Gone Medieval - Rise of the Assassins

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

This is a special episode from a series we made in collaboration with Ubisoft, the makers of Assassin's Creed.In Assassins vs Templars, we're immersing ourselves in the real history that inspired the first game. As well as exploring the rise and fall of The Knights Templar and the Assassins, we chat to leading experts and historians to analyse the historical backdrop of the first three crusades, reveal the real histories behind key characters in the game, and unearth the folklore around the mythical Holy Grail.In this episode, Matt Lewis is joined by Dr Farhad Daftary to discuss the origins of the Assassins, what they stood for, how they interacted with Christians and other Muslims, and why the Old Man of the Mountain was so important.Using targeted political murder to protect humanity from injustice and abuse of power, the Assassins are infamous as much for their secrecy as for their actions. The story of the Nizari branch of Ismaili Muslims goes right back to the start of Islam, and continues to this day.Produced by History Hit and Ubisoft, with Post Production done by Paradiso Media.To listen to the rest of Assassins vs Templars, make sure you're following Echoes of History wherever you get your podcasts!If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hi everyone, thank you for downloading this episode of Gone Medieval. Today's is a little taster of an exciting collaboration we've been working on with Ubisoft, the masterminds behind Assassin's Creed. Assassins versus Templars is a new series on the Echoes of History podcast about the real histories of the secretive orders that inspired the first game. And as a big fan of that game, yes, when it came out, yes, I am that old. I was incredibly excited to get to work on it.

This episode is about the rise of the assassins, and there's another coming soon on the Knights Templar. If this wets your appetite for crusading warfare, then make sure to follow the Echoes of History podcast to listen to the rest of the series. There's eight episodes in total, where you'll discover more from great guests about the Crusades, the Holy Grail, and some of the game's key characters.

Enjoy! Welcome to the inside of one of history's greatest stories. I'm Matt Lewis and in this collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit, we're taking you back to the very beginning. The story of Assassin's Creed is one of deadly rivalry between conflicting ideologies that asks whether peace is found through freedom or control. It begins with assassins and Templars racing to gather the pieces of Eden in the fiery heat of the Near East amidst brutal religious upheaval. We're all Desmond Miles now, and we've found our animus, a team of the best historians working in their fields who will unlock the memories of the past for us, lead us through their secrets, and introduce us to some of the real people who inspired the game. It's time to break into the vaults of two of history's most infamous organisations as we pit the Assassin's Creed against the Templar Order. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Farhad Daftery, who is Director Emeritus and Governor of the Department of Academic Ruffalo.

research and publications at the Institute of Ishmaelie Studies in London. He's written over 200 books, publications and articles, including The Assassin Legends. And I'm delighted to have him here with us today. Can we start off by talking a little bit about the group that's in the game Assassin's Creed that's known as the Assassins? That's probably how we identify this group, particularly here in the West. But are they more properly known as Nizari Ishmaelis? And who were they? How did they come about? I think we need to really provide a proper historical background to situate this community. On the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Muslim community was split into two main divisions, what later became known as the Sunnis and the Shia.

The Shia was believed, by contrast to the Sunnis, that the Prophet himself had in fact designated in the final months of his life. his son-in-law and first cousin Ali to succeed him, obviously not as a prophet, but as the leader of the nascent Muslim community. Whereas the Sunnis believed that the prophet had left no such will the Untestament and they therefore went about and selected a successor to the prophet who became known as the first caliph. The word Shia itself is an abbreviation of Shia to Ali. or the party of Ali. The Shia themselves, in the course of time, split into various groups,

because as the descendants of Ali grew in number, the Shia could not agree on who was the rightful successor or spiritual leader, to whom they referred as the Imam. And therefore, disputes of succession led to subdivisions within the Shia. And eventually two main Shi'i groups emerged, the so-called 12ers, who are the majority today, and they are situated in Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain and so on. And the second most important one, who have become known as the Ismailis. Now, the Esmailis themselves, they really started in the middle of the 8th century as a revolutionary movement

because their overall objective was to install the Imam acknowledged by them to a new caliphate. And that meant uprooting the Sunni-Apossed establishment. And it was to achieve that objective that they organized a very active mission or Da'a, and the religious political message of this mission was spread by a network of Da'is or missionary. So by the middle of the 9th century, you had these days active in almost every part of the Islamic world, from North Africa to Central Asia. Now, the early success of the Esmaili Dawa soon culminated into the foundation of the Fatimid Caliphate. That was the first Shi'i Caliphate in rivalry with the Sunni Caliphate of the Abbasids. This caliphate was founded in the year 909.

