James Waterson

So, on the death of Mohammed, Islam divided into two groups: the Shia-tu Ali, or “party of Ali”, (latter shortened to Shia) who wanted Mohammed’s nephew Ali as caliph, and the rest of the Moslems (not named yet but eventually Sunnis), who wanted Mohammed’s father-in-law, Abu Bakr. Ali eventually became the fourth caliph, after the murder of his predecessor Uthman; however, Mohammed’s widow (well, one of them) Aisha rebelled against Ali. Although defeated, the distraction she caused allowed Uthman’s clan, the Umayyads, to break away and seize Syria. Ali went against Muawiya, the leader of the Umayyads, but was persuaded to negotiate. This apparent lack of resolve caused a number of Ali’s followers to break away and become the Khawarij. Ali was killed by a Khawarijite and his son Husain was killed by Umayyads at Karbala. Yet another rebellion was started in the name of Ibn al-Hanafiyya, a descendent of Ali, who was proclaimed as the Mahdi and an Imam. He was defeated but his descendents continued a line of imams, eventually allying temporarily with the Abbasids who defeated the Umayyads (except for the Islamic states in Spain, who remained Umayyads, and Morocco, who became Idrisids). The succession of Shia imams was disputed after the death of the sixth, Jafar al-Sadiq, dividing Shiites into Seveners, who followed the line of Jafar’s son Ismail and became Ismailis, and Twelvers, who followed the line of Musa, another of Jafar’s sons. The Shiites quickly fell out with the Abbasids and there were various rebellions with varying success; however, Shiite missionaries were more successful. An Ismaili Shiite imam, who claimed descent from Mohammed’s wife Fatima, eventually was able to seize Egypt and found the Fatimid dynasty. However, another group rejected the first Fatimid successor and became the Qarmatians, who took over Bahrain and Yemen. The weirdest of the Fatamid caliphs was al-Hakim, who killed all the dogs in Cairo and made it forbidden for women to wear shoes. A revolt, presumably lead by shoe fetishists and dog lovers, sprung up in the name of the Umayyads, whose closest stronghold was Spain. Al-Hakim predicted he would disappear only to return one day in the distant future. One day he disappeared; a small group of followers, the duruz or Druse, await his return. The Fatamids came increasingly under control of their military; eventually a wazir had the heir to the throne, Nazir, murdered so he could manipulate a younger son. Yet another splinter group, the Naziri, sprung up, lead by a Persian convert from Twelver Shiism, Hasan-al-Sabbah.


OK, got all that? The Assassins were Shiite Sevener Ismaili Naziris. Their choice of assassination as a method was developed around several things – they were a small group and thus could not field armies; they had very secure local strongholds; members of the group were fanatically loyal to the leader; they excelled at infiltration tactics, often becoming trusted guards of their targets until it was time to do them in; and the Islamic world was so unstable that the death of a single ruler could send one of the states into chaos until potential successors sorted things out (the same instability made the First Crusade relatively easy for the Christians). The Assassins gradually extended their political dominion until the controlled a narrow strip of mountainous land extending from Persia to Syria; it’s the Syrian branch the Crusaders met up with; at first the Assassins were friendly with the Crusaders, and vice versa, under “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle. This didn’t last; eventually the Assassins were just as likely to do away with a Christian ruler as a Moslem one.


The Assassin’s eventual downfall came when they ran into a people just as ruthless as they were – the Mongols. Mongol forces, assisted by Chinese siege engineers, reduced one Assassin fortress after another, and the traditional Assassin infiltration methods didn’t work very well with a people of physically different appearance. The Head of the Assassins did dispatch a force of over 400 to Mongolia, disguised as a trading caravan, to assassinate Mongke Khan – they failed (it isn’t quite sure how). The Assassins eventually submitted to the Abbasids and took to taking jobs for hire rather than for religious regions; ironically, their descendents, the Ismailis, are now considered the most peaceful and tolerant group in Islam.


Author James Waterson does an extremely good job with this complicated story. There are chronological and genealogical tables to help the reader keep track of the players – obviously a fairly difficult job – and maps depicting the scene of the action. Waterson displays some sympathy with the Assassins, pointing out that they never attacked women, children, or ordinary people – only political figures hostile to their sect and only then when a murder could actually make a difference. The subtext, of course, is that the Assassins never had the strength to undertake conventional military action. It’s instructive to read about how much religious – or ostensibly religious – disunity there was in the Islamic world, with dozens of competing sects more or less hostile to each other. There are, of course, stinging parallels with modern Islam and the tacit or overt acceptance of terrorist acts because Islam isn’t strong enough to do anything else; conversely, many of the West’s tactics against terrorist groups are reminiscent of the Assassins – if you kill off a leader, somebody else will come along eventually, but in the meantime you’ll have some breathing space. The Israelis seem to use this technique with considerable success.… (mais)