Free The Assassins by Bernard Lewis Page B

into marriage with them. To shed the blood of a heretic is more meritorious than to kill seventy Greek infidels."9

For their victims, the assassins were criminal fanatics, engaged in a murderous conspiracy against religion and society. For the Ismailis, they were a corps d'elite in the war against the enemies of the Imam; by striking down oppressors and usurpers, they gave the ultimate proof of their faith and loyalty, and earned immediate and eternal bliss. The Ismailis themselves used the term fcda'i, roughly devotee, of the actual murderer, and an interesting Ismaili poem has been preserved praising their courage, loyalty, and selfless devotion.- In the local Ismaili chronicles of Alamut, cited by Rashid al-Din and Kashani, there is a roll of honour of assassinations, giving the names of the victims and of their pious executioners.
In form, the Ismailis were a secret society, with a system of oaths and initiations and a graded hierarchy of rank and knowledge. The secrets were well kept, and information about them is fragmentary and confused. Orthodox polemists depict the Ismailis as a band of deceitful nihilists who misled their dupes through successive stages of degradation, in the last of which they revealed the full horror of their unbelief. Ismaili writers see the sect as custodians of sacred mysteries, to which the believer could attain only after a long course of preparation and instruction, marked by progressive initiations. The term most commonly used for the organization of the sect is da`wa (in Persian da'vat), meaning mission or preaching; its agents are the dais, or missionaries - literally summoners, who constitute something like an ordained priesthood. In later Ismaili accounts they are variously divided into higher and lower ranks of preachers, teachers, and licentiates. Below them come the mustajibs, literally respondents, the lowest rank of initiates; above them is the hujja (Persian hujjat), or Proof, the senior da'i. The word ja?ira, island, is used to desi nate the territorial or ethnic jurisdiction over which a da'i presides. Like other Islamic sects and orders, the Ismailis often refer to their religious leaders as Elder - Arabic Shaykh or Persian Pir. A term commonly used for members of the sect is rafiq - comrade.2 I

In 1094 the Ismailis faced a major crisis. The Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir, Imam of the time and head of the faith, died in Cairo, leaving a disputed succession. The Ismailis in Persia refused to recognize his successor on the Egyptian throne, and declared their belief that the rightful heir was his ousted elder son Nizar (see above, pp. 34-5). Until this split, the organization in Persia, at least nominally, had been under the supreme authority of the Imam and the Chief Da'i in Cairo. Hasan-i Sabbah had been their agent, first as deputy, then as successor of Abd al-Malik ibn Attash. There was now a complete break, and henceforth the Persian Ismailis neither enjoyed the support nor endured the control of their former masters in Cairo.
A crucial problem was the identity of the Imam - the central figure in the whole theological and political system of the Ismailis. Nizar had been the rightful Imam after al-Mustansir - but Nizar was murdered in prison in Alexandria, and his sons were said to have been killed with him. Some of the Nizaris claimed that Nizar was not really dead but in concealment and would return as Mahdi - that is to say, that the line of Imams was at an end. This school did not survive. What Hassan-i Sabbah taught his followers on this point is not known, but later the doctrine was adopted that the Imamate passed to a grandson of Nizar, who was secretly brought up in Alamut. In one version it was an infant that was smuggled from Egypt to Persia; in another it was a pregnant concubine of Nizar's son that was taken to Alamut, where she gave birth to the new Imam. According to Nizari belief, these things were kept strictly secret at the time, and not made known until many