in North Africa and by 973 they had transferred the seat of their state from North Africa to Egypt where they founded the city of Cairo, which served as the new royal capital of the Fatimid state. Now, the Esmaili emams, or the emams recognized by the Esmahis, ruled as Fatimid Caliphs over an expanding, flourishing major empire. In the year 1099 on the death of the 8th Fatimid Caliph, there was a schism split because they could not agree on the rightful successor to him. The old seawar put on the throne a younger son of the deceased Caliph by the name of Al-Mustali, who reigned as Fatimid Caliph, whereas the Esmali of the Eastern Lands, especially in Iran,

And Syria, they actually recognized the original heir designate of the deceased Caliph, whose name was Nazar. So the two subdivisions of the Esmites became known as Mostalis and Nizzeris, named after the two sons of the deceased, Fatimid Caliph al-Mostan Ser, who had claimed his heritage. Now, the cause of Nazar was upheld by the chief die in Iran whose name was Hassan Sabah. Hassan Sabah had already established himself in the fortress of Alamut in northern Iran that henceforth served as what became known as the Nazari-Ismaili state. The state was of a particular kind. It was carved out in the very heart of the... state of the Saljuq Turks who were ardently Sunni, and they had this with their own vast

state which included all of Iran. Now, Hassan was a revolutionary at the same time that he was an Esmaili Dai, but because he had supported the cause of Nazar, he severed his relations with Cairo and the Fatimid Caliphate. And in fact, he founded the independent Nazari-Ismaili community, Dawa. and state. Now, he had a two-fold aim. One was to spread Esmailism now of the Nazari brand throughout the Iranian world. And secondly, he had also a political objective of uprooting the Saljuks, who were strongly against the Shia. And it was in the service of these two objectives that Hassan, successful, founded this state, and this state was comprised of a network of mountain,

which fortresses, the chief one of which was, of course, Alamut. But they had these fortresses in four or five different regions of Iran, and soon, Hassan, by the early years of 12th century, began to send Daes or the propagandists to Syria to organize the community there, which they did actually with much success and about half a century later by 1140s or so they also managed to seize a network of fortresses or castles in central Syria.

It was in Syria that the Nazari Esmailis came into contact with the crusaders. I think it's fascinating to think of the Nazari Ashmaelis, the assassins, as being a state. I think we quite often think of them being almost a state. stateless people, that they effectively had their own state and structures and all of those kinds of things. So you mentioned that they come into contact with the Crusaders. How did the Nizari Ismailis interact with Christians and with other Muslim groups? Now, at the headquarters of the Nizari Esmailis, which served as the capital of the state,

which was Alamut in Iran, and in the rest of the territory, of the Zari Esmahis in Iran, there was no contact between them and the Crusaders, because the Crusaders never went to Iran. Whatever contact there was limited to Syria. These contacts were of various nations. They were military, diplomatic, trade. But the Crusaders did not know who these people were. Now, these people were actually referred to by their Muslim core religionists as hashish.

or hashishin or hashishia, based on the, sort of derived from the world, you see, hashish. Now, this was indeed, at the time, especially 12th and 13th centuries, in Syria and Egypt, this was a term of abuse, which meant people of low religious morality, of the people of blacks, social outcasts, and so on. This is how they were addressed by other, you see, most of the people. because they were really hostile to us one another from early on because the Ismailis always planned to uproot the Sunni rule of the Sunni caliphs and so on. So these two communities never really got along.

