The History of China - #207 - Mongol 16: Assassin's Creed

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

Following the destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire in 1221, the Mongol Empire's appetite for conquest to the west is whetted. It will take a few Great Khans to kick it off, but with the accession of Möngke to the throne in 1251, the way will be laid bare - to be led by his brother Hülegü Khan. The only thing standing between him and the beating heart of Islam is a ragged band of heretics scattered across the mountain fortresses of northern Persia - a group known as the Nizari Isma'ili... or more infamously: the Assassins. Time Period Covered: 765-1257 CE Major Historical Figures: Mongol Empire: Möngke Khaghan [r. 1251-1259] Hülegü Ilkhan [r. 1251-1265] General Ket-Buqa (Noyan) [d. 1260] Nizari Isma'ili: Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq [702-765] Hassan-i Sabbah [1050-1124] Imam Jalal al-Din Hassan [1187-1221] Imam Ala al-Din Muhammad III [1211-1255] Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah [1230-1256] Other: Brother Matthew of Paris [1200-1259] Friar William of Rubruck [1220-1293] Ata-Malik Juvayni [1226-1283] Rashid al-Din Hamadani [1247-1318] Major Sources Cited: Al-Din, Rashid (tr. John Andrew Boyle). The Successors of Genghis Khan. Daftary, Farhad. The Isma’ilis: Their History and Doctrines. Hillenbrand, Robert. “Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History’” in British Academy Review, issue 17 (March 2011). Hodgson, M. G. S. “The Isma’ili State” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia. Marozzi, Justin. Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood. Paris, Matthew of (tr. John Allen Giles). Chronica Majora (Matthew Paris’s English History From the Year 1235 to 1273, Volume 1). Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests. van Ruysbroeck, Willem (tr. W. W. Rockhill & Peter Jackson). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian del Carpine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to the History of China. Episode 207, Mongol 16, Assassin's Captain causes their young men to be taught diverse languages,

and sends them out into other kingdoms to serve the kings thereof. To the end of that, when the time requires it, each king's servant may kill him by poison or otherwise. If, after slaying a king, the servant makes good his escape to his own land, he is rewarded with honors, riches, and dignities. If he is taken and put to death, he is worshipped in his own country as a martyr. From Friar Felix Fabri, Evagatorium anterra sante Arabiae et Egyptae Peregrinationem, published circa 1484. In the year in which Ogedei Khan bade farewell to this life, he had sent messengers to summon Guyuk. In compliance with this command, Guyuk turned back, but before his arrival,

fate's inevitable decree was carried out, and no opportunity was given for father and son to brighten their eyes with each other's beauty. And when the spring of the year of the horse came round, the princes and emirs of the right and left hand arrived, each with their followers and retainers, and from the caliphate the chief Qadi, Fakhr al-Din. There come also envoys from the Franks, and from Fars and Kirman, and from Al-Aldin, the ruler of Alamut. Thereafter, Guyuk assigned and dispatched armies in every direction, sending Subutai Ba'athur and Chagah Noyan, with a large army to Kitai and parts of Manza, and assigning El-Jigitei with another army to the west. And he commanded of the Tadzik armies in Persia,

two out of every ten men should be sent and reduce the rebellious territories, beginning with the heretic Ismailis. He himself intended to follow afterward. And by the ambassador from Baghdad, he sent threats and menaces to the Caliph because of a complaint with Sheramun, the son of Chormakun, had made about him. So also he ordered a reply to be written in the harshest possible language to the memorandum brought by the ambassadors from Alamut. From the history of Guyuk Khan in The Successors of Genghis Khan by Rashid al-Din. When Munker Khan had been auspiciously seated upon the throne of the empire and had brought victory to his friends and defeat to his enemies,

now being firmly established in his seat of fortune and no longer concerned with the affairs of friend or foe, he turned his august attention toward the subjugation of the farther east and west of the world. And further, because of a number of persons seeking justice against the heretic Ismailis had been brought to his most noble notice, he dispatched against them into the lands of the Tajiks in the year of the ox his youngest brother, Hulagu Khan, upon whose forehead he had observed the signs of conquest, sovereignty, royal majesty, and fortune. From The Beginning of the History of Munker Khan, in The Successors of Genghis Khan by Rashid Al-Din.

