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effort to deal with the Ismaili menace by military force. Malikshah, the Great Sultan, or supreme overlord of the Seljuq rulers and princes, sent two expeditions, one against Alamut, the other against Quhistan. Both were repelled, the former with the help of supporters and sympathizers from Rudbar and from Qazvin itself. Juvayni cites an Ismaili account of the victory: `Sultan Malikshah, in the beginning of the year 485/io92, dispatched an emir called Arslantash to expel and extirpate Hasan-i Sabbah and all his followers. This emir sat down before Alamut in Jumada i of the said year [JuneJuly, 1092]. At that time Hasan-i Sabbah had with him on Alamut no more than 6o or 7o men; and they had but few stores. They lived on the little they had, a bare subsistence, and kept up the battle with the besiegers. Now one of Hasan's dais, a man called Dihdar Bu-Ali, who came from Zuvara and Ardistan, had his residence in Qazvin, some of the inhabitants of which were his converts; as likewise in the district of Talaqan and Kuh-i Bara and the district of Rayy many people believed in the Sabbahian propaganda; and they all resorted to the man who had settled in Qazvin. Hasan-i Sabbah now appealed to Bu-Ali for help, and he stirred up a host of people from Kuh-i Bara and Talaqan and likewise sent arms and implements of war from Qazvin. Some 300 of these men came to the aid of Hasan-i Sabbah. They threw themselves into Alamut and then with the assistance of the garrison and the support of some of the people of Rudbar, who were in league with them outside the castle, one night at the end of Sha'ban of that year [September-October, 1092], they made a surprise attack upon the army of Arslantash. By divine preordination the army was put to flight and leaving Alamut returned to Malikshah.'I7 The siege of the Ismaili centre in Quhistan was raised when news was received of the death of the Sultan in November 1092.

Meanwhile the Ismailis had achieved their first great success in the art that was to take its name from them - the art of assassination. Their chosen victim was the all-powerful vizier himself, whose efforts to `stem the pus of sedition and excise the virus of inaction' had made him their most dangerous enemy. Hasan-i Sabbah laid his plans carefully: `Our Master', says Rashid al-Din, following - and no doubt adjusting - his Ismaili source, `laid snares and traps so as to catch first of all such fine game as Nizam al-Mulk in the net of death and perdition, and by this act his fame and renown became great. With the jugglery of deceit and the trickery of untruth, with guileful preparations and specious obfuscations, he laid the foundations of the fida'is, and he said: "who of you will rid this state of the evil of Nizam al-Mulk Tusi?" A man called Bu Tahir Arrani laid the hand of acceptance on his breast, and, following the path of error by which he hoped to attain the bliss of the world-to-come, on the night of Friday, the 12th of Ramadan of the year 485 [i6 October iota], in the district of Nihavand at the stage of Sahna, he came in the guise of a Sufi to the litter of Nizam al-Mulk, who was being borne from the audience-place to the tent of his women, and struck him with a knife, and by that blow he suffered martyrdom. Nizam al-Mulk was the first man whom the fida'is killed. Our Master, upon him what he deserves, said: "The killing of this devil is the beginning of bliss."'"
It was the first of a long series of such attacks which, in a calculated war of terror, brought sudden death to sovereigns, princes, generals, governors, and even divines who had condemned Ismaili doctrines and authorized the suppression of those who professed them. `To kill them,' said one such pious opponent, `is more lawful than rainwater. It is the duty of Sultans and kings to conquer and kill them, and cleanse the surface of the earth from their pollution. It is not right to associate or form friendships with them, nor to eat meat butchered by them, nor to enter