It was for that sense that the Muslims, in the sources that we have from the period, Ismailis are referred to as hashishia. But nowhere they have the assassin-Lessing. legends that we find in Occidental uses, or nowhere they say they were called hashishi because they actually used hashish or had any regular habit of using hashish. Because for the Muslims, the term was understood. And this is why we do not find any of the so-called assassin legends in the Muslim sources. It's in the Crusader sources and the European observers of the Crusaders that we have these

legends. The legends apparently evolved in stages. At each stage, new embellishments were added to the tales. And the reason why these tales were created in the first place was that the Esmailis resorted to assassination as a political tool. Why? Because they were a very small community. They could not mobilize large U.C. armies, and they were fighting large armies, both in Iran and in Syria. And especially in Syria, they were surrounded by hostile Muslim rulers, the IUBs, the Zangis, and so on and so forth. And then the Crusaders came on the scene as another hostile factor because the two sides were fighting one another for quite some time over the position of the fortresses, the central Syria. In fact, that's mainly how the crusaders

came into contact with the Nazare Esmoeus in Syria. Because they could not mobilize large armies, they resorted to targeted assassination of key military and political figures who threatened the existence of the Esmoelian-specific communities. Now, it's not that they just killed for the sake of killing or the murder at random. They were highly targeted because they had no other way of dealing with their enemies. But it so happens that at the time any assassination of any major consequence

was assigned to the Esmailis. The actual missions undertaken by the Esmaelists were done so by the so-called, you see, fedeis, the devotees, those who were prepared to sacrifice their own, you see, lives. And this attracted the attention of the Crusaders as well. They were fascinated by the fact that these people were so selfless and so devoted that they would carry out these missions. Now, the assassin legends appears for the specific reason of satisfying the Crusaders to provide logical explanations for the behavior that seemed otherwise irrational to the Crusaders. And this is why these legends, almost all of them, revolved around the recruitment and training of these fedaists.

And they developed in stages and found their culmination in the synthesis popularized in Marco Polo's Treveloc, in which the Marco Polo claims that the mischievous chief of these people known as the Old Man of the Mountain

and that itself was the translation of the Arabic term, Sheikh meant both an old man and also the chief, but the crusader sources really translated Sheikh into its secondary meaning into old man, and because he did reside in these mountainous high fortresses became known as the old man of the mountain. So Marco Polo says that this old man of mountain had created the sacred garden of paradise at his fortress, into which he led these would be fedaiz under the influence of hashish or some other intoxicating potion.

And then when they came to, they found themselves in paradise and they could partake of all the pleasures, promised them in the Quran that they would find in paradise, like the huris and, you know, she damsels and so. And then when the time was ripe, he would give them the portion again, put them to sleep, take them out of the garden, and then send them on this mission. And this explained why they were so devoted, because he would tell them that if you

return alive from their mission, you will go back to this garden, and if you don't, in life, you go to this garden, promised you in the world. Now, the term hashishi or hashishia became transposed into various Latin-based and European languages as assassini, assassini, Hasisini, and so on. And eventually, it entered European languages as the word assassin. And at the time, it did not have the meaning in which sense it is used

in reference to a professional murder. It was just the name of this mysterious, obscure community. But because of the assassination missions connected to this community, the word later, Later on, became a noun in European languages, meaning a professional killer or murder. You do not find any of these assassin legends in the contemporary Muslim sources, especially the Sunni ones, even the anti-smile, Sunni polemical texts.

You do not find any of these tales or stories. And these were tales rooted in the imaginative ignorance of the crusaders and their Western beliefs that could not understand she immartyrology, which we know very well today, for instance, in the case of Iran-Iraq war, of recent times you saw these waves of young men walking over minds and so on

because they wanted to become shahids, martyrs to the promised paradise in Iran. So the Muslims could understand. understand this behavior, therefore they did not to explain it. Whereas the Westerners, they needed explanation for their own satisfaction and hence the genesis of the so-called assassin legend. Why were medieval priests so worried that women were going to seduce men with fish that they'd kept in their pants? Who was the first gay activist? And what on earth does the expression sneezing in the cabbage mean? I'll tell you, it's not a cookery technique, that's for sure. Join me,

Kate Lister on Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast where we will be bed-hopping throughout time and civilisation to bring you the quirkiest and kinkiest stories from history. As promised, there will be sex. Anne has said that Henry is not skillful in copulating with a woman and has neither vigour nor potency.

And scandal. Everybody just descends onto this crime scene and it's being pulled apart by members of the public sort of as quickly as they can excavate the bodies. And moments which shaped society. Pointy boobs then became a thing and was still a thing into the 1950s. What more could you possibly want?

