Organization:Order of Assassins

Short description: Nizari Ismailis in the mountains of Persia and Syria between about 1090 and 1275

Assassins

Rudkhan Castle in the Alborz mountain range, Iran
Formation	1090 AD
Extinction	1275 AD
Type	Military order
Purpose	Assassination Asymmetric warfare Psychological warfare Surgical strikes
Headquarters	Alamut (Persian Assassins) Masyaf (Syrian Assassins)
Official language	Persian Arabic
Imam	Hassan-i Sabbah Kiyā Buzurg-Ummīd Muhammad Buzurg Ummid Jalaluddin Hasan Rashid ad-Din Sinan
Parent organization	Nizari Islam
Affiliations	Nizari Ismaili state

Assassins (Persian Ḥashashiyan, Arabic Ḥashīshiyya or Ḥashīshiyyīn, singular Ḥashīshī) were a sect of the Nizari Ismailis who lived in the mountains of Persia and Syria between 1090 and 1275. The name was not used by the Assassins themselves, but was given to them by their opponents in Syria. Nizari Ismailism formed in the late 11th century after a split within Ismailism, a branch of Shia Islam. The Nizari Ismailis were founded by Nizar ibn al-Mustansir, half-brother of Fatimid caliph al-Musta'li, and their rule continued through the Ismaili Imans until 1310.

The Assassins were founded by Hassan-i Sabbah (c. 1050-1124) who called his disciples Asāsiyyūn (أساسيون, meaning "people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]"), based on texts from Alamut. Some foreign travellers like Marco Polo misunderstood the name as deriving from the term hashish. The Assassins posed a strategic threat to Fatimid, Abbasid and Seljuq authority by capturing and inhabiting several mountain fortresses throughout Persia and later Syria, under the leadership of Hassan-i Sabbah. Other notable Assassin leaders include al-Hakim al-Munajjim, the physician-astrologer (d. 1103), Abu Tahir al Sa’igh, the goldsmith (d. 1106) and Rashid ad-Din Sinan, renown as the greatest Assassin chief (d. 1193).

While Assassins typically refers to the entire sect, only a group of acolytes known as the fida'i actually engaged in conflict. Lacking their own army, the Nizari relied on these warriors to carry out espionage and assassinations of key enemy figures, and over the course of 300 years they killed three caliphs, and many viziers, sultans, and Crusader leaders.

During the rule of Imam Rukn-ud-Din Khurshah, the Nizari state declined internally, and was eventually destroyed as the Imam surrendered the castles to the invading Mongols. The Mongols destroyed and eliminated their order. Mentions of Assassins were preserved within Arabic and European sources where they are depicted as trained killers, responsible for the systematic elimination of opposing figures. The word "assassin" has been used ever since to describe a hired or professional killer, leading to the related term "assassination", which denotes any action involving murder of a high-profile target for political reasons.

The Nizari were acknowledged and feared by the Crusaders. European orientalist historians in the 19th century – such as Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall – also referred to the Nizari in their works and tended to write about the Nizari based on accounts by medieval Sunni Arab and Persian authors.

Origins

Artistic rendering of Hassan-i Sabbah.

The origins of the Assassins can be traced back to just before the First Crusade, around 1094 in Alamut, north of modern Iran, during a crisis of succession to the Fatimid caliphate. There has been great difficulty finding out much information about the origins of the Assassins because most early sources are written by enemies of the order, are based on legends, or both. Most sources dealing with the order's inner workings were destroyed with the capture of Alamut castle, the Assassins' headquarters, by the Mongols in 1256. However, it is possible to trace the beginnings of the cult back to its first Grandmaster, Hassan-i Sabbah (1050s–1124).

A passionate devotee of Isma'ili beliefs, Hassan-i Sabbah was well-liked throughout Cairo, Syria and most of the Middle East by other Isma'ili, which led to a number of people becoming his followers. Using his fame and popularity, Sabbah founded the Order of the Assassins. While his motives for founding this order are ultimately unknown, it was said to be all for his own political and personal gain and to also exact vengeance on his enemies. Because of the unrest in the Holy Land caused by the Crusades, Hassan-i Sabbah found himself not only fighting for power with other Muslims, but also with the invading Christian forces.

