Conquest of Bagdad—Fall of the Assassins—Remnant of
them.
In the fall of Alamut, the centre of the Assassins was
gone; the props of their authority were broken, in the loss
of the castles of Rudbar and Kuhistan. Still, the grand-prior
of Syria refused submission to the grand-master’s
orders to surrender,—the armies of the Mongols being, as yet,
too distant to compel his obedience. A far greater object
occupied the mind of Hulaku, than the destruction of a few
Syrian mountain forts, in which the order, after the fall of
Alamut, and the annihilation of the Ismailites in Persia, might
yet, though with difficulty, raise its head. He entertained
no less a project than the conquest of Bagdad, and the overthrow
of the khalif’s throne, on which the Arabs had, in the
prophet’s name, already, for six centuries and a half, ruled
over the world of Islam. This great event is, not only by its
immediate consequences, but also from its proximate cause,
inseparably connected with the destruction of the Assassins.
In the second year after the fall of Alamut, and, consequently,
before the conquest of Kirdkuh the last fortress of
the Assassins, which only surrendered in the third year of the
siege, Bagdad, the queen of the cities of the Tigris, fell.
The overthrow of the khalifat, as we have seen, in the instructions
given by Mangu to his brother Hulaku, did not enter
immediately into the plan of the khan, who merely claimed
submission and troops, but Nassireddin, the great savant and
traitor, who had delivered the capital of the Assassins into
the conqueror’s hands, and had paved a road to his own
revenge, over its ruins, laboured unceasingly to urge Hulaku
to the destruction of the khalifat. Besides the close connexion
of this event with the one which we have described,
it is in itself so great and important, in the history of Asia,
and the middle ages,—so attractive, from the novelty and rarity
of the subject, that we cannot deny our readers and ourselves
the pleasure of following the khan, in his expedition from
Alamut to Bagdad.
The siege and conquest of Constantinople, by the Turks,
is, perhaps, the only event in history, worthy to be compared
with that of Bagdad, by the Mongols; and the fall of the long-sinking
Byzantine empire, may be placed by the side of that
of the khalifat. The conquest of other cities, on whose sieges
history has dwelt with astonishment and admiration, or with
pity and terror, is less mighty in its consequences, because,
under their ruins, no throne of universal sway has been buried.
This interest is wanting, in the most obstinate and glorious
sieges of ancient and modern history, however remarkable by
the great names of the assailants, or the consummate skill with
which they may have been prosecuted, or the patient courage
with which they have been defended. Tyre and Saguntum,
illustrious in their besiegers, Alexander and Hannibal; Syracuse,
which has immortalized the names of Marcellus and Archimedes;
Rhodes, twice attacked by Demetrius Poliorcetes,
and defended against the Turks, by Villiers de l’Isle Adam;
Candia, and Saragossa; have all earned unfading glory, by the
lion courage of their inhabitants and defenders; but, although
these cities fought for the highest of earthly objects—their
country’s freedom, still their fall did not draw down with it
the seat of the ancient dominion over half the world.
The history of the conquest of other celebrated cities, the
seat of universal monarchy, such as Babylon and Persepolis,
under whose ruin were buried the Assyrian and Persian
monarchies, is wrapt in the distance of thousands of years,
and impenetrable obscurity. The destruction of Jerusalem
eclipses in the brightness of its lustre that of all those cities;
not, however, on account of the importance of its power, or
of its siege, for that by Khosroes was not less remarkable than
that by Titus; but because the latter was described by Tacitus.
If Gibbon had had access to the sources which are at our
command, the conquest of Bagdad would not have shone with
less splendour, in his immortal work, than that of Constantinople,
nor would it have been so briefly treated. What we
want of his power of expression, must be supplied by the
richness of the material.
After the fall of Alamut, and the other fortresses of the
Assassins, except that of Kirdkuh, Hulaku vacated the territory
of Kaswin, and marched to Hamadan, whither his general,
Tanju Nowian, hastened from Aserbijan, to lay an account
of his victories at the foot of the throne. Hulaku dismissed
him, with instructions to advance to Rum and Syria, and to
subject the whole of Asia and Africa, to the extreme western
boundary, to his dominion. In the month of Rebi-ul-ewel, in
the 555th year of the Hegira, he commenced his march against
Bagdad, and proceeded as far as Tebris, whence he sent an
ambassador to the khalif, Mostassem, with the message:
“When we went out against Rudbar, we sent ambassadors to
thee, desiring aid; thou promisedst them, but sentest not a
man. Now, we request that thou wouldst change thy conduct,
and refrain from thy contumacy, which will only bring about
the loss of thy empire and thy treasures.”
The ambassadors having despatched their mission to Mostassem,
the latter sent the learned Sherefeddin Ibn Jusi, the
most famous orator of his time, and Bedreddin Mohammed,
of Nahjiwan, to Hulaku, with a haughty message. The khan,
irritated at this, gave more easy audience to the counsels of
Nassireddin, who continually urged him to march against
Bagdad, and to the treacherous invitation of Ibn Alkami, the
khalif’s vizier. Moyededdin Mohammed Ben Mohammed Ben
Abdolmelek Alkami, who, as vizier, administered the affairs
of the khalifat with unlimited power, and, by the blackest
treachery, caused its fall, is stigmatized ignominiously, as
traitor, throughout the whole east; and the name of Alkami is
not less abhorred, in their history, than is that of Antalcides,
in that of the Greeks: as eloquent, and versed in poetry and
the polite literature of the Arabs, as Nassireddin was in the
mathematical sciences, he was no less faithless to his lord.
Both poet and mathematician were traitors.264
Nassireddin had personal cause of complaint against
Alkami, who, by his censure, had occasioned the khalif’s
throwing into the Tigris the poem dedicated to him by the
former; adding, that it was, in every respect, badly written.
It is probable, that Nassireddin was a better astronomer than
poet; but it is still more probable, that Alkami was jealous of
the credit which he might gain with the khalif. The vizier
would not have deemed it necessary to warn the viceroy of
Khorassan, Nassireddin Mohteshem, with whom the astronomer
was, against a mediocre or bad Kasside, who was a juggler, and
wished to insinuate himself into the favour of the khalif. Out
of respect for Alkami, the viceroy, on this warning, threw the
astronomer into prison, notwithstanding he had dedicated his
great work, Akhlaki Nassiri, to him. He escaped to Alamut,
where, as vizier of the last grand-master, he, meditating
revenge against Alkami and the Khalif Mostassem, laid the
foundation of it in the ruin of the Assassins.
Ibn Alkami, like Nassireddin, swore vengeance against the
khalif: he had to complain, not only of the neglect of some
of the grandees and favourites being unpunished by Mostassem,
but also, he feared for his own personal security, on
account of some severe measures against the Shiites, to which
sect he himself belonged. He entered, therefore, on the same
path of treachery, in which Nassireddin had already preceded
him, and besieged the ear of Hulaku, with complaints and
invitations, which were readily accepted. Nassireddin, Hulaku’s
vizier, and Ibn Alkami, the khalif’s, played mutually
into each other’s hands. The contemporaneous fall of two such
powerful sovereignties, as that of the Assassins and of the
khalifat, caused by the jealousy and treachery of an astronomer
and a wit, is unique in history.265
Ere we commence the detail of the fall of the khalif throne
of Bagdad, it will be proper to premise a few words, relating
to the foundation and splendour of this renowned city.