Listen to Betwixt the Sheets today, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. A podcast by History Hit. You mentioned that the Nizare's were not popular amongst other Muslim groups, particularly. The Crusaders struggled to understand them. In the game, we have Al-Tai'er, the main character, is given a list.

of 10 people to assassinate, and that's a mix of Muslims and Christians. Is that a fair representation of the way the assassins worked? Were they able to work against both Muslims and Christians at various times? They could have. But since the actual missions carried out by the Esmahis were highly secret, we are in no position to know which of the assassinations was actually done by them. because at the time, almost every group or faction this resort to assassinations.

The Crusaders themselves use assassinations. The Sunni rulers of the region themselves use assassination. The Saljuks, who were the primary enemies of the Esmaios, they too, to deal with their own internal, factional fighting, resorted to assassination. But if they did assassinate to the crusade, their figures, I think they would have been very few because they did not really perceive of them as the main threat. The main threat to them were the Sunni Saj Rjouh, the Muslims, who were

fighting them on a prolonged basis. And it sounds like the Nizarees were keen to use assassination as a way to magnify their power. So you say they were fighting large armies? It had really two purpose. One was, of course, to remove key enemies in key localities. Secondly, it was to intimidate the enemies. So they either did this or did not attempt to refute if they were not behind attempts.

For instance, we have a number of stories portraying Sifidai's, putting knives, daggers, by the bedside of various judges and so on, but not killing them, just to warn them. Yeah, it's a bit like the godfather horse's head in the bed kind of thing. And in the game, so the primary mode of assassination is normally with a hidden dagger, and we see Al-Tai'a kind of diving off buildings very dramatically and assassinating people with this hidden dagger. Is there a standard way in which the Nizare is operated,

or it sounds like they had a much broader range of tactics that they would use? The actual missions carried out by the Nazarees were of various kinds, depending on the individuals involved, because they obviously had, you see, bodyguards and so on. But to some extent, they tried to commit these acts in public places from which the perpetrators would not survive. I mean, you know, again, to publicize the effect. The total number of such assassinations that

can really be attributed to the daggers of the Nazari Fedais are much, much less than we are led to believe. And in fact, three Persian historians who had access to the Nazari chronicles of the Alamud period, which were kept at the famous library in the fortress of Alamut. And elsewhere, they do have a list of the victims of these missions. This tactic really started in the time of Hassan Sabah himself, the founder of this community and movement who died in 1124. And he reigned for some 30 odd years.

And during that entire period, the names of the people who were removed by the Nazari Fedais are less than 30. So less than one per year, I mean, for a 30 odd. period. So it's not perhaps as a widely used a tactic as we think it is? Exactly. It was used in a very targeted and highly selective in a

key individuals who were perceived as enemies who posed serious threats to the survival of the Nazari community in specific regions. And you mentioned, I just wanted to come back a little bit to the idea of the old man of the mountain.

in the game. So Al-Tayr's mentor is thought to be modeled on Rashid Addin, who was one of the leaders, one of the old men of the mountain. He was the most famous of the Syrian leaders, and he's the original old man of the mountain of the Crusader sources. And during the period that he was ruling the Nizari clan, how important was he in the largest picture of the Crusades? Well, he was a very clever man,

a highly accomplished administrative because he was really interested in maintaining the independence and the stability of his community which was actually surrounded by numerous hostile

forces, as I said, the I. U.Bs, the Zangis, and the crusaders. Therefore, very cleverly, he would enter into shifting network of alliances. He would ally himself with one of these against you see others and then when the circumstances changed he would change his alliances.

So he was very pragmatic and flexible man in terms of adopting suitable policies that responded to the circumstances of the time. So he wasn't necessarily bound by any religious ideology. He was really focused on the preservation of the Nizari group. Exactly. And that allowed him to move between Christian and Muslim allies and enemies. Exactly. Fascinating. And I guess we have to acknowledge that in the game,

the rivalry between the Templars and the assassins is continued into the modern era. It continues today. The Templars are sort of multinational cooperation and the assassins are still working around them. What do we know about what happens to the Nizari group? Could they still exist? Yes, of course they do. They very much do. The Nazari Esmailis, who were in both Iran, Syria, and then later on,