After creating the order, Sabbah searched for a location that would be fit for a sturdy headquarters and decided on Alamut castle in what is now northwestern Iran, built around 865 AD. Sabbah adapted the fortress to suit his needs not only for defense from hostile forces, but also for indoctrination of his followers. After laying claim to the fortress at Alamut, Sabbah began expanding his influence outwards to nearby towns and districts, using his agents to gain political favour and to intimidate the local populations. Spending most of his days at Alamut producing religious works and developing doctrines for his order, Sabbah would never leave his fortress again in his lifetime.

However, it is unknown how Hassan-i-Sabbah was able to get the Assassins to perform with such fervent loyalty. One theory, possibly the best known but also the most criticized, comes from the reports of Marco Polo during his travels to the Orient. He recounts a story he heard of a man who would drug his young followers with hashish, lead them to a "paradise", and then claim that only he had the means to allow for their return. Perceiving that Sabbah was either a prophet or magician, his disciples, believing that only he could return them to "paradise", were fully committed to his cause and willing to carry out his every request. However, this story is disputed because Sabbah died in 1124 and Rashid ad-Din Sinan, who is frequently known as the "Old Man of the Mountain", died in 1192, whereas Marco Polo was not born until around 1254.

With his new weapons, Sabbah began to order assassinations, ranging from politicians to great generals. Assassins would rarely attack ordinary citizens though, and tended not to be hostile towards them.

Although the "Fida'yin" were the lowest rank in Sabbah's order and were only used as expendable pawns to do the Grandmaster's bidding, much time and many resources were put into training them. The Assassins were generally young in age, giving them the physical strength and stamina which would be required to carry out these murders. However, physical prowess was not the only trait that was required to be a "Fida'i". To get to their targets, the Assassins had to be patient, cold, and calculating. They were generally intelligent and well-read because they were required to possess not only knowledge about their enemy, but his or her culture and their native language. They were trained by their masters to disguise themselves and sneak into enemy territory to perform the assassinations, instead of simply attacking their target outright.

Etymology

The word "ASAS" in Arabic means principle. The "Asāsiyyūn" (plural, literary Arabic, official texts, proper form) were, as defined in Arabic, people of principle. The term "assassin" likely has roots in "hashshāshīn" (hashish smokers or users), a mispronunciation of the original Asāsiyyūn, but not a mispronunciation of "Assasiyeen" (pronounced "Asāsiyyeen", the plural of Asasi). Originally referring to the methods of political control exercised by the Assasiyuun, one can see how it became "assassin" in several languages to describe similar activities anywhere.

The Assassins were finally linked by the 19th-century orientalist scholar Silvestre de Sacy to the Arabic word hashish using their variant names assassin and assissini in the 19th century. Citing the example of one of the first written applications of the Arabic term hashish to the Ismailis by 13th-century historian Abu Shama, de Sacy demonstrated its connection to the name given to the Ismailis throughout Western scholarship. The first known usage of the term hashishi has been traced back to 1122 when the Fatimid caliph al-Āmir employed it in derogatory reference to the Syrian Nizaris. Used figuratively, the term hashishi connoted meanings such as outcasts or rabble. Without actually accusing the group of using the hashish drug, the Caliph used the term in a pejorative manner. This label was quickly adopted by anti-Ismaili historians and applied to the Ismailis of Syria and Persia. The spread of the term was further facilitated through military encounters between the Nizaris and the Crusaders, whose chroniclers adopted the term and disseminated it across Europe.

