayed, but he concealed his terror, and a few days afierwanls there came a brief note from Alamoot, containing these words : " Were we not well affected towards the suhau, the dagger had been struck in his bosom, not in the ground." Sanjar recollected that his bro- ther Mohammed, who had laid siege to the castles of Lamseer and Alamoot, had died suddenly jttst as they were on the point of surrendering — an event ho opportune for the society, that it was but natural to ascribe it to their agency — and he deemed it the safest course to proceed gently with such dangerous oppo- nents. He accordingly hearkened to proposals of peace, which was concluded on the following condi- tions; I. That the Ismailites should add no new works to their castles ; 2. That they should purchase
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no arms or military machines ; 3. That they should make no more proselytes. The sultan, on his part, released the Ismailites from all tolls and taxes in the district of Kirdkoh, and assigned them a part of the revenue of the territory of Komis by way of annual pension. To apprehend clearly what the power of the society was, we must recollect that sultan Sanjar was the most powerful monarch of the East, that his mandate was obeyed from Cashgar to Antioch, from the Caspian to the Straits of Bab-el- Mandeb.
Thirty-four years had now elapsed since the acqui- sition of Alamoot, and the first establishment of the power of Hassan Sabah. In all that time he had never been seen out of the castle of Alamoot, and had been even known but twice to leave his chamber, and to make his appearance on the terrace. In silence and in solitude he pondered the means of extending the power of the society of which he was the head, and he drew up, with his own hand, the rules and precepts which were to govern it. He had outlived most of his old companions and early disciples, and he was now childless, for he had put to death his two only sons, the elder for having been concerned in the murder of his faithful ad- herent Hussein Kaini; the younger for having vio- lated the precept of the Koran against drinking wine. Feeling the approaches of death, he sum- moned to Alamoot Keah Buzoorg Oomeid (^Kedh of Good Hope)y who was residing at Lamseer, which he had conquered twenty years before, and Aboo Ali, of Casveen, and committed the direction of the so- ciety to them, appointing the former to be its proper spiritual head and director, and placing in the hands of the latter the administration of the civil and ex- ternal affairs. He then calmly expired, apparently unconscious of or indifferent to the fact of having, by the organization of his pernicious society, rendered
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his name an object of execration, a by-word and a proverb among the nations.
Dimly as we may discern the character of Hassan Sabah through the medium of prejudice and hatred through which the scanty notices of it have reached us, we cannot refuse him a place among the higher order of minds. The founder of an empire or of a powerful society is almost always a great man ; but Hassan seems to have had this advantage over Loyola and other founders of societies, that he saw clearly from the commencement what might be done, and formed all his plans with a view to one ultimate object. He surely had no ordinary mind who could ask but two devoted adherents to shake the throne of the house of Seljook, then at the acme of its power.
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