especially in Central Asia, and then much later in India, in the year 1256, the Nazari-Ismaili state of Iran was uprooted by the Mongols, but the Ismailis did not disappear. They went on the ground, and many of them actually migrated. from Iran to Afghanistan and India, where Nazari-Esmari community is already existed. And the line of their emams also continued in the progeny of the last Lord of Alamut, who himself was killed by the Mongols. By the middle of the 15th century, the emams emerged from their hiding into a more public

state in the village of Anjudan, and then they revived the Dab activities for the first time after the fall of Alamut. And they initiated the so-called Anjudan revival in Nazari-Ismailism, which became particularly successful in Central Asia and India, where a large community of Sinzari-Ismaelis appeared, locally known as the Khogas. The Khogos, the Khosos, the Khosos. who hail from India but are to be found also in various African countries. And, you know, in the West, they're all Ysani-Ismailis. They still exist in Syria and in Iran, in small communities. But the bulk of the Israeli-Ismailis of today are situated in Central Asia,

especially in Tajikistan and Afghanistan and Pakistan, and also India, from where they migrated to East Africa, from where in turn, from the early 1970s, they emigrated to Western countries, especially to UK, France and Portugal and Europe, and to USA and Canada. The line of their imams has also continued uninterruptedly, and since the beginning of the 19th century, the imams of the Nazare Esmailis became internationally known as the obviously. So the President of Ago Khan, the fourth one, who is the 49th, the 49th hereditary Imam of the Nizari

Esmailis, is very much alive and he's the spiritual leader of the Nizari-Swaii community, who are the number to more than 10 million, and they are scattered over some 30 countries of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. How do you feel about the reputation of Nazari Ishmaelis? It sounds to me like we tend to call them the assassins and think they were a very small group that did a very specific thing for a very short time and that we're probably doing a huge disservice to a very important faith group by doing that. I couldn't agree more with you.

The Nazari Ismailis were a Shri Muslim community and at times they did adopt the policies by force, not by choice, because their very survival was at stake. As I said, they could not use immobilize large armies, and they were constantly threatened by much more militarily powerful Muslim sources. They did not invent the policy of assassination, which did exist among the Muslims from early on, various early Shi communities, as well as you see the Khawaraj, And the sonnage themselves, they resorted to that policy.

That was a practical tactic which they adopted. Because the bulk of the assassinations of the time were attributed to them, unfortunately, the whole business of assassination became in a very gross and exaggerated manner attached to the name of this community, which really was not the case at all. the Rishin Muslim communities, and at various periods of their history, they made highly important contributions to Islamic thought and culture, especially during the Fatimid period of their history, as well as the Alamud period.

They patronized learning, scientific activities, art, and you see artists. In fact, when the Mongol invasions started in the 1220s, they gave refuge to waves of Muslim and non-Muslim, Christian, as well as Jewish scholars, who were running away from the Mongols and gave them safe refuge in the fortresses where they partook of the patronage of learning and also their fantastic museum libraries.

So all of that is really, I would call to use the modern temple. They received bad press, really. They needed a good spin doctor. It sounds like, though, there's elements of their reputation that make them the perfect focus for a game like Assassin's Creed, but that there's actually so much more to their story, which is fascinating in itself. And thank you so much for sharing that with us far.

It's been absolutely fascinating. Next time, on Assassins versus Templars, it's the mortal enemies of the Assassins, the Knights Templar, who take our focus, as we're joined by Professor Helen Nicholson of Cardiff University. Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast from, so you don't miss that episode,

and also you can listen to the whole of the series there too. This series is a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit with post-production undertaken by Paradiso Media. Hi guys, Dan here from Dan Snow's History Hit. We're teaming up with Ubisoft's Echoes of History podcast to bring you Assassins v Templars, an entire season dedicated to exploring the dark histories that inspired the Assassin's Creed video games.

We'll be charging headfirst into the history of the Crusades. Crusades are a particular species of war, a holy war. No other event in medieval history attracted such attention and such fame and glory. Uncovering the secrets of the mythical Holy Grail? Quite frankly, in the course of my research, I've come across at least eight objects that claim to be the Holy Grail.

Exploring the rise of the assassins and the origins of the Knights Templar. The Templars were the first military religious order as such, although wasn't a new idea for Christians to fight in defence of Christendom, but it's the Templars who became the first permanent professional military religious force. Check out the whole season of Assassins v. Templars by following echoes of history wherever you get your podcasts.