Bagdad, the city, valley, or house of peace, the citadel of
the holy, the seat of the khalifat, called also the oblique,266 from
the oblique position of its gates, was founded, on the banks
of the Tigris, in the 148th year of the Hegira, by Abujafer
Almansur, the second khalif of the Abbas family. It stretches
two miles along the eastern banks of the river, in the form of
a bow with an arrow on the string, and is surrounded by a
brick wall, whose circumference of twelve thousand four
hundred ells, is interrupted by four gates and one hundred
and sixty-three turrets. When Mansur resolved upon building
the city, he called his astronomers, at whose head was
his vizier, Nevbakht (i. e. new fortune), to determine a fortunate
hour for laying the foundations; and the latter chose a
moment when the sun stood in the sign Sagittarius, by which
the new city was promised flourishing civilization, numerous
population, and long endurance. At the same time he assured
the khalif, that neither he, nor any of his successors, would
die within the walls of this capital; and the confidence of the
astronomer, in the truth of his prophecy, is less surprising
than its fulfilment by thirty-seven khalifs, the last of whom,
Mostassem, during whose reign Bagdad fell, did not die
within its walls, but at Samara, a place built below Bagdad,
on the banks of the Tigris, by Motassem, the eighth Abbaside
khalif (called the eighther from the coincidence of the number
eight, in his nativity) for his Mameluke guard.267
As Bagdad, from the circumstance of no khalif having
died within its walls, merited, most peculiarly, the name of
the House, Valley, or City of Peace; so, also, on account of
the great number of holy men of Islam, who are buried within
or without it, and whose tombs are so many objects of the
pilgrimages of the Moslimin, it gained the title of Bulwark
of the Holy. Here are the mausolea of the greatest
imams and the most pious sheikhs. Here reposes the Imam
Mussa Kasim, the seventh of the twelve imams, who, in direct
descent from Ali, claimed the right to the throne and the khalifat,
on account of their relationship to the prophet; also,
the imams, Hanefi and Hanbeli, the founders of two of the
four orthodox sects of the Sunna; the sheikhs, Juneid, Shobli,
and Abdolkadir-Ghilani,268 the chiefs of the mystic sect of
the sofis.
In the midst of the monuments of the imams and sheikhs,
stand those of the khalifs, and their spouses; of which that
of Zobeide, the wife of Harun al Rashid, has, by the strength
of its construction, survived the repeated captures and destructions
of Bagdad, by the Mongols, Persians, and Turks.
Equally splendid specimens of Saracenic architecture are the
academies, colleges, and schools; two of which have immortalized
the names of their founders in the history of Arabic
literature. The academies, Nisamie and Mostansarie, the
former instituted in the first half of the fifth century of the
Hegira, by Nisam-ol-mulk, the great grand-vizier of Melekshah,
sultan of the Seljuks, the latter, built two centuries
later, by the Khalif Almostansar-billah, with four different
pulpits for the four orthodox sects of the Sunnites.
The most magnificent of all the palaces was that of the
Khalif Moktader-billah, called the “House of the Tree,”269 and
seated in a wide extent of gardens. In the middle of the
vestibule, near two large basins of water, stood two trees of
gold and silver, each having eighteen branches, and a great
number of smaller boughs. One of these bore fruit and
birds, whose variegated plumage was imitated with different
precious stones, and which gave forth melodious sounds, by
means of the motion of the branches, produced by a mechanical
contrivance. On the other tree were fifteen figures of
cavaliers, dressed in pearls and gold, with drawn swords,
which, on a signal being given, moved in concert. In this
palace, the Khalif Moktader gave audience to the ambassadors
of the Greek emperor, Theophilus,270 and astonished them
with the numbers of his army, and the splendour of his court.271
A hundred and sixty thousand men stood in their ranks before
the palace; the pages glittered in golden girdles; seven
thousand eunuchs, three thousand of whom were white, the
rest black, surrounded the entrance; and, immediately at the
gate, were seven hundred chamberlains. On the Tigris
floated gilded barks and gondolas, decorated with silken flags
and streamers. The walls of the palace were hung with
thirty-eight thousand carpets, twelve thousand five hundred
of which were of gold tissue; and twenty-two thousand
pieces of rich stuff covered the floors. A hundred lions,
held by their keepers with golden chains, roared in concert
with the sound of fifes and drums, the clang of the trumpets,
and the thundering of the tamtam.272
The entrance to the audience chamber was concealed by
a black silk curtain; and no one could pass the threshold,
without kissing the black stone of which it was formed, like
the pilgrims at Mecca.273 Behind the black curtain, on a throne
seven ells high, sat the khalif, habited in the black mantle
(borda) of the prophet, girded with his sword, and holding
his staff in his hand as a sceptre. Ambassadors, and even
princes, who received investiture, kissed the ground in front
of the throne, and approached, conducted by the vizier and
an interpreter, and were then honoured with a habit of ceremony
(khalaat), and presents. So Togrul-beg, the founder
of the Seljuks, on receiving investiture from the Khalif Kaim-Biemrillah,
was dressed in seven caftans, one over the other,
and presented with seven slaves, from the several different
states forming the khalifat. He received two turbans, two
sabres, and two standards, in token of being invested with the
sovereignty of the east and the west.274
These proceedings of the khalif’s court were copied by that
of Byzantium; and traces of them have been preserved to
the present day, in the ceremonials of the great kingdoms
both of the east and the west. Theophilus, whose love of
splendour rivalled that of the khalif, built a palace in Constantinople,
the exact counterpart of the “House of the Tree,”
even to the golden tree,275 and the artificial singing birds on it;
which was no less an object of admiration to the envoys of
the European courts, than the original at Bagdad had been to
the Greeks. The etiquette of the khalif’s court, which was
repeated at Byzantium, still subsists at the Constantinopolitan
courts, as Luitprand describes it. When the khalif rode
out, he was saluted with the shouting a long formula of benediction;276
in the same manner was the Greek emperor, with
the cry of “Many years” (πολυχρονιζειν)! and so is the Ottoman
sultan, at this day, with the usual “Tehok-yasha” (may he
live long)! The two turbans, which are placed before him
when he enters the mosque, signify his sovereignty over Asia
and Europe; the prophet’s sword and mantle are preserved
in the treasury of the seraglio. The borda, that is, the
Arabian prince’s mantle of black, afterwards embroidered
with gold, is still worn by the princes of Lebanon, and the
emirs of the desert; its colours, black and gold, were adopted
in the livery of the Roman emperor.
The military force no longer bore any proportion to the
splendour and magnificence with which the sinking throne of
the khalifat was still enriched, as in the glorious days of
Moktader. The army, indeed, still consisted of sixty thousand
cavalry, under the command of Suleimanshah; but
even this number was diminished by Ibn Alkami’s treachery.
The latter proposed the curtailing the forces, and dismissing
the men, in order to save their pay and preserve the treasure;
and, in spite of the opposite warning of the four greatest
officers of state, the commander-in-chief, Suleimanshah, the
first and second ink-holders, or secretaries of state, and the
chief cup-bearer, he lulled the khalif into security from the
danger of the Mongols, so that he carelessly stretched himself
on the pillow of ease and effeminacy.
While he was occupied with the conquest of Kuhistan,
and the extirpation of the Assassins, Hulaku received a letter
from Ibn Alkami, who promised to deliver into his hands, the
bulwarks and treasure of the khalif city; and magnifying the
charms of the capture, he studiously depreciated the dangers
of the attempt, till they disappeared. The khan, however,
did not blindly trust the traitor’s promises; the former unsuccessful
attempts upon Bagdad were too fresh in his memory.
Churmaghun, the general of Jenghis Khan, had, during
the reign of the Khalif Nassir-ledinillah, twice advanced
against Bagdad, with an army of a hundred and twenty-four
thousand men; and twice was he beaten back, with the loss
of the greater part of his forces. Hulaku had recourse to
Nassireddin, his vizier, and, through him, to the stars; in
which the latter naturally read the overthrow of the khalifat,
so long determined upon by his revengeful spirit. Ibn Alkami’s
divining-rod struck on the deeply-concealed vein of
Nassireddin’s inveterate rancour, and treachery responded to
revenge.
In accordance with Nassireddin’s counsels, Hulaku, as
soon as he reached Hamadan, sent the before-mentioned embassy
to the khalif, whom he requested to send to meet him,
one of the two secretaries of state, the chief cup-bearer, or
the commander of the army, with whose opposition to his
views he was fully acquainted. The khalif sent the learned
orator, Ibn-al-jusi, who poured the oil of his eloquence into
the fire of wrath, and returned, without performing his task.
Hulaku, still more enraged, commanded the Emir Sogranjan
to advance to Erdebil, and cross the Tigris, and then to form
a junction with the troops of the Emir Boyanje, on the western
side of Bagdad. In the meanwhile, he himself broke up
his head-quarters at Hamadan. On the news of the advance
of the Mongol vanguard reaching Bagdad, the khalif despatched
Fetheddin, one of his oldest and most experienced
commanders, with the secretary of state, Mujeheddin, one of
his young favourites, and a thousand cavalry, armed with
lances, who, in the first action, beat the Mongols, and forced
them to retreat.
