ASSASSINS, a military order, a branch of the secret sect of the Ismaelites The secret doctrines of these Ismaelites, who had their head-quarters in Cairo, declared the descendants of Ismael, the last of the seven so-called imaums, to be alone entitled to the califate; and gave an allegorical interpretation to the precepts of Islam, which led, as their adv,ersaries asserted, to considering all positive religions equally right, and all actions morally indifferent. The atrocious career of the A. was but a natural sequence of such teaching. The founder of these last, Hassan-ben-Sabbah-el-Homairi, of Persian descent, and imbued with the free-thinking tendencies of his country, had, about the middle of the 11th c., studied at Nishpur, under the celebrated Mowuek, and had subsequently obtained from Ismaclite dais, or religious leaders, a partial insight into their secret doctrines, and a partial consecration to the rank of dai. But on betaking himself to the central lodge at Cairo, he quarreled with the heads of the sect, and was doomed to banishment. Ile succeeded. however, in making his escape from the ship, and reaching the coast, after which he returned to Persia, everywhere collecting adherents, with the view of founding, upon the Istnaelite model, a secret order of his own, a species of organized society which should be a terror to his most powerful neighbors. In 1090, Hassan conquered the fortress of Alainut, in the Persian district of Rudhar; and continued to increase in strength, intimidating princes and governors by a series of secret murders, and gaining possession of several fortified castles, with their surrounding territories, both in the mountain range south of the Caspian, in Kuhistau, and in the mountains of Syria (Massiat). The internal constitu tion of the which had some resemblance to the orders of Christian knighthood. was as follows: FirA, as supreme and absolute ruler, came the Sheilth.al-jebar, the prince or old man of tire mountain. His vicegerents in ;rebut, Kuhistan. and Syria were the three itat-td-/.-(bir, or grand priors of the order. Next came the Dais and Refiks, which last were not, however, initiated, like the former,,into every stage of the secret doctrines, and had no authority as teachers. To the uninitiated belonged first of all the Fedavies or Fedais—i.e., the devoted: a band of resolute youths, the ever ready and blindly obedient executioners of the old man of the mountain. Before he assigned to them their bloody tasks, he used to have them thrown into a state of ecstasy, by the intoxicating influence of the hashish (the hemp-plant), which circumstance led to the order being called Hashishim, or hemp-eaters. The word was changed by Euro peans into Assassins, and transplanted into the languages of the west with the signifi cation of murderers. The Lasiks, or novices, formed the sixth division of the order, and
the laborers and mechanics the seventh. Upon these, the most rigid observance of they Koran was enjoined; while the initiated, on the contrary, looked upon all positive religion as null. The catechism of the order, placed by Hassan in the hands of his dais, consisted of seven parts, of which the second treated, among other things, of the art of worming themselves into the confidence of men. It is easy to conceive the terror which so unscrupulous a sect must have inspired. Several princes secretly paid tribute to the old man of the mountain. Hassan, who died at the age of 70 (1124 A.D.), appointed as his successor, Kia-Busurg-Omid, one of his grand-priors. Kia-Busurg-Omid was succeeded in 1138 by his son Mohammed, who knew how to maintain his power against Nureddin and Jussuf•Salalieddin. In 1163, Hassan ILwas rash enough to extend the secret privilege of the initiated—exemption, namely, from the positive precepts of religion— to the people generally, and to abolish Islam in the Assassin state, which led to his falling a victim to his brother-in-law's dagger. Under the rule of his son, Mohammed II., who acted in his father's spirit, the Syrian Dai-al-kebir, Sinan, became independent, and entered into negotiations with the Christian king of Jerusalem for coining over, on certain conditions, to the Christian faith; but tha templars killed his envoys, and rejected his overtures, that they might not lose the yearly tribute which they drew from him. Mohammed was poisoned by his son, Hassan III. who. reinstated Islamism, and thence obtained the surname of the New Moslem. Hassan was succeeded by Moham med III. a boy of nine years old, who, by his effeminate rule, led to the overthrow of the order, and was eventually murdered by the command of his son, Rokn-eddin, the seventh and last old man of the mountain. In 1256, the Mongolian prince, HulaFii, burst with his hordes upon the hill Persia held by the Assassins, which amounted to about a hundred, capturing and destroying them. The Syrian branch was also put down about the end of the 13th e., but remnants of the sect still lingered for some time longer in Kuhistan. In 1352, the A. reappeared in Syria, and indeed they are still reported to exist as a heretical sect both there and in Persia. The Persian Ismaelites have an imaum, or superintendent, in the district of Kum, and still inhabit the neighborhood of Alamoot under the name of Hosseinis. The Syrian Ismaelites live in the district of Massiat or Massv:td. Their castle was taken from them in 1809 by the Nossaries, but afterwards restored. See Hammer, Geschkitte der Assassinen (Scutt. and Tub. 1818); Guyard, Fragments (1874).