Last time, we took an in-depth look at the rise, coronation, sudden death, and dramatic usurpation of the son of Ogade, Guyuk Khayan, by his cousin Munkah, of House Tolui, as of the year 1251. All, or rather, almost all, taking place within the hallowed soil of the ancestral lands of Mongolia proper. Well, today we're going to be venturing far and away from the hearth and home protected by the Toluid clan. Instead, we're going to follow the younger brother of the newly installed Khan of Khans. No, no, no, not that one who's taking up arms against the intransigent Song Chinese forces far to the south. See the main feed for much more on his life and exploits. No, what I mean is the other younger brother, the third one, Hulagu, named alongside his brother Kublai as one of

Monga's newest additions to the Yeke Mongol Ulus' top-tier command staff, the so-called Ilkhans, or we might render it Subkhans, as in those great regional warlords not directly created by the Al-Khan Genghis's Yassa himself. As Kublai would take command of the war against, and eventually total command over, all of China, so too would Hulagu be placed in command of one of the empire's great warfronts. In his case, the ongoing campaign against the Islamic Caliphate that yet controlled much of Persia and Arabia beyond. Let's begin with the man himself. He who would go on to reap such chaos and destruction, and carve a path of bloodshed

and wanton terror across Western Asia, so much so that in many respects, neither the region's nor its still-dominant religion has even to this day quite recovered from the cataclysm that Hulagu Ilkhan brought down upon them. Hulagu was born in Mongolia to Tolui and his principal wife, Sokhaktani Beki, in the year 1215 or 1216. You know, as usual, I've touched with these preliterate Mongols. Birth records remain a little bit fuzzy in the beginning at best. He was the third of four sons that Tolui and Sokhaktani's all-star cast. The brother we haven't mentioned in this particular episode being the baby of the group, Arik the Strong. Apart from this most basic of information,

there is almost next to nothing in terms of information about the young man's early life. Perhaps the only story that exists of his pre-adulthood is the anecdote from Rashid al-Din chronicling his and Kublai's meeting with their grandfather, Genghis, on the banks of the Ili River, whereupon the grandsire, in the traditional ritual of manhood, smeared the fat of the boy's first kill, a rabbit, on their faces and palms. Still, it's unclear if this was, in fact, how it went down, as it seems that only Aldean's telling of this particular tale places Hulagu at the scene, where other versions had the two brothers in question being Kublai and Manka. We remain rather equally in the dark as to the personal beliefs and

faith of Hulagu himself throughout his life. His mother, you'll no doubt recall, was a devout Nestorian Christian. And, much like his other brothers, Hulagu was no doubt raised in an interfaith household, surrounded by Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, and, as ever, the tangriest shamanisms of his Mongol forebears. Some accounts assert that Hulagu personally took up Nestorianism as his own faith for much of his life. Certainly, his marriage to his prime wife, Daghuz Khatun, who was herself of the Nestorian faith, suggests this possibility. Yet, as we've seen time and again with the sons and grandsons of Genghis Khan, it's just as likely, if not perhaps more so,

that while Hulagu may have had something of an affinity for Nestorian Christianity, especially when compared to the militant Islamic faith that he had been charged with rooting out and bringing to heel, he personally may have kept to his own shamanistic faith in the end. There are tales of Hulagu, near the end of his life, actually converting to Buddhism, which was supposedly much to the dismay of his queen, Dorcus. But those, like so much else about the man, remain conjectural. The place in the story that we're really introduced to Hulagu, in anything other