Fetheddin’s grey-headed experience wished to encamp;
but Mujeheddin’s youthful arrogance incited him so long with
insulting charges of cowardice and treachery, that he, at last,
gave orders to pursue the enemy. They overtook them at
the western branch of the Tigris, called Dojail, or Little
Tigris. Fetheddin mounted a common horse, on whose fore
and hind legs he had iron chains fastened, and so remained in
one spot, to show to all that he was determined not to desert
his post in the field, and that he would either conquer or die
there. Night, and the fatigue of both armies, put an end to
the combat, and dropping their arms, they sank into those of
sleep; but while the khalif’s army were buried in slumber,
the Mongols cut through some dykes, and the water broke
impetuously on the opposing forces. The darkness of the
rushing waters, and that of the night, was made still darker,
by the despair of the army. Then they saw the words
of the Koran fulfilled: “Darkness on darkness; everywhere
darkness;” and, like Pharoah’s host, they were buried in
the waves. The brave old Fetheddin, whose prudence
would have averted the danger, perished; and the rash
youth, Mujeheddin, whose arrogance had produced it, escaped
with two or three companions, who brought the news of the
catastrophe to Bagdad. So blind was the khalif’s partiality
to his favourite, so slight his sorrow for the loss of his army,
that on receiving the intelligence, he merely exclaimed, three
times, thankfully: “God be praised for the preservation of
Mujeheddin!” And when the enemy had already advanced
as far as Jebel-Hamr (the red mountain), three days’ march
from Bagdad, and he was informed of their approach, he
only replied: “How can they pass that mountain?” All
representations to the contrary were either unheard or ineffectual.
In the meanwhile, the main body of the Mongols had
pushed forward on the road of Yakuba, and was encamped
on the eastern bank of the Tigris. Then only did the khalif
command the gates of Bagdad to be shut, the fortifications
to be garrisoned, and preparations to be made for defence.
The two secretaries and Suleimanshah once more led the
élite of the army, against the enemy. The battle lasted two
days, with various fortune, but with equal loss: on the third,
Hulaku prohibited the Mongols from renewing the attack,
and resolved to enclose the city in a blockade. On all the
heights without the city, and on all the towers and palaces
which commanded it, were placed projectile engines, throwing
masses of rock and flaming naphtha, which breached the
walls, and set the buildings on fire.
At this period, the three presidents of the sherifs, or
descendants of Ali, who resided at Helle, on the banks of the
Euphrates, not far from the ruins of Babylon, sent a letter to
Hulaku, in which they offered their submission, and added
bitter complaints of the wrongs which they had suffered from
the khalif. They informed him, that according to a tradition
preserved by their glorious ancestor, the Lion of God, the
sage of the faith, the son-in-law of the prophet Ali, the son
of Abu-taleb, the period of the fall of the family of Abbas,
and the conquest of Bagdad, was arrived. Hulaku, equally
pleased with the homage of the descendants of the prophet
and with the prophecy, answered them graciously, and commanded
his general, Emir Alaeddin, to occupy the district of
Helle, and to protect the inhabitants from violence. Thus
their hatred against the family of Abbas secured them against
the rage of the Mongols.
After the siege had lasted forty days, the khalif convoked
a general assembly of all the grandees of the realm, in which
Ibn Alkami spoke at great length of the innumerable host of
the Mongols, and the impossibility of long resisting them;
he therefore, recommended a treaty with Hulaku, who was
more desirous of the treasures than the dominions of the
khalif; he advised a mutual alliance between a daughter of
Hulaku and a son of the khalif, and between a daughter of
the latter and a son of the former, that the ties of peace and
friendship might be drawn the closer. For this purpose, the
khalif should go in person to the khan’s camp, and thus the
blood of thousands would be spared, the city preserved from
utter destruction, and the khalifat fortified against every
enemy by the acquisition of so powerful an ally.
The fear and pusillanimity of the khalif caused him to
listen to Alkami’s faithless advice. He sent him, in the first
place, into the camp to negotiate peace, under the same conditions
as had been offered to him from Hamadan; he returned
with the answer, probably suggested by himself, that “What
was admissible at Hamadan, is no longer so before the gates
of Bagdad.” Then, only one of the great dignities of the
realm was demanded; now all four were, namely: the
commander of the army, Suleimanshah, the two ink-holders
or secretaries of state, and the chief cup-bearer. The siege
continued six days longer with renewed vehemence; on the
seventh, Hulaku caused six letters of immunity to be prepared,
in which it was stated that the kadis and the seids, the
sheikhs and imams who had not borne arms should be secure
of their lives and property; these letters were attached to
arrows, and shot into the city on six sides. One of the two
secretaries, who despaired of the safety of the city, and was
more anxious for his own, embarked on the Tigris to seek it
in flight; as however, he came abreast of Kariet-ol-akab,
he was stopped by a body of the Mongol troops, posted there
for the purpose of cutting off the communication between Medain
and Basra. Three of his vessels fell a prey to the
flaming naphtha, and he was himself compelled to return.
The khalif, who had already renounced all hope, now sent
Fakhreddin Damaghani, and Ibn Derwish, with presents to
Hulaku, and to treat with him concerning the conditions of
peace. These two, however, returning without success, he
despatched, on the following day, his son Abulfase Abdorrahman,
with very considerable presents, and, on the third, his
brother Abulfasl Abubekr, with the noblest and greatest personages
in the state. These embassies were as fruitless as the
first, and the vizier, who was sent into the camp along with
Ibn-al-jusi, again brought back the surrender of Suleimanshah
and the secretaries, as the indisputable condition of the
khalif’s free exit.
Suleimanshah, and one of the secretaries, after being assured
of a safe conduct, went to Hulaku, who sent them back to
the city, commanding them to bring with them their families
and whole household, in order that he might send them unobstructedly
to Syria and Egypt; they returned to the camp
with a considerable escort of troops, who seized this opportunity
of deserting the city. Different quarters had just been
assigned them, when an Indian struck out the eye of one of
Hulaku’s principal emirs, with an arrow; Hulaku seized this
accident as a pretext for the most sanguinary rage; he commanded
the secretary of state and his suite to be put to
death, and the general, Suleimanshah, and his officers, to be
brought, bound, before him: he said to him, “How comes it,
that so great an astrologer as thou could not foresee the
hour of thy death? Wherefore didst thou not counsel thy
lord to enter the path of submission, in order to save thy
own life and that of others?” Suleimanshah replied, that “the
khalif’s evil star had made him deaf to good advice.” After
some interrogatories and replies of this kind, the general and
his officers were put to the sword.
Many thousands, who had surrendered into the hands of
the conqueror on the faith of the safe conduct, were murdered,
unarmed, after they had been separated from each other,
on pretence of being sent into different provinces; a cold-blooded
and faithless cruelty, which, however, is not without
example, having been repeated both in the east and in the
west. The history of Alexander, of Charlemagne, Jengiskhan,
Timur, and other conquerors, presents us with instances
similar to this atrocity of Hulaku, agreeing also wonderfully
with it in the number of the victims,—from three to four
thousand,—as well as in the circumstances of the promised safe
retreat, the division into detachments, and the dialogue held
with the commanders, who, for that very reason, were the
more certain of their lives being spared.
The khalif seeing no farther hope of saving his life except
by surrendering to the conqueror, repaired to the khan’s
camp, after a siege of forty-nine days, on Sunday, the 4th of
the month Jafer, in the 656th year of the Hegira; he was
attended by his brother and his two sons, together with a
suite of nearly three thousand persons, kadhis, seids,
sheikhs, and imams; only the khalif and the three princes,
his brother and two sons, together with three of the suite
(one in a thousand), in all, seven persons, were admitted
to an audience. Hulaku concealed the perfidy of his designs
under the mask of smooth words, and the most friendly
reception. He requested the khalif to send word into
the city that the armed inhabitants should throw away their
weapons, and assemble before the gates, in order that a
general census might be taken. At the order of the khalif
the city poured out its unarmed defenders, who, as well as
the person of Mostassem, were secured. The next day,
at sunrise, Hulaku issued commands to fill up the ditch,
demolish the walls, pillage the city, and massacre the inhabitants.
The ditch, according to the expression of the Persian
historian, deep as the deep reflections of wisdom, and the
walls as high as the soaring of a lofty mind, were, in an hour,
levelled. The army of the Mongols, as numerous as ants
and locusts, mined the fortifications like an ant-hill, and then
fell upon the city as destructive as a cloud of the latter;
the Tigris was dyed with blood, and flowed as red as the
Nile, when Moses, by a miracle, changed its waves into blood;
or, it was at least as red as the Egyptian river is to this day,
when it is swollen by that annual miracle of nature, its
overflow, and coloured red by the red loam and sand which
it washes down from Abyssinia; affording a natural explanation
of the Mosaic miracle.
