Hassan-i Sabbah

1
Hassan-i Sabbah
Leader of Nizr Ism'l state
Hassan-i Sabbah
Title
Lord of Alamut
[1]
Born 1050s
Died 12 June 1124 (aged74) (26 Rabi'o-Saani 518)
Jurisprudence Ismaili Shi`ism
Main interest(s) Islamic theology, Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic law
Notable idea(s) Evolution, Oneness of God
Artistic rendering of Hassan-e Sabbah
Hassan-i Sabbah
2
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Hassan-i Sabbah
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v
t
e
[2]
Hassan-i Sabbh (Persian: ; 1050s 1124) was a Nizr Isml missionary who converted a community in
the late 11th century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Persia. He later seized a mountain fortress
called Alamut and used it as the headquarters for a decentralized Persian insurrection against the dominant Seljuk
Turks. He founded a group of fedayeen whose members are sometimes referred to as the Hashshashin, or
"Assassins".
Sources
Hassan is thought to have written an autobiography, which did not survive but seems to underlie the first part of an
anonymous Isma'ili biography entitled Sargudhasht-i Sayyidn (Persian: ). The latter is known only from
quotations made by later Persian authors.
[3]
Hassan also wrote a treatise, in Persian, on the doctrine of ta'lm, called,
al-Fusul al-arba'a
[4]
The text is no longer extant, but fragments are cited or paraphrased by al-Shahrastn and
several Persian historians. He is the original Grand Master creating many of its main principles and foundations.
Early life and conversion
Qom and Rayy
The possibly autobiographical information found in Sargudhasht-i Sayyidn is the main source for Hassan's
background and early life. According to this, Hassan-i Sabbh was born in the city of Qom (modern Iran) in Persia in
the 1050s to a family of Twelver Shah. Born and raised a Persian,
[5][6]
his father was a Kufan Arab who claimed
Yemenite origins, who left the Sawd of Kufa (modern Iraq) to settle in the (predominantly Shi'a) town of Qom.
[7]
Early in his life, his family moved to Rayy. Rayy (Modern Tehran) was a city that had seen a lot of radical thought
since the 9th century and it had seen Hamdan Qarma as one of its voices. It had also seen a lot of missionary work
by various sects, each as impassioned as the next.Wikipedia:Citation needed
It was in this centre of religious matrices that Hassan developed a keen interest in metaphysical matters and adhered
to the Twelver code of instruction. From 7 to 17,
[8]
he studied at home, and mastered perfectly palmistry, languages,
philosophy, astronomy and mathematics (especially geometry).
[9]
Rayy was also home to the activities of Isml missionaries in the Jibal. At the time, Isma'ilism was a growing
movement in Persia and other lands east of Egypt.
[10]
The Persian Isma'ilis supported the da'wa ("mission") directed
by the Fatimid caliphate of Cairo and recognised the authority of the Imam-Caliph al-Mustanir (d. 1094), though
since some time, Isfahan rather than Cairo may have functioned as their principal headquarters. The Ism'l mission
worked on three layers: the lowest was the foot soldier or fid', followed by the rafk or "comrade", and finally the
D or "missionary". It has been suggested that its popularity in Persia owed something to dissatisfaction with their
Seljuk rulers, who had recently removed local rulers.
In Rayy, young Hassan came in touch with Amira Darrab, a comrade, who introduced him to Ism'l doctrine.
Hassan was initially unimpressed. As he met Darrab, participating in many passionate debates that discussed the
merits of Isml over Ms, Hassan's respect grew. Impressed with the conviction of Darrab, Hassan decided to
delve deeper into Ism'l doctrines and beliefs. Hassan began to see merit in switching to Isml.
Hassan-i Sabbah
5
Conversion to Ismailism and training in Cairo
At the age of 17, Hassan converted and swore allegiance to the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo. Hassan's studies did not end
with his crossing over. He further studied under two other diyyayn, and as he proceeded on his path, he was looked
upon with eyes of respect.
Hassan's austere and devoted commitment to the da'wa brought him in audience with the chief missionary of the
region: Abdu l-Malik ibn Attash. Ibn Attash, suitably impressed with the young seventeen-year-old Hassan, made
him Deputy Missionary and advised him to go to Cairo to further his studies.
However, Hassan did not go to Cairo. Some historians have postulated that Hassan, following his conversion, was
playing host to some members of the Fatimid caliphate, and this was leaked to the anti-Fatimid and anti-Sha vizier
Nizam al-Mulk. This prompted his abandoning Rayy and heading to Cairo in 1076.
Hassan took about 2 years to reach Cairo. Along the way he toured many other regions that did not fall in the general
direction of Egypt. Isfahan was the first city that he visited. He was hosted by one of the Missionaries of his youth, a
man who had taught the youthful Hassan in Rayy. His name was Resi Abufasl and he further instructed Hassan.
