Alamut Castle

Alamut, which is the most famous of these strongholds, was thought impregnable to any military attack and was fabled for its heavenly gardens, library, and laboratories where philosophers, scientists, and theologians could debate in intellectual freedom.^[1]


The stronghold survived adversaries including the Seljuq and Khwarezmian empires. In 1256, Rukn al-Din Khurshah surrendered the fortress to the invading Mongols, who dismantled it and destroyed its famous library holdings. Though commonly assumed that the Mongol conquest obliterated the Nizari Ismailis presence at Alamut, the fortress was recaptured in 1275 by Nizari forces, demonstrating that while the destruction and damage to the Ismailis in that region was extensive, it was not the complete annihilation attempted by the Mongols. However, the castle was seized once again and fell under the rule of Hulagu Khan’s eldest son in 1282. Afterward, the castle was of only regional significance, passing through the hands of various local powers.


Today, it lies in ruins.

Legend and folklore[edit]

During the medieval period, Western scholarship on the Ismailis contributed to the popular view of the community as a radical sect of assassins, believed to be trained for the precise murder of their adversaries. By the 14th century AD, European scholarship on the topic had not advanced much beyond the work and tales from the Crusaders.^[8]: 14 The origins of the word forgotten, across Europe the term assassin' had taken the meaning of "professional murderer".^[8]: 14 In 1603 the first Western publication on the topic of the Assassins was authored by a court official for King Henry IV and was mainly based on the narratives of Marco Polo (1254–1324) from his visits to the Near East. While he assembled the accounts of many Western travelers, the author failed to explain the etymology of the term Assassin.^[8]: 15


The infamous Assassins were finally linked by orientalists scholar Silvestre de Sacy (d.1838) to the Arabic hashish using their variant names assassini and assissini in the 19th century. Citing the example of one of the first written applications of the Arabic term hashishi to the Ismailis by historian Abu Shams (d.1267), de Sacy demonstrated its connection to the name given to the Ismailis throughout Western scholarship.^[8]: 14 Ironically, the first known usage of the term hashishi has been traced back to 1122 AD, when the Fatimid Caliph al-Amir employed it in derogatory reference to the Syrian Nizaris.^[8]: 12 Without accusing the group of utilizing the hashish drug, the caliph used the term in a pejorative manner. This label was quickly applied by anti-Ismaili historians to the Ismailis of Syria and Persia.^[8]: 13 Used figuratively, the term hashish i connoted meanings such as outcasts or rabble.^[8]: 13


The legends of the Assassins had much to do with the training and instruction of Nizari fida’is, famed for their public missions during which they often gave their lives to eliminate adversaries. Misinformation from the Crusader accounts and the works of anti-Ismaili historians have contributed to the tales of fida’is being fed with hashish as part of their training.^[11]: 21 Whether fida’is were actually trained or dispatched by Nizari leaders is unconfirmed, but scholars including Wladimir Ivanow purport that the assassination of key figures including Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk likely provided encouraging impetus to others in the community who sought to secure the Nizaris from political aggression.^[11]: 21 In fact, the Seljuqs and Crusaders both employed assassination as a military means of disposing of factional enemies. Yet during the Alamut period almost any murder of political significance in the Islamic lands became attributed to the Ismailis.^[8]: 129 So inflated had this association grown, that in the work of Orientalist scholars such as Bernard Lewis the Ismailis were virtually equated to the politically active fida’is. Thus the Nizari Ismaili community was regarded as a radical and heretical sect known as the Assassins.^[23] Originally, a "local and popular term" first applied to the Ismailis of Syria, the label was orally transmitted to Western historians and thus found itself in their histories of the Nizaris.^[12]


The tales of the fida’is’ training collected from anti-Ismaili historians and orientalists writers were confounded and compiled in Marco Polo’s account, in which he described a "secret garden of paradise".^[8]: 16 After being drugged, the Ismaili devotees were said be taken to a paradise-like garden filled with attractive young maidens and beautiful plants in which these fida’is would awaken. Here, they were told by an "old" man that they were witnessing their place in Paradise and that should they wish to return to this garden permanently, they must serve the Nizari cause.^[12] So went the tale of the "Old Man in the Mountain", assembled by Marco Polo and accepted by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856), a prominent orientalist writer responsible for much of the spread of this legend. Until the 1930s, Hammer-Purgstall's retelling of the Assassin legends served across Europe as the standard account of the Nizaris.^[8]: 16


Modern works on the Nizaris have elucidated the history of the Nizaris and in doing so, showed that much of the earlier popular history was inaccurate. In 1933, under the direction of the Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III (1877–1957), the Islamic Research Association was developed. Prominent historian Wladimir Ivanow, was central to both this institution and the 1946 Ismaili Society of Bombay. Cataloguing a number of Ismaili texts, Ivanow provided the ground for great strides in modern Ismaili scholarship.^[8]: 17


In 2005, the archaeologist Peter Willey published evidence suggesting that the Assassin histories of earlier scholars were simply repeating inaccurate folklore. Drawing on its established esoteric doctrine, Willey asserts that the Ismaili understanding of Paradise is a deeply symbolic one. While the Qur'anic description of Heaven includes natural imagery, Willey argues that no Nizari fida’i would seriously believe that he was witnessing Paradise simply by awakening in a beauteous garden.^[9]: 55 The Nizaris' symbolic interpretation of the Qur'anic description of Paradise serves as evidence against the possibility of such an exotic garden having been used as motivation for the devotees to carry out suicidal missions. Furthermore, Willey points out that Juvayni, the courtier of the Great Khan Mongke, surveyed the Alamut castle just before the Mongol invasion. In Juvayni's reports about of the fortress, there are elaborate descriptions of sophisticated storage facilities and of the famous Alamut library. However, even this anti-Ismaili observer makes no mention of the folkloric gardens on the Alamut grounds.^[9]: 55 Having destroyed a number of texts of the library's collection, deemed by Juvayni to be heretical, it would be expected that he would have paid significant attention to the Nizari gardens, particularly if they were the site of drug use and temptation. Given that Juvayni makes no mention of all about such gardens, Willey concludes that there is no sound evidence that the gardens are anything more than legends. A reference collection of material excavated at Alamut Castle by Willey is in the British Museum.^[24]