The city was a prey to fire and the sword; the minarets
and domes of the mosques glowed, like fiery columns
and cupolas; from the roofs of the mosques and baths, flowed
melted gold and lead, setting on fire the palm and cypress
groves which surrounded them. The gilded battlements of
the palaces fell like stars to the earth,—like the demons who
endeavoured to scale the battlements of Heaven. In the
mausolea, the mortal remains of the sheikhs and pious imams,
and in the academies, the immortal works of great and learned
men, were consumed to ashes; books were thrown into the
fire, or where that was distant and the Tigris near, were
buried in the waters of the latter. Gold and silver vessels
from the palaces and kitchens of the great, fell, in such quantities,
into the hands of the ignorant Mongols, that they sold
them by weight, like brass or tin. The treasures of Asiatic
splendour and art, accumulated for centuries in the khalif’s
city, became the booty of barbarians. So great a quantity
of Persian and Chinese gold tissues, Arab horses, Egyptian
mules, Greek and Abyssinian slaves of both sexes, coined
and uncoined gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, was
found, that the private soldier became richer than even the
chiefs of the army or the khan himself had ever been before.
And yet the treasures of the khalif’s palace had not been
touched, as these the khan retained for himself.
After four days’ pillage, he went, on the 9th of the month
Safir, in company with the khalif, to the palace of the latter;
where he, as his guest, as he said, desired his host to give
him all that he was able. This Mongol politeness struck the
khalif with such terror, that his whole body trembled, and as
he either had not the keys, or could not find them, he
ordered the bolts and locks to be broken open. Two thousand
costly garments, ten thousand ducats, and many jewels,
were brought out; which the khan, without deigning them a
glance, distributed among his suite, and then turned to the
khalif, with the words: “Thy public treasures belong to my
servants; now produce thy concealed ones.” Mostassem
pointed to a spot, on excavating which were found the two
basins of treasure, so celebrated in the history of the khalifat,
each filled with bars of gold, weighing each a hundred miscals.
Nassir-ledinillah’s wise economy had commenced filling these
two vessels; Mostanssur’s prodigality emptied them; and
Mostassem’s avarice again replenished them.
An anecdote is told, in the history of the last reigns of the
khalifs, that Mostanssur, when he paid his first visit to this
treasure, prayed aloud: “Lord, my God! grant me the favour
to be enabled to empty both these vessels during my reign!”
The treasurer smiled, and being asked his reason, he said:
“When thy grandfather visited this treasure, he besought
heaven to reign only until he had filled these two basins;
while thou desirest precisely the reverse.” Mostanssur applied
this gold in the foundation of useful institutions, which immortalize
his name; particularly in the erection of the celebrated
academy, which was named after him, Mostansarie,
and also Omm-ol-Medaris, that is, the Mother of Academies.
Mostassem, on the other hand, hoarded gold from
avarice; whereas, a politic application of his riches, in the
pay of troops and tribute, might have saved his throne from
ruin.
Hulaku’s cruelty to Mostassem, realized the Grecian fable
of the wishes of King Midas. He commanded plates filled
with gold to be placed before him, instead of food; and on
the khalif’s observing that gold was not food, the Mongol told
him, by an interpreter: “For that very reason that it is not
food, wherefore hast thou not rather given it to thine army to
defend thee, or distributed it amongst mine to satisfy me?”
Too late, Mostassem repented the consequences of his avarice,
and after spending a sleepless night, tormented with the
pangs of hunger and conscience, he prayed, in the morning, in
the words of the Koran: “O Lord, my God! possessor of
all power; thou givest it to whom thou wilt, and takest from
whom thou wilt; thou raisest up and pullest down whomsoever
thou pleasest; in thy hands is all goodness, and thou
art mighty over all things!”
The khan now held a council of his ministers, to deliberate
concerning the fate of the khalif; and it being their
unanimous opinion, that prolonging his existence would only
be preserving the bloody seeds of war and insurrection, and
that only with his life could the dominion of the khalifat be
terminated, his death was determined. But as Hulaku himself
deemed it improper that the khalif should suffer as an ordinary
criminal, and the blood of the prophet’s successor be
shed by the sword, Mostassem was wrapped in a thick cloth,
and beaten to death. So great was the religious veneration for
the sacred person of the khalif, and thus did eastern etiquette
extend even to the execution of kings. From similar motives
of reverence, the Ottoman sultans, when a revolt costs them
their lives, are not strangled, but are put to death by compression
of the genitals:—a singular and elaborate trait of
executioner tenderness!
As the pillage and sack of Bagdad had commenced four
days before the khalif’s death, so it continued forty days
afterwards; till the barbarians dropped their swords from
fatigue, and fuel was wanting for the flames. If we abstract
the usual horrors of insulted humanity, which have been
repeated in every sacked city, and only in Bagdad were carried
to the highest pitch of enormity, we shall not blame the
Mongols so much in their conquest of that city, for the conflagration
of the mosques, and the desecration of the mausolea,
for the destruction of the immense treasures, and the
melting of the gold and silver vessels, nor even for the demolition
of the bulwarks of holiness, and the overthrow of the
khalif throne, as for the annihilation of the libraries, and
the loss of many hundred thousand volumes, which fell a prey
to the flames.
They consisted of the treasures of Arabic literature,
the accumulation of nearly five hundred years; together with
the relics of the Persian, which had probably been saved
from the destruction of Medain. As the second khalif had
commanded his general, in Egypt, to consume the Alexandrian
library, so he also caused that of Medain, the residence of
Khosroes, to be thrown into the Tigris; and Omar, whom
some European historians have in vain endeavoured to exculpate
from this high treason against literature, is loaded
with the double guilt of the double auto da fe of the
Greek and the Persian library, by fire and water. As the
Arabs destroyed these libraries, five centuries before, in two
years; so did the Mongols, in the same space, annihilate the
Arabian libraries of Alamut and Bagdad. To this double
conflagration must be added, that of the great libraries of
Tripoli, Nishabur, and Cairo, in the same century. Thus
the conjunction of the seven planets in the same sign of the
zodiac, which indicated, according to some astrologers, a
universal deluge, and according to others, a universal conflagration,
might be justly understood to signify the inundation
of the Mongols, and the burning of the libraries.
A most melancholy observation is suggested by the destruction
of the libraries of Alamut and Bagdad; it is, that
the fall of both was caused by the guilt of learned men: the
former, by the perfidy of the astronomer, Nassireddin; the
latter, by the treachery of the bel esprit, Ibn Alkami; both
being sacrificed to their revenge. The fate of these two
learned statesmen, distinguished alike by their great talents
and evil hearts, who caused the overthrow of the Assassins
and the khalifat, falls now to be mentioned. A few words
will suffice. After the conquest of Bagdad, Nassireddin built
the celebrated observatory of Meragha; by which, as well as
his astronomical tables, both his name and that of Hulaku
are immortalized in the history of astronomy. Thus that
science derived, at least, some advantage from the many
evils in which astrology had been its handmaid. Ibn Alkami,
the man of letters, and vizier, instead of the reward
he expected, reaped that of a traitor. As such, treated
by the Mongols with the most profound contempt, he died,
in a few days, a prey to remorse and despair. The inhabitants
of Bagdad wrote on every wall, over the gates
of the caravanserais and schools, in large letters cut in marble:
“The curse of God on him who curses not Ibn Alkami!”
One of the traitor’s partisans, a Shiite, having expunged the
“not” from one of these inscriptions, was punished with
seventy blows of the bastinado. The name of Ibn Alkami is
intimately interwoven with that of Nassireddin, in the history
of the fall of the Assassins, and the khalifat. Asia long
trembled from the shock of the violent fall of the empire of
the dagger, and the prophet’s staff.
The conquest of Bagdad has almost diverted us from our
proper object, not merely by the intrinsic importance of the
subject, but also on account of its intimate connexion with the
end of the Assassins, whose overthrow prepared that of the
khalifat.
After their castles in Rudbar and Kuhistan had been
razed to the ground, and numbers of them massacred and
scattered, they still maintained their stand, for fourteen years,
in the mountains of Syria, against the armies of the Mongols,
the Franks, and the Egyptian sultan, Bibars, one of the
greatest princes of the Circassian Mamelukes of Egypt. This
prince, who zealously sought for supreme power, was not inclined
to share it any longer with the remains of the Assassin
order, which had been chased from the mountains of Persia.