From here he went to Caucasian Albania (current Azerbaijan), hundreds of miles to the north, and from there
through Armenia. Here he attracted the ire of priests following a heated discussion, and Hassan was thrown out of
the town he was in.
He then turned south and traveled through Iraq, reached Damascus in Syria. He left for Egypt from Palestine.
Records exist, some in the fragmentary remains of his autobiography, and from another biography written by
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in 1310, to date his arrival in Egypt at 30 August 1078.
It is unclear how long Hassan stayed in Egypt: about 3 years is the usually accepted amount of time. He continued
his studies here, and became a full missionary.
Return to Persia
Whilst he was in Cairo, studying and preaching, he incurred the displeasure of the Chief of the Army, Badr
al-Jamal. This may have been a result of the fact that Hassan supported Nizar, the Ismaili Imam-Caliph
al-Mustanir's elder son, as the next Imam. Hassan was briefly imprisoned by Badr al-Jamali. The collapse of a
minaret of the jail was taken to be an omen in the favor of Hassan and he was promptly released and
deported.Wikipedia:Citation needed The ship that he was traveling on was wrecked. He was rescued and taken to
Syria. Traveling via Aleppo and Baghdad, he terminated his journey at Isfahan in 1081.
Hassan's life now was totally devoted to the mission. Hassan toured extensively throughout Persia. In northern
Persia, touching the south shore of the Caspian Sea, are the mountains of Alborz. These mountains were home to a
people who had traditionally resisted attempts at Turkish subjugation; this place was also of Sha leaning. Of those
people he met a strong willed man named Datyous who made the leap of faith into Christianity. Born in what is now
Shiraz, Datyous became a key factor in Hassans mission. Within the mountains, in the region of Daylam, Hassan
chose to pursue his missionary activities, after many experiences with Datyous of the Mahmoudian Clan. With
Hassan's teachings Datyous became one of the Chief Missionary's of that area and sent his personally trained
missionaries into the rest of the region.
The news of this Ism'l's activities reached Nizam al-Mulk, who dispatched his soldiers with the orders for Hassan's
capture. Hassan evaded them, and went deeper into the mountains.
Hassan-i Sabbah
6
Capture of Alamut
The Hashshashin's fortress of Alamut Castle.
His search for a base from which to guide his mission ended when in
1088 he found the castle of Alamut in the Rudbar area (modern
'Qazvin, Iran'). It was a fort that stood guard over a valley that was
about fifty kilometers long and five kilometers wide. This fortress had
been built about the year 865; legend has it that it was built by a king
who saw his eagle fly up to and perch upon a rock, a propitious omen,
the importance of which this king, Wah Sudan ibn Marzuban,
understood. Likening the perching of the eagle to a lesson given by it,
he called the fort Aluh Amu(kh)t: the "Eagles' Teaching".
Hassans takeover of the fort was conducted without any significant
bloodshed. To effect this transition Hassan employed a patient and
deliberate strategy, one which took the better part of two years to
effect. First Hassan sent his Daiyyn and Rafks to win over the
villages in the valley, and their inhabitants. Next, key people amongst
this populace were converted, and finally, in 1090, Hassan took over
the fort by infiltrating it with his converts. Hassan gave the former
owner a draft drawn on the name of a wealthy landlord and told him to
obtain the promised money from this man; when the landlord saw the
draft with Hassans signature, he immediately paid the amount to the
fort's owner, astonishing him. Another, probably apocryphal version of the takeover states that Hassan offered 3000
gold dinars to the fort's owner for the amount of land that would fit a buffalos hide. The terms having been agreed
upon, Hassan cut the hide into strips and linked them into a large ring around the perimeter of the fort, whose owner
was thus undone by his own greed. This story bears a striking resemblance to Virgil's account of Dido's founding of
Carthage.
While legend holds that after capturing Alamut Hassan thereafter devoted himself so faithfully to study, that in the
nearly 35 years he was there he never left his quarters, excepting only two times when he went up to the roof. This
reported isolation is highly doubtful, given his extensive recruiting and organizational involvement in the growing
Ism'l insurrections in Persia and Syria. Nonetheless, Hassan was highly educated and was known for austerity,
studying, translating, praying, fasting, and directing the activities of the Dawa: the propagation of the Nizar
doctrine was headquartered at Alamut. He knew the Qur'n by heart, could quote extensively from the texts of most
Muslim sects, and apart from philosophy, was well versed in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, medicine,
architecture, and the major scientific disciplines of his time. In a major departure from tradition, Hassan declared
Persian to be the language of holy literature for Nizaris, a decision that resulted in all the Nizari Ism'l literature
from Persia, Syria, Afghanistan and Central Asia to be transcribed in Persian for several centuries.