During the medieval period, Western scholarship on the Ismailis contributed to the popular view of the community as a radical sect of assassins, believed to be trained for the precise murder of their adversaries. By the 14th century, European scholarship on the topic had not advanced much beyond the work and tales from the Crusaders. The origins of the word forgotten, across Europe the term Assassin had taken the meaning of "professional murderer". In 1603, the first Western publication on the topic of the Assassins was authored by a court official for King Henry IV of France and was mainly based on the narratives of Marco Polo from his visits to the Near East. While he assembled the accounts of many Western travellers, the author failed to explain the etymology of the term Assassin.

According to the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, based on texts from Alamut, Hassan-i Sabbah tended to call his disciples Asāsīyūn (أساسيون, meaning "people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]"), and derivation from the term hashish is a misunderstanding by foreign travelers.

Another modern author, Edward Burman, states that:

Many scholars have argued, and demonstrated convincingly, that the attribution of the epithet "hashish eaters" or "hashish takers" is a misnomer derived from enemies of the Isma'ilis and was never used by Muslim chroniclers or sources. It was therefore used in a pejorative sense of "enemies" or "disreputable people". This sense of the term survived into modern times with the common Egyptian usage of the term Hashasheen in the 1930s to mean simply "noisy or riotous". It is unlikely that the austere Hassan-i Sabbah indulged personally in drug taking ... there is no mention of that drug hashish in connection with the Persian Assassins – especially in the library of Alamut ("the secret archives").

The name "Assassin" is often said to derive from the Arabic word Hashishin or "users of hashish", was originally applied to the Nizari Ismaelis by the rival Mustali Ismailis during the fall of the Ismaili Fatimid Empire and the separation of the two Ismaili streams, there is little evidence hashish was used to motivate the assassins, contrary to the beliefs of their medieval enemies. It is possible that the term hashishiyya or hashishi in Arabic sources was used metaphorically in its abusive sense relating to use of hashish, which due to its effects on the mind state, is outlawed in Islam. Modern versions of this word include Mahashish used in the same derogatory sense, albeit less offensive nowadays, as the use of the substance is more widespread.

Idries Shah, a sufi scholar using Arkon Daraul as a pen name, described them as 'druggers' that used hashish "in stupefying candidates for the ephemeral visit to paradise".

The Sunni Muslims also used the term mulhid to refer to the Assassins, which is also recorded by the traveller and Franciscan William of Rubruck as mulidet.

Military tactics

"They call him Shaykh-al-Hashishin. He is their Elder, and upon his command all of the men of the mountain come out or go in ... they are believers of the word of their elder and everyone everywhere fears them, because they even kill kings."

—Benjamin of Tudela

Remains of the Alamut castle in Qazvin, Iran

In pursuit of their religious and political goals, the Ismailis adopted various military strategies popular in the Middle Ages. One such method was that of assassination, the selective elimination of prominent rival figures. The murders of political adversaries were usually carried out in public spaces, creating resounding intimidation for other possible enemies. Throughout history, many groups have resorted to assassination as a means of achieving political ends. The assassinations were committed against those whose elimination would most greatly reduce aggression against the Ismailis and, in particular, against those who had perpetrated massacres against the community. A single assassination was usually employed in contrast with the widespread bloodshed which generally resulted from factional combat. Assassins are also said to be adept in furusiyya, or the Islamic warrior code, where they are trained in combat, disguises, and equestrianism. Codes of conduct are followed, and the hashashin are taught in the art of war, linguistics, and strategies. Assassins never allowed their women to be at their fortresses during military campaigns, both for protection and secrecy. This is a tradition first made by Hassan when he sent his wife and daughters to Girdkuh when a famine was created during the Seljuk siege of Alamut. For about two centuries, the Assassins specialized in assassinating their religious and political enemies.

Rashid ad-Din Sinan the Grand Master of the Assassins at Masyaf successfully kept Saladin off his territory.