During his reign, Frank and Arab vessels put into the
Egyptian ports,277 with embassies; which the Christian and
Arabic princes, such as the German emperor, Alphonso of
Arragon, the commander of Yemen, and others, sent with
rich presents to the Syrian Ismailites. Bibars, in order to
show that he was far above all fear of the order, levied on all
these presents the usual customs; and sent to the superior in
Syria, a letter, full of threats and reproaches. Terrified and
humbled by their misfortunes in Persia, they answered submissively,
and with the request that the sultan would not
forget them in his peace with the Franks, but include them in
his treaty, in token of his protection of them as his slaves;
and, in fact, Bibars, who, in this year, concluded a peace with
the knights-hospitallers, made the abolition of the tribute paid
by the Ismailites, one of the conditions of the treaty. The
following year, he received an embassy of the Ismailites, who
sent him a sum of money, with the words: “That the money
which they had hitherto paid to the Franks, should, in future,
flow into the treasury of the sultan; and serve for the pay of
the defenders of the true faith”.278
Three years afterwards,279 when Sultan Bibars was marching
against the Franks, in Syria, the commanders of the different
towns appeared to do him homage. Nejmeddin, the grand-master
of the Assassins, however, instead of following this example,
requested a diminution of the tribute, which the order
now paid to the sultan instead of the Franks. Saremeddin
Mobarek, the commandant of the Ismailite fortress, Alika,
had formerly drawn upon himself the anger of the sultan; but
having received pardon on the intercession of the governor of
Sihinn, or, according to others, of Hama, he appeared with a
numerous suite, in Bibar’s presence, who received him into
favour and loaded him with honours. He granted him the
supreme command of all the castles of the Ismailites in Syria,
which were no longer to be governed by Nejmeddin, but by
Saremeddin, in the name of the sultan of Egypt. Massiat, as
the property of the sultan, was subjected to the command of
Emir Aseddin. In conformity with his orders, Saremeddin
appeared before the walls of this fortress; of which he possessed
himself, partly by stratagem, and partly by the massacre
of a number of the inhabitants. Nejmeddin, the late
grand-master of the order, an old man of seventy years of
age, and his son, implored the sultan’s clemency. He had
compassion on them; and granted the former the restoration
of his authority, in conjunction with Saremeddin, in
consideration of an annual tribute of a hundred and twenty
thousand drachmas. A contribution of two thousand gold
pieces, was required of Saremeddin; and Nejmeddin left his
son in the sultan’s court, as a pledge of his obedience and
fidelity.280
In the meanwhile, Saremeddin having taken possession of
Massiat, drove out Aseddin, the governor named by the sultan;
but not being able to maintain the place against the
approaching forces of the sultan, he threw himself into the
castle of Alika. Aseddin returned from Damascus, whither
he had taken refuge, again to Massiat, to the command of
which he was restored by the sultan’s troops, who left him
a garrison and body guard. Malik Manssur, Prince of Hama,
who had been charged by Bibars with the restoration of the
emir, and the deposition of Saremeddin, took the latter prisoner,
and brought him before the sultan, who threw him into
a dungeon. The castle of Alika surrendered to the sultan’s
army on the 9th of Shewal.
Nejmeddin, the former grand-prior, again held the command
of the Ismailite castles in Syria,281 in the name of the
sultan, by whom Shemseddin was retained at court, as the
pledge of his father’s fidelity. On a suspicion being raised
against him, he came in person to court, and offered, with his
son, Shemseddin, to deliver up all the castles, and to live in
future in Egypt; his offer was accepted, and Shemseddin departed
for Kehef, to induce the inhabitants to surrender
within twenty days. Not appearing, however, at the end of
this term, the sultan admonished him, by letter, to fulfill his
promise; and Shemseddin desired that the castle of Kolaia
should be left in his possession, in exchange for which he engaged
to yield all the rest. The sultan acceded to his request;
and sent Aalemeddin Sanjar, the judge of Hama, for the
purpose of receiving from Shemseddin, the oath of allegiance,
and the keys of Kehef; the inhabitants, however, secretly
instigated by the latter, refused to admit the envoy.
A second embassy having no better effect, Bibars gave
orders for the castle to be besieged. On this, Shemseddin
left Kehef, and repaired to the sultan, who was encamped
before Hama, and was honourably received; receiving, however,
intelligence in a letter, that the inhabitants of Kehef
had sent Assassins into the camp, in order to murder his
principal emirs, Bibars caused Shemseddin and all his suite
to be arrested, and carried into Egypt. At the same time,
two officers of the order, who had persuaded their friends in
the castle of Khawabi, to surrender to the sultan, were seized
at Sarmin. This castle surrendered to negotiation, that of
Kolaia to force; and, in the following year, those of Menifa
and Kadmus fell into the sultan’s hands. The inhabitants of
Kehef wished to oppose a longer resistance; but being closely
blockaded, and cut off from all relief, they at length sent
Bibars the keys of the town; and the Emir Jemaleddin
Akonsa made his entry on the 22d of Silvide.
From this moment, Bibars was master of all the forts and
castles which had been in the possession of the Ismailites;
and he ruined their power in Syria, as Hulaku had done in
Persia. Next to Massiat, the residence of the grand-master,
Shiun, a strong place on a rock, abundantly supplied with
water,282 and at a short day’s journey from Latakia, had been
lately particularly distinguished, by the valiant exploits of its
commandant, Hamsa, one of the greatest heroes among
the Syrian Ismailites. This Hamsa must not be confounded
with Hamsa, the companion of the prophet, and one of the
bravest heroes of Mohammedanism; nor with Hamsa, the
founder of the religion of the Druses. The numerous battles
and enterprises of the Assassins, their valorous defence
against the armies of the Crusaders, and the Egyptian sultan,
Bibars, and the adventurous character of their whole history,
offered a fertile source to the Syrian romance writers and
story-tellers; a source of which they did not fail to avail
themselves.
This was the origin of the Hamsaname, or Hamsiads,283 a
kind of chivalrous romance, modelled after the style of the
Antar, Dulhemmet, Benihilal, and other Egyptian works.
After the conquest of Syria, by the Ottomans, the tales of the
feats and adventures of Hamsa passed from the mouths of
the Arabian story-tellers and coffee-house orators, to those
of the Turks; and Hamsa, together with Sid Battal (Cid y
Campeador) the proper Cid of the orientals, an Arabian hero,
who fell in battle against the Greeks, at the siege of Constantinople,
by Harun al Rashid,284 afforded the richest materials
for Turkish romances, which are exclusively occupied
by the feats of Hamsa and Sid Battal. The tomb of the Sid
in the Anatolian Sanjak Sultanoghi is, to this day, a much
frequented resort of pilgrimages, enriched by the Sultan
Suleiman, the legislator, with the endowment of a mosque, a
convent, and an academy.285
The conquest of Massiat was succeeded by that of Alika,
and, at length, two years after, by that of Kahaf, Mainoka
Kadmus, and of the other castles on the Antilebanon; and
thus the power of the Ismailites was overthrown, both in
Syria and Persia. One of their last attempts at assassination
is said to have been directed against the person of St. Louis,
King of France, but the falsity of this supposition has already
been demonstrated, by French writers.286
The power of the Ismailites had now terminated, both in
Persia and Syria; the citadels of the grand-master, in Rudbar,
and of the grand-priors, in Kuhistan and Syria, had fallen;
the bands of the Assassins were massacred and scattered;
their doctrine was publicly condemned, yet, nevertheless,
continued to be secretly taught, and the order of the Assassins,
like that of the Jesuits, endured long after its suppression. In
Kuhistan, in particular, remains of them still existed; that
being a region which, on account of its very mountainous
character, was more impracticable than the surrounding countries,
and, being less accessible to the persecutors of the
order, it afforded the partisans of the latter a more secure
asylum.