From this point on his community and its branches spread throughout Iran and Syria and came to be called
Hashshashin or Assassins, also known as the Fedayin (Meaning 'The Martyrs', or 'Men Who Accept
Death').Wikipedia:Citation needed
Hassan-i Sabbah
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Notes
[1] [1] Khudwand-i Alamt
[2] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Template:Ismailism& action=edit
[3] Daftary,Farhad, The Isma'ilis, p. 311.
[4] Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies, (I.B.Tauris, 2004), 115.
[5] asan-i-abbh and the Assassins, Laurence Lockhart, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 5, No. 4
(1930), pp. 675-696.
[6] The Old Man of the Mountain, Charles E. Nowell, Speculum, Vol. 22, No. 4, Medieval Academy of America, (Oct., 1947), pp. 497-519.
[7] Farhad Daftary, The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines, (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 311;"Hasan was born in the mid-1050s in
Qumm into a Twelver Shi'i family. His father, 'Ali b. Muhammad b Ja'far b. al-Husayn b. Muhammad b al-Sabbah al-Himyari, a Kufan Arab
claiming Yamani origins..."
[8] Nizam al-Mulk Tusi, pg. 420, foot note No. 3
[9] E. G. Brown Literary History of Persia, Vol. 1, pg. 201.
[10] Daftary, Farhad, The Isma'ilis, pp. 310-11.
References
Firdous-a-iblees by anayat ullah
Secondary sources
Daftary, Farhad, The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines. 2nd ed (1990). Cambridge et al., 2007.
Irwin, Robert. "Islam and the Crusades, 1096 1699". In The Oxford History of the Crusades, ed. Jonathan Riley
Smith. Oxford, 2002. 211 57.
Further reading
Firdous-a-iblees by anayat ullah
Primary sources
Hassan-i Sabbah, al-Ful al-arba'a ("The Four Chapters"), tr. Marshall G.S. Hodgson, in Ismaili Literature
Anthology. A Shi'i Vision of Islam, ed. Hermann Landolt, Samira Sheikh and Kutub Kassam. London, 2008.
pp.149 52. Persian treatise on the doctrine of ta'lm. The text is no longer extant, but fragments are cited or
paraphrased by al-Shahrastn and several Persian historians.
Sargudhasht-i Sayyidn
Nizam al-Mulk
al-Ghazali
Secondary sources
Daftary, Farhad, A Short History of the Ism'ls. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
Daftary, Farhad, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ism'ls. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 1994. Reviewed
by Babak Nahid at Ismaili.net (http:/ / www. ismaili. net/ Source/ fd0328d. html)
Daftary, Farhad, "Hasan-i Sabbh and the Origins of the Nizr Ism'l movement." In Mediaeval Ism'l History
and Thought, ed. Farhad Daftary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 181 204.
Hodgson, Marshall, The Order of Assassins. The Struggle of the Early Nizr Ism'l Against the Islamic World.
The Hague: Mouton, 1955.
Hodgson, Marshall, "The Ism'l State." In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol
Periods, ed. J.A. Boyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. 422 82.
Lewis, Bernard, The Assassins. A Radical Sect in Islam. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
Madelung, Wilferd, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran. Albany: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988. 101 5.
Hassan-i Sabbah
8
External links
HASAN BIN SABBAH AND NIZARI ISMAILI STATE IN ALAMUT (http:/ / www. ismaili. net/ histoire/
history06/ history601. html)
The life of Hassan-i-Sabah from an Ismaili point of view. (http:/ / www. iis. ac. uk/ view_article.
asp?ContentID=110462) Focuses on assassination as a tactic of asymmetrical warfare and has a small section on
Hasan-i-Sabah's work as a scholar.
Introduction to The Assassin Legends (http:/ / www. iis. ac. uk/ view_article. asp?ContentID=101164) (From The
Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis, London: I. B. Tauris, 1994; reprinted 2001.)
The life of Hassan-i-Sabbah as part of an online book on the Assassins of Alamut. (http:/ / www. accampbell.
uklinux. net/ assassins/ assassins-html/ hasan. html)
Arkon Daraul on Hassan-i-Sabbah. (http:/ / www. phinnweb. org/ neuro/ assassins. html)
An illustrated article on the Order of Assassins. (http:/ / www. skewsme. com/ assassin. html)
William S. Burrough's invocation of Hassan-i-Sabbah in Nova Express. (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/
20050830112208sh_re_/ www. linesofadvance. com/ nova. html)
Assassins entry in the Encyclopedia of the Orient. (http:/ / lexicorient. com/ e. o/ assassins. htm)
Review of the book, "The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis (I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd: London, 1994), 213
pp." (http:/ / www. ismaili. net/ Source/ fd0328d. html) by Babak Nahid, Department of Comparative Literature,
University of California, Los Angeles
Hasan bin Sabbah and the secret order of hashishins (http:/ / www. disinfo. com/ archive/ pages/ dossier/ id985/
pg1/ index. html)
Article Sources and Contributors
9
Article Sources and Contributors
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