The first instance of murder in the effort to establish a Nizari Ismaili state in Persia is widely considered to be the killing of Seljuq vizier, Nizam al-Mulk in 1092. Carried out by a man dressed as a Sufi whose identity remains unclear, the vizier's murder in a Seljuq court is distinctive of exactly the type of visibility for which missions of the Assassins have been significantly exaggerated. Other notable victims of the Assassins include the emir of Homs Janah ad-Dawla, Fatimid vizier al-Afdal Shahanshan (1121), Seljuk atabeg Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi (1126), Fatimid caliph al-Amir bi-Ahkami’l-Lah (1130), atabeg of Damascus Taj al-Mulk Buri (1132), and Abbasid caliphs al-Mustarshid (1135) and ar-Rashid (1138). The first known Frank killed by the Assassins was Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, in 1152.

While the Seljuqs and Crusaders both employed murder as a military means of disposing of factional enemies, during the Alamut period almost any murder of political significance in the Islamic lands was attributed to the Ismailis. So inflated had this association grown that, in the work of orientalist scholars such as Bernard Lewis, the Ismailis were equated with the politically active fida'is and thus were regarded as a radical and heretical sect known as the Assassins.

The military approach of the Nizari Ismaili state was largely a defensive one, with strategically chosen sites that appeared to avoid confrontation wherever possible without the loss of life. But the defining characteristic of the Nizari Ismaili state was that it was scattered geographically throughout Persia and Syria. The Alamut castle therefore was only one of a nexus of strongholds throughout the regions where Ismailis could retreat to safety if necessary. West of Alamut in the Shahrud Valley, the major fortress of Lamasar served as just one example of such a retreat. In the context of their political uprising, the various spaces of Ismaili military presence took on the name dar al-hijra (دار الهجرة; land of migration, place of refuge). The notion of the dar al-hijra originates from the time of Muhammad, who migrated with his followers from persecution to a safe haven in Yathrib (Medina). In this way, the Fatimids found their dar al-hijra in North Africa. From 1101 to 1118, attacks and sieges were made on the fortresses, conducted by combined forces of Seljuk, Berkyaruq, and Sanjar. Although with the cost of lives and the capture and execution of assassin dai Ahmad ibn Attash, the hashashin managed to hold their ground and repel the attacks until the Mongol invasion. Likewise, during the revolt against the Seljuqs, several fortresses served as spaces of refuge for the Ismailis.

Assassination

14th-century painting of the successful assassination of Nizam al-Mulk, vizier of the Seljuq Empire, by an Assassin. It is often considered their most significant assassination.

At their peak, many of the assassinations of the day were often attributed to the hashashin. Even though the Crusaders and the other factions employed personal assassins, the fact that the hashashin performed their assassinations in full view of the public, often in broad daylight, gave them a distinct reputation.

During the Seljuk invasion after the death of Muhammad I Tapar, a new Seljuk sultan emerged with the coronation of Tapar's brother Ahmad Sanjar. When Sanjar rebuffed the ambassadors who were sent by Hassan for peace negotiations, Hassan sent his Assassins to the sultan. Sanjar woke up one morning with a dagger stuck in the ground beside his bed. Alarmed, he kept the matter a secret. A messenger from Hassan arrived and stated, "Did I not wish the sultan well that the dagger which was struck in the hard ground would have been planted on your soft breast". For the next several decades there ensued a ceasefire between the Nizaris and the Seljuk. Sanjar himself pensioned the Assassins on taxes collected from the lands they owned, gave them grants and licenses, and even allowed them to collect tolls from travelers.

Downfall and aftermath

View of Alamut besieged. The last Grand Master of the Assassins at Alamut Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah (1255–1256) was executed by Hulagu Khan after a devastating siege

The Assassins were eradicated by the Mongol Empire during the well-documented invasion of Khwarizm. They probably dispatched their assassins to kill Möngke Khan. Thus, a decree was handed over to the Mongol commander Kitbuqa who began to assault several Hashashin fortresses in 1253 before Hulagu's advance in 1256. The Mongols besieged Alamut on December 15, 1256. The Assassins recaptured and held Alamut for a few months in 1275, but they were crushed and their political power was lost forever.