Seventy years after the taking of Alamut and Bagdad, in
the reign of Hulaku’s eighth successor, Abu Said Behadir
Khan, the great protector of the sciences, to whom Wassaf
dedicated his history, the whole of Kuhistan was devoted to
the pernicious sect of the Ismailites, and the doctrine of Islamism
had not yet been able to enter the hearts of the natives,
hard as their mountain rocks. Abusaid determined, in concert
with the lieutenant of the province, Shah Ali Sejestani,
to send an apostolic mission, for the conversion of these miscreants
and infidels. At the head of the society of missionaries,
which was composed of zealous divines, was the
Sheikh Amadeddin, surnamed of Bokhara, one of the most
esteemed jurisconsults, who, on the destruction of that city,
had fled to Kuhistan. His grandson, Jelali, in his work,
“Nassaih-ol-Moluk” (Counsels for Kings), dedicated to the
Sultan Shahrokh, the son of Timur, relates the history of
this mission from the mouth of his father, who had accompanied
his grandfather to Kuhistan.287
Amadeddin, with his two sons, Hossameddin and Nejmeddin,
the father of Jelali, and four other Ulemas, in all seven
persons, went to Kain, the chief seat of the Ismailites; where,
since the illuminative period of Hassan II., the mosques
had fallen down, the pious institutions decayed—where
the word of the Koran was no longer heard from the pulpit,
nor the call to prayers sounded from the minaret. As prayer,
five times a day, is the first of the duties of Islamism,
and the call to it proclaims aloud the creed of the faithful,
Amadeddin resolved to commence his mission with it. He
went, therefore, with his six companions armed, to the terrace
of the castle of Kain, from whence, they began, at the same
instant, to cry out on all sides: “Say God is great! there is
no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet. To prayers!
Up! to do good!” This summons, to which the unbelieving
inhabitants had long been unaccustomed, instead of collecting
them in the mosque, excited them to a tumult against the
summoners; and, although the latter had taken the precaution
to be armed, they did not deem it expedient to purchase
the crown of martyrdom with their lives, by defending
themselves, but took refuge in a drain, where they hid.
As soon as the people were dispersed, they again mounted
the terrace, and repeated the call to prayers, and the
retreat to the drain. In this manner, their obstinate zeal,
supported by the power of the governor, succeeded in accustoming
the ears of the infidels to the formula of the summons
to prayer, and then to that of prayer itself; and sowed the
good seed of the true doctrine of Islamism on the waste field
of infidelity and atheism.288
While the political wisdom of Abusaid was endeavouring
to extirpate the Ismailite doctrine in Persia, its ashes still
smouldered in Syria; and, from time to time, threw out
destructive flames, which were extinguished in the blood of
the slaughtered victims. As it had originated in Egypt,
and had but served as an instrument of the ambitious designs
of the Fatimites; so the Circassian sultans of that country
availed themselves of the last fruits of the wide-spread tree
of murderous policy, in order to execute their revenge, and
to try the dagger on those enemies who resisted the sword.
A memorable instance of such an attempt, is afforded us in
the history of the Emir Kara Sonkor, who had deserted the
court of the Egyptian sultans, and had entered into the service
of the khan of the Mongols.
Two years after289 Abusaid had sent the before-mentioned
learned Jelali to Kuhistan, the Egyptian sultan, Mohammed,
the son of Bibars, sent no less than thirty Assassins from
Massiat to Persia, to sacrifice the Emir Kara Sonkor to his
vengeance. They arrived at Tebris, and the first having been
cut to pieces in his murderous attempt, the report was soon
spread that Assassins were come to murder the Khan Abusaid,
the Emir Juban, the Vizier Ali Shah, and all the Mongol
nobles. A second attempt on the life of Kara Sonkor
cost, like the former one, that of the murderer. A similar
attack had been made on the governor of Bagdad, and Abusaid,
the great khan, prudently shut himself up in his tent
for eleven days. Nevertheless, the Egyptian sultan, Mohammed,
did not give up his vengeful attempt on the life of Kara
Sonkor. He sent a merchant, named Yunis, to Tebris, with a
large sum of money, to hire new Assassins. Yunis sent for
them from Massiat, and concealed them in his house. One
day, as the Emir Juban was riding in company with the Emirs
Kara Sonkor and Afrem, two Assassins watched a favourable
opportunity to murder the two latter. The first assailant,
who was too hasty in his attack on the Emir Afrem, only tore
his clothes with his dagger, instead of wounding his breast,
and being cut down on the spot, the second did not think it
advisable to approach Kara Sonkor.
Inquiries were immediately set on foot into the Funduks
(Fondaeki) of Tebris, for the purpose of discovering the
haunts of the Assassins; the merchant, Yunis, was arrested,
but his life was preserved by the interest of the vizier. The
Emirs Afrem and Kara Sonkor took all necessary precautions
for the preservation of their own. A servant of the latter,
a native of Massiat, searched the whole city of Tebris, to
find out the Assassin who was to have poniarded his lord;
and found him, at last, in the person of his own brother. The
emir, in order to gain him over, gave him a hundred pieces of
gold, and a monthly salary of three hundred dirhems, together
with other presents; for which, he was induced to betray his
accomplices. One of them escaped; another stabbed himself;
a third expired under the torture, without confessing
anything.
In the meanwhile, the Assassins at Bagdad executed
their commission better than those at Tebris. One of them
threw himself on the governor, as he was going out to ride,
and plunged his dagger into his breast, saying: “In the name
of Melek Nassir;” and escaped so quickly to Massiat, that he
could not be overtaken. From that place, he sent information
of the accomplishment of the murder of the governor, to Sultan
Mohammed.290 The two emirs redoubled their vigilance;
and, by means of the Ismailite in Kara Sonkor’s pay, discovered
four others, who were immediately put to death. Nejmeddin
Selami, who had been sent as ambassador, from
Mohammed to the Khan Abusaid, insinuated himself into a
confidential intercourse with the Emir Juban, and the vizier.
He informed his master of the execution of the four Assassins;
in whose place four others were immediately sent;
three of them being arrested and discovered, expired under
the pangs of the torture; fortunately for Selami, the fourth
escaped, who was the bearer of the sultan’s letter to his
plenipotentiary at Massiat, whence he apprised the sultan
of the ill success of his mission.
Selami continued his negotiations with the Emir Juban
and the vizier, so happily, that they concluded a peace with
the sultan, on condition that he should send no more Assassins
into their country. Notwithstanding this, the Emir Kara
Sonkor was attacked anew, while he was hunting, by a murderer,
who only, however, wounded his horse in the thigh,
and was immediately killed by the guard. Even in the suite
of the Emir Itmash, who came on his second embassy to Abusaid’s
court, two Assassins were detected; one of whom immediately
stabbed himself, and the other, after refusing to
confess, was put to death in chains. Juban loaded Itmash with
reproaches, saying that, by sending these murderers, the sultan
scoffed at the treaty; and the ambassador assured him, in return,
that if they really were Assassins, they must have arrived
at Tebris, before it was signed. After Itmash and Selami
had returned to the sultan, their master, in Cairo, the latter
wrote once more to the Massiat Ismailites, reproaching them
for not fulfilling their contract. They sent him for answer,
one of their best Fedavis, a great eater, who devoured a calf,
and drank forty measures of wine a-day. After being kept
some time, at Keremeddin’s house, in Cairo, he went to the
court of the great Khan Abusaid, in the suite of Selami, who
was sent as ambassador, with presents.
At the feast of Bairam, when the emirs were attending
the khan, Selami ordered the Assassin to watch the moment
when Kara Sonkor should leave the palace, from the banquet:
“The first,” said he, “who comes out, is the destined victim.”
By accident, the vizier called the Emir Kara Sonkor back, just
as he was on the point of quitting the palace; and the governor
of Rum, who was dressed in red, like him, fell beneath the
blows of the murderer, who jumped from a roof on to the
governor’s horse, and stabbed him. Being taken, he died
under the most horrible tortures, without confessing a word.
Murderer succeeded murderer, in attempting to satisfy the
sultan’s desire of revenge; but, fortunately, Kara Sonkor escaped
them all. If we may credit the testimony of Macrisi,
no less than one hundred and twenty-four Assassins lost their
lives in attempting that of Kara Sonkor; so little is the life of
man in the power of his species, and so incapable are the
tools of murder of cutting the thread of those days, which
the Almighty has numbered.
Three generations after Abusaid’s mission, when the
whole of Kuhistan had returned, at least in appearance,
within the pale of the true faith, the Sultan Shahrokh, the son
of Timur, sent Jelali, of Kain, who usually lived in Herat,
and was thence called Al Herat, and Al Kaini, for the purpose
of ascertaining the state of belief in that province. Jelali felt
himself the more called upon to engage in this inquisitorial
affair, as his grandfather had presided over the apostolic mission,
and because the prophet had appeared to him in a dream,
and put a broom in his hand, with which he was to sweep the
country. He interpreted this vision as a celestial call, by
which he was appointed to the high office of cleansing away
all the impurities of unbelief; and he entered upon it with a
conscientious zeal, and a spirit of more than Islamitic toleration.
