The Old Man of the Mountains

The Old Man kept at his court such boys of twelve years old as seemed to him destined to become courageous men. When the Old Man sent them into the garden in groups of four, ten or twenty, he gave them hashish to drink. They slept for three days, then they were carried sleeping into the garden where he had them awakened.

When these young men woke, and found themselves in the garden with all these marvelous things, they truly believed themselves to be in paradise. And these damsels were always with them in songs and great entertainments; they received everything they asked for, so that they would never have left that garden of their own will.

And when the Old Man wished to kill someone, he would take him and say: ‘Go and do this thing. I do this because I want to make you return to paradise’. And the assassins go and perform the deed willingly.

                                         — The Adventures of Marco Polo


Marco Polo brought the remarkable tale of Hasan-i Sabbah and his cult of Assassins to the West along with many other strange stories from his travels. He actually visited their former stronghold, the fortress of Alamut (“Eagle’s Guidance”), near Tehran, in 1273 C.E., nearly twenty years after the Mongols had first taken it, and a century and a half after the death of Hasan. 

For centuries beginning just before the First Crusade, the Assassins held the Muslim world in the grip of fear. From his mountain keeps, the Master, as he was called by his murderous devotees, the fidai, directed campaigns of holy terror chiefly against his Turkish and Persian neighbors. Rulers, generals, prime ministers, all could be struck down at any moment not just by a hidden assailant, but by a beggar or holy man on the street, even a trusted member of their own households. When captured, the attackers were contemptuous of death, resisting severe torture without betraying their comrades — sometimes even naming innocent people as their supporters, causing their deaths as well.

Sometimes a ruler would awake with a dagger in the pillow next to him, which usually was enough to make him reconsider his opposition. The great Saladin himself survived at least three attacks, and at times supposedly traveled in an armored wooden box for protection. Yet no Muslim force was ever able to eliminate the threat entirely.

During the Crusades, they were often sent after Christian leaders as well or anyone the Master saw as a threat to his people or power.