The Syrian branch of the Assassins was taken over by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in 1273. The Mamluks continued to use the services of the remaining Assassins: in the 14th century Ibn Battuta reported their fixed rate of pay per murder. In exchange, they were allowed to exist.

According to the historian Yaqut al-Hamawi, the Böszörmény, (Izmaleita or Ismaili/Nizari) denomination of Muslims who lived in the Kingdom of Hungary from the 10th to the 13th centuries, were employed as mercenaries by the kings of Hungary. However, following the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary, their community was vanquished by the end of the 13th century due to the Inquisitions ordered by the Catholic Church during the reign of Coloman, King of Hungary. It is said that the Assassins are the ancestors of those given the surname Hajaly, derived from the word "hajal", a rare species of bird found in the mountains of Syria near Masyaf. The hajal (bird) was often used as a symbol of the Assassin's order.

Legends and folklore

The legends of the Assassins had much to do with the training and instruction of Nizari fida'is, famed for their public missions during which they often gave their lives to eliminate adversaries. Historians have contributed to the tales of fida'is being fed with hashish as part of their training. Whether fida'is were actually trained or dispatched by Nizari leaders is unconfirmed, but scholars including Vladimir Ivanov purport that the assassinations of key figures including Saljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk likely provided encouraging impetus to others in the community who sought to secure the Nizaris protection from political aggression. Originally, a "local and popular term" first applied to the Ismailis of Syria, the label was orally transmitted to Western historians and thus found itself in their histories of the Nizaris.

The tales of the fida'is' training collected from anti-Ismaili historians and orientalist writers were compounded and compiled in Marco Polo's account, in which he described a "secret garden of paradise". After being drugged, the Ismaili devotees were said to be taken to a paradise-like garden filled with attractive young maidens and beautiful plants in which these fida'is would awaken. Here, they were told by an "old" man that they were witnessing their place in Paradise and that should they wish to return to this garden permanently, they must serve the Nizari cause. So went the tale of the "Old Man in the Mountain", assembled by Marco Polo and accepted by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an 18th-century Austrian orientalist writer responsible for much of the spread of this legend. Until the 1930s, von Hammer's retelling of the Assassin legends served as the standard account of the Nizaris across Europe.

Another one of Hassan's recorded methods includes causing the hashashin to be vilified by their contemporaries. One story goes that Hassan al-Sabah set up a trick to make it appear as if he had decapitated one of his hashashin and the "dead" hashashin's head lay at the foot of his throne. It was actually one of his men buried up to his neck covered with blood. He invited his hashashin to speak to it. He said that he used special powers to allow it to communicate. The supposed talking head would tell the hashashin about paradise after death if they gave all their hearts to the cause. After the trick was played, Hassan had the man killed and his head placed on a stake in order to cement the deception.

A well-known legend tells how Count Henry of Champagne, returning from Armenia, spoke with Grand Master Rashid ad-Din Sinan at al-Kahf. The count claimed to have the most powerful army and at any moment he claimed he could defeat the Hashshashin, because his army was 10 times larger. Rashid replied that his army was instead the most powerful, and to prove it he told one of his men to jump off from the top of the castle in which they were staying. The man did. Surprised, the count immediately recognized that Rashid's army was indeed the strongest, because it did everything at his command, and Rashid further gained the count's respect.

Modern works on the Nizaris have elucidated their history and, in doing so, dispelled popular histories from the past as mere legends. In 1933, under the direction of the Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III, the Islamic Research Association was developed. Historian Vladimir Ivanov was central to both this institution and the 1946 Ismaili Society of Bombay. Cataloguing a number of Ismaili texts, Ivanov provided the ground for great strides in modern Ismaili scholarship.