His before-mentioned work, “The Counsels for
Kings,” contains the results of the report of his inquiry
given to Sultan Shahrokh, and likewise, some information
respecting the secret policy of the still unconverted Ismailites,
taken from Jowaini’s “History of Jehan Kusha (the Conqueror
of Worlds).”
Within the space of eighteen months, Jelali travelled
through the whole of Kuhistan; and every where found that
the Ulemas, or teachers of the law, were true orthodox Sunnites.
The seids, the descendants of the prophet, passed for
such; and, still more, the dervishes, who represented themselves
to be sofis, or mystics. The emirs of Tabs and Shirkuh
were good Sunnites; but the commanders of the other
castles, and even the servants of the government (Beg-jian),
were to be suspected. For the rest, the peasants, merchants,
mechanics, were all good Moslimin.
Notwithstanding the people were entirely devoted to the
true doctrine of Islamism, still it appears that the order preserved
its existence in secret, long after the loss of temporal
power, in the hope of, sometime or other, recovering it, under
more favourable circumstances. The Ismailites, indeed, no
longer ventured to unsheath the dagger against their foes;
but the chief aim of their policy, to acquire influence in affairs
of state, remained; they, in particular, sought to make proselytes
of the members of the divan; in order, by this means,
to secure the majority of voices in their favour, and to stifle
in their birth, all complaints and denunciations of their secret
doctrine. For this reason, the author of “Jehan Kusha,
(Conqueror of the World),” as well as the writer of the “Siasset-ol-Moluk”
(Art of Governing; or, Discipline of Kings),
warns princes to place in the divan none of the officers of
Kuhistan, who were more or less to be suspected, on account
of their principles. When intrusted with the management of the
finances, they were, indeed, never in arrear with their contracts;
so that the public treasury had never any claims against them;
they, however, ruined the villages which they farmed, and sent
the surplus of the taxes to their secret superiors, who still
preserved an existence at Alamut, the centre of the ancient
splendour of the order. Thither also flowed a portion of
the revenues of pious institutions, the produce of which was
destined for the support of mosques and schools, servants of
religion, and teachers. Similar well-intentioned warnings
have, in our own times, been frequently given to princes:
the attentive ear of government is always the most powerful
obstacle to the rise of secret orders and societies to power.
Remains of the Ismailites still exist both in Persia and
Syria,291 but merely as one of the many sects and heresies of
Islamism, without any claims to power, without the means of
obtaining their former importance, of which they seem, in fact,
to have lost all remembrance. The policy of the secret state-subverting
doctrine of the first lodge of the Ismailites, and
the murderous tactics of the Assassins, are equally foreign to
them. Their writings are a shapeless mixture of Ismailite
and Christian traditions, glossed over with the ravings of the
mystic theology. Their places of abode are, both in Persia
and Syria, those of their forefathers, in the mountains of
Irak, and at the foot of Antilebanon.292
The Persian Ismailites recognise, as their chief, an imam,
whose descent they deduce from Ismael the son of Jafer-Essadik,
and who resides at Khekh, a village in the district of
Kum, under the protection of the shah. As, according to
their doctrine, the imam is an incarnate emanation of the
Deity, the imam of Khekh enjoys, to this day, the reputation
of miraculous powers; and the Ismailites, some of whom are
dispersed as far as India, go in pilgrimage, from the banks
of the Ganges and the Indus, in order to share his benediction.
The castles in the district of Rudbar, in the mountains
of Kuhistan, particularly in the vicinity of Alamut, are still
inhabited, to this day, by Ismailites, who, according to a late
traveller, go by the general name of Hosseinis.293
The Syrian Ismailites live in eighteen villages, dispersed
round their ancient chief place, Massiat, and are under the
rule of a sheikh or emir, who is the nominee of the governor
of Hamah. Being clothed in a pelisse of honour, he engages
to pay to Hamah an annual sum of sixteen thousand five
hundred piastres; his vassals are divided into two parties,
the Suweidani and Khisrewi: the former so named after one
of their former sheikhs; the latter, for their extraordinary
veneration of the prophet Khiser (Elias), the guardian of the
spring of life: the former, who are by far the smaller number,
live principally at Feudara, one of the eighteen places under
the jurisdiction of Massiat; three miles east of that fortress
lies a strong castle, whose name, pronounced Kalamus, is
probably the same with the Kadmos of Arabian historians and
geographers; from thence, the chain of mountains, after
several windings, descends to the sea, near Tripoli.
In 1809, the Nossairis, the neighbours and enemies of the
Ismailites, possessed themselves, by treachery, of their chief
fortress, Massiat; the inhabitants were pillaged and murdered;
the booty amounted to more than a million piastres
in value. The governor of Hamah did not suffer this rash
enterprise of the Nossairis to go unpunished; he besieged
Massiat, and compelled them to resign the fortress to its
ancient possessors; the latter, however, sunk into complete
political insignificance. Externally they practise the duties
of Islamism with austerity, although they internally renounce
them: they believe in the divinity of Ali; in uncreated light
as the principle of all created things; and in the Sheikh Rashideddin,
the grand-prior of the order in Syria, contemporary
with the grand-master, Hassan II., as the last representative
of the Deity on earth.
We shall mention here, in passing, as they are neighbours
of the Ismailites, the Nossairis, the Motewellis, and the
Druses, three sects anathematized by the Moslems, on
account of their infidelity and lawlessness. Their doctrine
agrees, in many points, with that of the Ismailites; their
founders having been animated with the same spirit of
extravagant fanaticism,—of unprincipled licentiousness. The
Nossairis and Druses are both older in their origin than the
eastern Ismailites; the former having appeared in Syria, as a
branch of the Karmathites, as early as the fifth century
of the Hegira; the latter received their laws from Hamsa,
a missionary of Hakem-biemrillah’s from the lodge of Cairo.
The former believe, like the Ismailites, in the incarnation
of the divinity in Ali; the latter consider that maddest of
tyrants, Hakem-biemrillah, as a god in the flesh. Both abjure
all the rules of Islamism, or only observe them in appearance;
both hold secret and nocturnal assemblies stigmatized
by the Moslimin, where they give themselves up to the enjoyment
of wine and promiscuous intercourse.
The origin and doctrine of the Motewelli is less known
than that of the Nossairis and Druses. Their name is corrupted
from Motewilin, the interpreters; and therefore, probably,
indicates a sect of the Ismailites, who taught the
Tenvil, or allegorical interpretation of the commands of
Islamism, in opposition to the Tensil, or positive letter of
the word, not from God, the sense of which is a command to
the true believer.294
The reproach of immorality, which these sects share in
common, is certainly much more applicable to the Motewellis
than to their neighbours. For the inhabitants of the village
of Martaban, on the road from Latakia to Aleppo, who offer
travellers the enjoyment of their wives and daughters, and
who consider their refusal as an affront, are Motewellis.295
In still worse report than the Ismailites, Motewellis, Nossairis
and Druses, are some tribes of Syrian and Assyrian
kurds, who are called Yezidis, because they hold in peculiar
veneration Yezid, the khalif of the Ommia family, who persecuted,
sanguinarily, the family of the prophet, and likewise
the devil, neither of whom they curse like other Moslimin.
Their sheikh is called Karabash, that is, Blackhead, because
he covers his head with a black scarf. The name of their
founder is Sheikh Hadi, who, according to opinion, prayed,
fasted, and gave alms for all his future disciples; so that
they believe themselves exempted from these duties of
Mohammedanism, and that, in consideration of his merits,
they will go to heaven without appearing before the tribunal
of God.296
All these still existing sects are designated by the Moslimin,
generally, Sindike (free-thinkers), Mulhad (impious), and
Batheni (esoterics), and, on account of their nocturnal assemblies,
sometimes the one, sometimes the other, receive from
the Turks the name of Mumsoindiren, or the extinguishers;
because, according to the accusations of their religious
adversaries, they extinguish the lights, for the purpose of
indulging in promiscuous intercourse, without regard to
kindred or sex.