than a brief, anecdotal, perfunctory fashion, is the accession of his eldest brother, Manka, to the top job of the Mongol Empire in the year 1251. With his shocking and surprising rise to power, Manka gave each of his younger brothers their due in this new world order. To Kublai, as we well know by now, went China, which made perfect sense, as his second brother had lived almost his entire life steeped in its religion and its culture. To the baby brother, Arik, went the traditional title and the task of Ochkin, the hearthkeeper, charged with the maintenance and defense of the sacred Mongol homeland itself while the elder brothers conquered abroad. But to his third brother, Hulagu,

there were rather precious few options left for elevation. The other branches of the family jealously guarded their own rights and territories, as they well ought, and Europe was not only far too remote and distant to make up a new proper Khanate, but also pretty well under the jurisdiction of Batu and his Golden Horde, on whom Manka largely owed his meteoric rise and couldn't possibly alienate through an infringement of those rights. That left, therefore, the great unfinished conquest, started by no less than his great-lord-grandfather Genghis himself, and yet

three decades after his passing, still remained incomplete. I mean, of course, the Islamic world. The drive to conquer the Dar al-Islam has stemmed from Genghis's push into and subsequent destruction of the Khwarizmian Empire. That had put the southwesternmost frontiers of the newly formed Mongolian Empire up against a host of new and wholly unfamiliar peoples, cultures, and factions. Occupying a place of distinction among them must be a curious, and rather infamous, faction known as the Nizari Ismaili, better known across the Western world by a moniker that would come to haunt the nightmares of Muslims and Christians alike throughout the Crusader period, the Assassins. That, as we will see, holds some level of truth, but far more myth, much of which was encouraged by the Ismaili themselves in order to bolster their own legend and fearsomeness

in the eyes of their many enemies. So today, let's take a look at just who this mysterious bandit was comprised of. And also, who they still are comprised of. By the way, they are still around. The Mongols did not manage to quite finish the job. And how that formation and evolution eventually put them squarely in the sights of the vengeful Mongol Khans. This has been no way a complete history of the Ismaili, much less the Nizari. This is just a brief overview, so please forgive the many time jumps

and details left out. The Ismaili sect traces its origins as a splinter group from the wider Shiite Islam as of the year 765 CE, marking the death of the Imam Jafar al-Sadiq. Al-Sadiq's passing sparked a successional dispute. He had designated his second son, Ismail, as his chosen successor, but the younger man had pre-deceased his father. This, rather predictably, sparked shock amongst his followers that a divinely guided imam could have been so led astray in this choice of successor, while also prompting al-Sadiq's three other sons to vie for their late father's position. This would result in a six-way splintering of the al-Sadiq sect, and suffice it to say, two of those would eventually rejoin to form the Ismailis,

who said that Ismail had not actually died before his father and was therefore the rightful imam. From this point, we can boldly jump forward in the story about 300 years, to the year 1090 CE. Having been dubbed a heretical organization by the likewise Shiite Fatimid Caliphate, following another splintering between the Mustali sect and what became known as the Nizaris, been dubbed a heretical organization by the likewise Shiite Fatimid Caliphate, following another splintering between the Mustali sect and what became known as the Nizaris, whereas most Ismailis in Egypt, Yemen, India, and Syria accepted al-Mustali as the new Imam Caliph. In Persia, Iraq, and parts of Syria, the Dawah upheld the succession of Nizar, and by so doing, effectively terminated

its relations with Cairo. From that time on, the Nizari Ismailis began to operate with their own independent Dawah. End quote. Dawah, by the way, means essentially community, or, you know, group of people who believe. About a decade prior to 1090, a prominent member of the Nisari, a type of scholar-cleric known as a Dayi by the name of Hassan-i-Sabah, had managed to royally piss off the Fatimid military commander and vizier during his education in Cairo by supporting the accession of Nisar a little bit too vocally. For this, the vizier exiled Hassan from Egypt, apparently permanently, round about 1080. Hassan returned to his homeland in central Persia and became something of an itinerant cleric, wandering from city to city and finding the clusters of like-minded faithful of his fellow Nizari. He quickly realized, however, that the rise and domination of the Seljuk Turks, themselves of the arch-rival Islamic Sunni school, posed a constant and mortal danger to his own fellow Nizari believers.