In recent years, Peter Willey has provided interesting evidence that goes against the Assassin folklore of earlier scholars. Drawing on its established esoteric doctrine, Willey asserts that the Ismaili understanding of Paradise is a deeply symbolic one. While the Qur'anic description of Heaven includes natural imagery, Willey argues that no Nizari fida'i would seriously believe that he was witnessing Paradise simply by awakening in a beauteous garden. The Nizaris' symbolic interpretation of the Qur'anic description of Paradise serves as evidence against the possibility of such an exotic garden used as motivation for the devotees to carry out their armed missions. Furthermore, Willey points out that a courtier of Hulagu Khan, Juvayni, surveyed the Alamut castle just before the Mongol invasion. In his reports about the fortress, there are elaborate descriptions of sophisticated storage facilities and the famous Alamut library. However, even this anti-Ismaili historian makes no mention of the gardens on the Alamut grounds. Having destroyed a number of texts in the library's collection, deemed by Juvayni to be heretical, it would be expected that he would pay significant attention to the Nizari gardens, particularly if they were the site of drug use and temptation. Having not once mentioned such gardens, Willey concludes that there is no sound evidence in favour of these legends.

Fortresses in Syria

Map of the Crusader states, showing the area controlled by the Assassins around Masyaf, slightly above the center, in white.

During the mid-12th century the Assassins captured or acquired several fortresses in the Nusayriyah Mountain Range in coastal Syria, including Masyaf, Rusafa, al-Kahf, al-Qadmus, Khawabi, Sarmin, Quliya, Ulayqa, Maniqa, Abu Qubays and Jabal al-Summaq. For the most part, the Assassins maintained full control over these fortresses until 1270–1273 when the Mamluk sultan Baibars annexed them. Most were dismantled afterwards, while those at Masyaf and Ulayqa were later rebuilt. From then on, the Ismailis maintained limited autonomy over those former strongholds as loyal subjects of the Mamluks.

In popular culture

Further information: Assassins in popular culture

The Hashashin were part of Medieval culture, and they were either demonized or romanticized. The Hashashin appeared frequently in the art and literature of the Middle Ages, sometimes illustrated as one of the knight's archenemies and as a quintessential villain during the crusades.

The word Assassin, in variant forms, had already passed into European usage in this general sense as a term for a hired professional murderer. The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani, who died in 1348, tells how the lord of Lucca sent 'his assassins' (i suoi assassini) to Pisa to kill a troublesome enemy there. Even earlier, Dante, in a passing reference in the 19th canto of the Inferno, speaks of 'the treacherous assassin' (lo perfido assassin); his fourteenth-century commentator Francesco da Buti, explaining a term which for some readers at the time may still have been strange and obscure, remarks: 'Assassino è colui che uccide altrui per danari' (An assassin is one who kills others for money).

The most widespread awareness of the Assassins in modern Europe, and their incorporation into the Romantic tradition, was created by Austrian historian and Orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall through his 1818 book, Die Geschichte der Assassinen aus morgenländischen Quellen (translated into English in 1835 as The History of the Assassins). This work was the standard one on the history of the Assassins in the West until the 1930s.

The Assassins appear in many role-playing games and video games, especially in massively multiplayer online games. The assassin character class is a common feature of many such games, usually specializing in single combat and stealth skills, often combined in order to defeat an opponent without exposing the assassin to counter-attack.

