But the legend which we are discussing does, as a matter of fact, rest on older and more respectable authority than the Oldest occurrence of the legend. Waṣáyá, the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá, the Ta'ríkh-i-Alfí, or other comparatively late works; for, as I pointed out in an article entitled “Yet More Light on 'Umar Khayyám,” in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for April, 1899 (pp. 409-420), it is given by the great historian Rashídu'd-Dín Faḍlu'lláh (put to death in A.D. 1318) in his valuable Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh. The text of this passage, taken from the British Museum Manuscript Add. 7,628, f. 292b, together with a translation, will be found in the article above mentioned. The authority adduced by Rashídu'd-Dín for the story is an Isma'ílí work entitled Sar-guzasht-i-Sayyid-ná, “The Adventures of our Master” (i.e., Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbáḥ), which was amongst the heretical books found in the Assassin stronghold of Alamút when it was captured by Hulágú Khán's Mongols in the middle of the thirteenth century, and examined by 'Aṭá Malik Juwayní (as he himself tells us in his Ta'ríkh-i-Jahán-gushá, or “History of the World-Conqueror,” i.e., Chingíz Khán) ere it was committed to the flames with all else savouring of heresy. But, curiously enough, though the author of the Jahán-gushá draws largely on this biography of Ḥasan-i-ṣabbáḥ in that portion (the third and last volume) of his great history of the Mongol Invasion which deals with the history of the Isma'ílís and Assassins, he does not allude to this picturesque narrative.
The Assassins play so prominent a part in the history of this period and of the two succeeding centuries, and, by the achieve- Origin of the Assassins. ments of their Syrian offshoot during the Crusades, made their name so notorious even in Europe, that it is necessary to describe their origin and tenets somewhat fully in this place, in order that the repeated references to them which will occur in future chapters may be understood. In the Prolegomena * to this volume I have discussed very fully the origin and nature of the Shí'a heresy, and of its two chief divisions, the “Sect of the Seven,” or Isma'ílís, and the “Sect of the Twelve,” which last is to-day the national religion of Persia. A brief recapitulation of the facts there elaborated may, however, be convenient for such of my readers as have not the earlier volume at hand.
The word Shí'a means a faction or party, and, par excellence, the Faction or Party of 'Alí (Shí'atu 'Aliyyin), the Prophet's The Shí'a. cousin, the husband of the Prophet's daughter, the father of al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, and the ancestor of all the other Imáms recognised by the Shí'ites or people of the Shí'a. To the “orthodox” Muhammadan (whether Ḥanafite, Sháfi'ite, Málikite, or Ḥanbalite) 'Alí was only the fourth and last of the four orthodox Caliphs (al-Khulafá'u'r-Ráshidún), and neither greater nor less than his predecessors, Abú Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthman. But to the Shí'a he was, by virtue alike of his kinship and his marriage connection, the sole rightful successor of the Prophet; and this right descended to his sons and their offspring. From a very early time there was a tendency to magnify 'Alí's nature until it assumed a divine character, and even at the present day the 'Alí-Iláhís, who, as their name implies, regard 'Alí as neither more nor less than an Incarnation or “Manifestation” of God, are a numerous sect in Persia. From the earliest times the idea of Divine Right has strongly possessed the Persians, while the idea of popular and democratic election, natural to the Arabs, has always been extremely distasteful to them. It was natural, therefore, that from the first the Persians should have formed the backbone of the Shí'ite party; and their allegiance to the fourth Imám, 'Alí Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, and his descendants was undoubtedly strengthened by the belief that his mother was a princess of the old Royal House of Sásán.*
Agreeing, then, in maintaining that 'Alí and his descendants alone were the lawful Vicars of the Prophet and exponents Sects of the Shí'a: the “Sect of the Seven” and the “Sect of the Twelve.” of his doctrines, the Shí'ites differed from one another both as to the actual number and succession of Imáms and as to their nature. The two sects with which we are chiefly concerned, that of the Seven (Sab'iyya) and that of the Twelve (Ithna 'ashariyya), agreed as to the succession down to Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq, the sixth Imám; but at this point they diverged, the former recognising Isma'íl, Ja'far's eldest son, as the seventh and last Imám, the latter recognising Isma'íl's younger brother Músá and his descendants down to the twelfth Imám, or Imám Mahdi, whom they supposed to have disappeared from earth at Sámarrá (Surra man ra'a) in A.H. 260 (A.D. 873-74) into a miraculous seclusion whence he will emerge at “the end of Time” to “fill the earth with justice after that it has been filled with iniquity.” And still the Persian Shí'ite, when he mentions this twelfth Imám, adds the formula, “May God hasten his joyful Advent!”
The moderate Shí'ites confined themselves to maintaining the paramount right of 'Alí and his offspring to succeed the Prophet Moderates and Extremists (Ghulát). as the Pontiffs of Islám, and hence were disliked by the Caliphs of Damascus and Baghdád (whom they naturally regarded as usurpers) mainly on political grounds, though on other doctrinal questions besides the succession they differed considerably from the Sunnís, or orthodox Muslims. Hence in biographical and historical works written by Sunnís we constantly meet with the phrase, “Tashayya'a, wa ḥasuna tashayyu'uhu” (“He was a Shí'ite, but moderate in his Shí'ite opinions”). But there was another class of Shí'ites, the Ghulát, or “Extremists,” who not only regarded 'Alí and the Imáms as practically Incarnations of God, but also held a number of other doctrines, like Metempsychosis or “Return,” Incarnation, and the like, utterly opposed to the whole teaching of Islám; and the vast majority of these extremists gradually passed into the “Sect of the Seven,” or partisans of the Imám Isma'íl.
The political importance of the Isma'ílís began in the tenth
century of our era with the foundation of the Fáṭimid
The Isma'ílís.
dynasty, so called, as the author of the Jámi'u't-
This Fáṭimid dynasty—the Anti-Caliphs of North Africa and Egypt—attained and maintained their political power The Fáṭimid dynasty. (which endured from A.D. 909 until A.D. 1171, when the fourteenth and last Fáṭimid Caliph was removed by Saláhu'd-Dín, or Saladin, from the throne of Egypt) by a religious propaganda conducted throughout the lands of Islám, and especially in Persia, by numbers of skilful and devoted dá'ís (plural du'át) or missionaries, men with a profound knowledge of the human heart and of the methods whereby their peculiar doctrines might best be insinuated into minds of the most diverse character. These, if we wish to seek European analogies, may be best described as the Jesuits, and their Isma'ílí Pontiffs as the “Black Popes,” of the Eastern World at this epoch. They taught, so far as they deemed it expedient in any particular case, a Doctrine (Ta'lím) based on Allegorical Interpretation (Ta'wíl) of the Scripture and Law of Islám, of which, as they asserted, their Imáms were the sole inheritors and guardians; hence they were sometimes called Ta'límís; and this Doctrine was an esoteric doctrine, whence they were also called Báṭinís or “Esoterics.” More commonly, especially after the institution of the “New Propaganda,” they were simply called, par excellence, “the Heretics” (Maláḥida).