Similar charges have been, at all times, raised against secret
societies, whenever they concealed their mysteries under the
veil of night; sometimes groundlessly, as against the assemblies
of the early Christians, of whose innocence Pliny affords
a testimony; sometimes but too well founded, as against the
mysteries of Isis, and, still earlier, against the Bacchanalia of
Rome. As the latter was the first secret society mentioned
in Roman history, as dangerous to the state, and which assumed
religion as a cloak to every enormity, the similarity
of the subject, renders the mentioning them not out of place
here.
As, in the sixth century, after the flight of the prophet,
and the establishment of Islamism, the pest of the Ismailites
threatened, under the appearance of religion, to undermine and
overthrow the edifice, so, also, in the sixth century, after the
foundation of Rome and the republic, the pest of the Bacchanalians,
menaced the ruin of the city and the state, under the
mask of religion.297
“A Greek, of mean extraction,” says Livy, “came first
into Etruria, skilled in none of the arts which that most
learned of all nations has devoted to the culture of the mind
and the body, but a sacrificer and soothsayer; not that he
spread his doctrine by public teaching, or filling the mind
with a sacred horror, but, as the president of secret and
nocturnal sacrifices. At first, but few were initiated; afterwards,
however, the people, both men and women, were
admitted. In order to attract the mind the more, wine and
banquets were added to religious sacrifices. When the intoxication
of the wine, night, the mixture of the sexes, and of
youth and age, had extinguished every shadow of shame, vice
and corruption of all kinds burst forth, every one having
at hand the means of gratifying his desires. There was
not merely one species of vice and the mere promiscuous
intercourse of noble youths and maidens; but also from this
source proceeded false witnesses, false documents, false informations,
and accusations, poisoning, and secret murder,—so
secret, indeed, that even the bodies of the dead were not
found for sepulchre. Much was attempted by stratagem, but
most by violence. Violence remained concealed, because, in
the midst of the yells, and noise of cymbals and drums, the
cries of the violated and the murdered could not be heard.”
The consul, Posthumus, had no sooner given intelligence
to the senate of the discovery of the existence and object of
this secret society, than the latter adopted the most powerful
measures, for the safety of the state and the commonweal,
and proceeded against the members of the Bacchanalia, as
criminals against the state, with the utmost rigour. The
speech of the consul to the people, advised them to watch
over the peril which threatened the state, from the conspiracy
of vice with religion. “I am not sure (said he) that some of
you may not have fallen into error; for nothing has a more
deceptive appearance than corrupted religion. When the
Deity is made a cloak for iniquity, the mind is seized with
terror, lest, in the punishment of human imposture, some
divine law may be transgressed.” This unveiling of crime,
from which the mask of religion had been torn, and the rigour
with which the Bacchanalians were persecuted, not only in
Rome, but also throughout Italy, with the sword and exile,
stifled, in its birth, the monster whose increasing strength
menaced the state with ruin. Had the princes of the east
acted in the same spirit towards the first secret societies and
the emissaries of the lodge of Cairo, as the senate and consuls
had done, the sect of the Ismailites would never have
attained political influence, nor would the blood-dropping
branch of Assassins have sprouted from that poisonous stem.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in the course of this
history, several princes were themselves devoted to the secret
doctrine of infidelity and immorality, and others were deficient
in strength to restrain its progress with effect. Thus,
through the blindness of princes and the weakness of governments—through
the credulity of nations, and the criminal
presumption of an ambitious adventurer, like Hassan Sabah,
the monstrous existence of secret societies and an imperium
in imperio, attained so frightful an extent and power, that the
murderer seated himself openly upon the throne, and the
unbounded dominion of the dagger in the hands of the Assassins
was an object of terror to princes and rulers, and insulted
mankind in a manner unexampled and unique in history. We
have, more than once, briefly pointed out the analogy which
the constitution of the order of the Assassins presents with
contemporary or more modern orders; but, although so many
points of similarity are found, which can neither be accidental
nor yet spring from the same cause, but which, probably,
through the medium of the Crusades, passed from the spirit
of the east into that of the west, they are still insufficient to
make a perfect companion to the order of the Assassins,
which, thank Heaven, has hitherto been without parallel.
The Templars, incontrovertibly, stand in the next rank to
them; their secret maxims, particularly in so far as relates to
the renunciation of positive religion, and the extension of
their power by the acquisition of castles and strong places,
seem to have been the same as those of the order of the
Assassins. The accordance, likewise, of the white dress and
red fillets of the Assassins, with the white mantle and red
cross of the Templars, is certainly remarkably striking.
As the Templars, in many respects, trod in the footsteps of
the Assassins, so also did the Jesuits, whose exertions for the
aggrandisement of their order, and its preservation, if not by
political power, at least by secret connexions and influence,
agree entirely with the similar policy of the Assassins after
the fall of Alamut. The Assassins were, themselves, as we
have seen, a branch of the Ismailites, the proper Illuminati
of the east. The institution of their lodge at Cairo; the
various grades of initiation; the appellations of master, companions,
and novices; the public and the secret doctrine;
the oath of unconditional obedience to unknown superiors, to
serve the ends of the order; all agree completely with what
we have heard and read, in our own days, concerning secret
revolutionary societies; and they coincide not less in the form
or their constitution, than in the common object of declaring
all kings and priests superfluous.
The ostensible object of this institution was in itself
sufficiently laudable, and the exoteric doctrine had merely for
its object the extension of knowledge, and the mutual support
of the members. The house of science, at Cairo, or the
public school of the lodge, was the temple of the sciences,
and the model of all academies; the greater number of the
members were certainly deceived into good faith by the fair
exterior of a beneficent, philanthropical, knowledge-spreading
form; they were a kind of Freemasons, whose native
country, as we have seen, may really be sought and found
in Egypt, if not in the most ancient times, at least in the
history of the middle ages. As in the west, revolutionary
societies arose from the bosom of the Freemasons, so in the
east, did the Assassins spring from the Ismailites.
Traces of retribution immediately executed, which fulfilled
the sentence of the order as infallibly as though it were the
arm of fate itself, are, perhaps, likewise to be found in the
proceedings of the Vehme, or secret tribunal, although its
existence only commenced two hundred years after the extermination
of the order of murderers in Asia.298 The insanity
of the enlighteners, who thought that by mere preaching,
they could emancipate nations from the protecting care of
princes, and the leading-strings of practical religion, has
shown itself in the most terrible manner by the effects of the
French revolution, as it did in Asia, in the reign of Hassan II;
and as, at that period, the doctrine of assassination and treason
openly proceeded from Alamut, so did the doctrine of regicide
produce from the French National Convention, in Jean de
Brie, a legion of regicides. The members of the Convention
who sat with Robespierre on the side of the mountain, and
who decreed the king’s execution, would have been satellites
worthy of the Old Man of the Mountain. Like the initiated
to murder, they almost all died a violent death.
The dominion of the Assassins sank under the iron
tramp of Hulaku; their fall drew after it that of the ancient
throne of the khalif, and of other dynasties; thousands bled
under the conquering sword of the Mongols, who went forth
as the scourge of Heaven—like Attila and Jengis Khan, to
steel with blood the deadened nerves of nations. After him,
the remains of the hydra of Assassination quivered in the remnant
of the sect of the Ismailites, but powerless and venomless;
held down by the preponderance of the government
in Persia and Syria; politically harmless, somewhat like the
juggling of the Templars of the present day, and other secret
societies watched by the vigilant eye of the police in France.
In writing this history, we have set two things before us
as our object, to have attained which is less our hope than
our wish. In the first place, to present a lively picture of
the pernicious influence of secret societies in weak governments,
and of the dreadful prostitution of religion to the
horrors of unbridled ambition. Secondly, to give a view of
the important, rare, and unused historical treasures, which
are contained in the rich magazine of oriental literature.
We have but seized the prey which the lions of history have
abandoned: for Müller, in his twenty-four books of history,
has not mentioned the Assassins at all; and Gibbon, who,
according to his own avowal, let no opportunity escape him
of painting scenes of blood, has treated them but superficially;
although, at the same time, both these great historians have
snatched from oblivion, with the pencil of the most masterly
description, many other insignificant events, the sources of
which were accessible to them. We may easily estimate
from this condensed account of all that is worth knowing
of and concerning the order of Assassins, and which is but
sparingly scattered through the works of eastern writers,
how many concealed rarities and costly pearls are to be
found in the untrodden depths of the ocean of Oriental
history.
END OF BOOK VII.