• The Exile series of action role-playing games revolves around a time-traveling Syrian Assassin who assassinates various religious historical figures and modern world leaders.
• The Assassin's Creed video game series portrays a heavily fictionalized Ḥashshāshīn order, which has expanded beyond its Levantine confines and is depicted to have existed throughout recorded history (along with their nemesis, the Knights Templar). Both orders are presented as fundamentally philosophical, rather than as religious, in nature, and are expressly said to predate the faiths that their real-life counterparts arose from, thus allowing for the expansion of their respective "histories" both before and after their factual time-frames. However, Assassin's Creed draws much of its content from historical facts, and even incorporates as the creed itself the purported last words from Hassan i Sabbah: "Nothing is true; everything is permitted" (though the sources for that quote are largely unreliable). The series has since developed into a franchise, comprising novels, comic books, and a film.
• In the Sword of Islam DLC for Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Crusader Kings II, the Hashashin are a holy order associated with Shi'a Islam. Once established, Shi'ite rulers may hire the Hashashin to fight against non-Shi'a realms, and can potentially vassalize them. The Monks and Mystics DLC expands their role, making the Assassins a unique secret society that Shi'a characters may join.
• In the Netflix series Marco Polo, the emperor Kublai Khan is attacked by a group of assassins, which is said to be the work of the Hashshashin, who are led by the Old Man of the Mountain according to the Taoist monk Hundred Eyes, in the King's court. The Old Man of the Mountain is then pursued by Marco Polo and Byamba. The episode Hashshashin (2014) shows how the Old Man leads Marco Polo into a hallucinogenic state.
• Louis L'Amour, in his book The Walking Drum, used the assassins and the stronghold of Alamut as the location of his main character's enslaved father. Mathurin Kerbouchard, who initially seeks his father in the 12th century Moor-controlled Spain, then throughout Europe, must ultimately travel to the Stronghold of Alamut in order to rescue Jean Kerbouchard.
• The Faceless men, a guild of assassins in the book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin and in the TV series Game of Thrones are inspired by the Order of Assassins
• The Fate franchise of visual novels features the sect quite prominently with Hassan-i-sabbah, also known as the "Old Man of the Mountain" (Japanese: 山の翁, Yama no Okina), being a pseudonym of 19 wraiths able to be summoned into the assassin class. Their Noble Phantasm is called Zabaniya (in Japanese: ザバニヤ), from Arabic (Az-zabānīya: الزبانية), named after the 19 Angels that guard Hell in the Islamic faith. In both Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel, 'Assassin' is a character (servant of Kotomine Kirei and Matō Zouken respectively) that portrays a leader of Hashashins. Hassan-i Sabbah himself features in Fate/Grand Order.

See also

• Nizari Ismaili state
• History of Nizari Ismailism
• List of assassinations by the Assassins

References

• Burman, Edward (1987). The Assassins. Wellingborough: Crucible. ISBN 1-85274-027-2. 
• Daftary, Farhad (1998). A Short History of the Ismailis: Traditions of a Muslim Community. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-84511-717-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=31nuCZESLe0C. Retrieved September 15, 2010. 
• Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85084-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=cSO9zh61AGEC&dq=Qadmus+Mamluk&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
• Hodgson, Marshall G. S. (2005). The Secret Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizârî Ismâʻîlîs Against the Islamic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1916-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=GU7uAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved September 15, 2010. 
• Ivanov, Vladimir (1960). Alamut and Lamasar: two mediaeval Ismaili strongholds in Iran, an archaeological study. Tehran, Iran: Ismaili Society. p. 21. https://books.google.com/books?id=O_NtAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved September 15, 2010. 
• Lewis, Bernard (2003). The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam. Phoenix. ISBN 978-1-84212-451-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=rRZAPgAACAAJ. Retrieved September 15, 2010. 
• Lockhart, Laurence (1930). Hasan-i-Sabbah and the Assassins. London: University of London. 
• Maalouf, Amin (1998). Samarkand. New York: Interlink Publishing Group. 
• Nowell, Charles E. (1947). "The Old Man of the Mountain". Speculum 22 (4). 
• Raphael, Kate (2011). Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols. Taylor & Francis US. ISBN 0-415-56925-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=dfJN1UicpRoC&dq=Qadmous+Mamluk. 
• Wasserman, James (2001). The Templars and the Assassins. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International. ISBN 978-1-59477-873-5. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Templars_and_the_Assassins.html?id=JVj0RN_o3TQC&redir_esc=y. Retrieved July 8, 2012. 
• Willey, Peter (2005). Eagle's Nest: Ismaili Castles in Iran and Syria. New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers. ISBN 1-85043-464-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=RTyTn4ErwRIC. Retrieved September 15, 2010. 

External links

• History of the Ismai'ili Assassin Society (c. 1080—1275)