Quote, all Muslims in their domains and persecute the Shiites, especially the Ismailis, with unremitting energy. They also pursued an aggressive policy of war and polemics against the Fatimid of Egypt, later succeeding in expelling their forces from Syria and Palestine. For all this, Hassani Sabah realized that his Ismaili people were far too exposed in this highly volatile political and religious movement, and so began to search for a solution, some place out of the way, remote and highly defensible. In due course, he came upon what was, by all measures, the perfect location, a place in the mountains of northern Persia, in a region called Dailam, a nigh-impregnable fortress carved into the very cliff faces of the great mountain Alamut,

held then by the Seljuks. In an absolute triumph of the kind of subtlety and stealth that would later become the kind of terrifying calling card of the assassin order itself, Hasan and a small contingent of his loyalists were able to infiltrate first the surrounding township and then the Alamut fortress itself, in the process converting many of the villagers and garrison soldiers alike into followers and devotees of the Nizari sect.

When the moment arrived in 1090, with a single stroke, Hasan-i-Saba was able to pretty much just inform the commander of the garrison that, well, actually, he was now the ex-commander, and he just needed to be on his way, thanks very much. From Farhad Daftari, quote, On the eve of Wednesday, 4 September 1090, Hasan secretly entered the castle of Alamut. He lived there for a while in disguise, calling himself Dikhuda, and instructing the children of the gut. He lived there for a while in disguise, calling himself Dikuda,

and instructing the children of the garrison as a teacher. In due time, the garrison commander, Mahdi, learned of Hassan's presence in the castle, realizing that he had been tricked. The bulk of Alamut's garrison and many of the inhabitants of the surrounding districts had already embraced Ismailism, rendering Mahdi powerless to defend his position. Hassan permitted Mahdi to leave, and according to our Persian chroniclers, gave him a draft for 3,000 gold dinars as the price of the castle. End quote. It was a bloodless seizure that almost defies believability. Except, of course, for one key detail. These are the assassins that we are talking about here. Nadia Sabu Jamal explains further, quote,

The success of this bold venture provided the springboard for the Persian Ismailis in the following years to seize control of a large number of other strategically placed fortresses, towns, and villages in the surrounding areas of Rudbar, as well as Kyrgyzstan in southern Kyrgyzstan. The inability of the local Seljuk leaders to stem this movement forced the Seljuk Sultan, Malik Shah, to send a number of military expeditions against the Ismailis, which were largely unsuccessful. The Ismailis continued to reinforce and extend the areas under their control, thus creating in the space of a few years what amounted to an autonomous territorial state of their own, consisting of large and small fortresses scattered across parts of northern

and eastern Persia within the Seljuk domain. End quote. Given their great distance and physical isolation from, and not to mention their ideological distance, from the main body of Ismaili Shiites in Egypt and Syria, Hassan Issa Ba took up the role of acting leader of the Nizarian Persia, a title at first called the Khuja, meaning proof of the power and righteousness of the Imam, but ultimately taking up the title of imam himself. Because of the very real mortal danger that he was constantly in, and the importance that he, as head of the order and vaikar of the imam, and then again imam himself, remains safe from harm, the Nizari Ismaili rekindled an ancient practice from the pre-Fatimid era called the Dawar al-Satar, or the Period of

Concealment, in which the leader of the movement would remain cloaked in mystery and shadows, hidden from public knowledge, acting almost solely through his own secretive agents and methods to advance the cause of the sect. In time, he would become known as little more than the Old Man of the mountain. The particular circumstances of these Nizaris of Alamut, both political and environmental, would reshape them over the subsequent century and a half into a form quite different from their Fatimid brethren. Daftari writes,

From early on, the Nizari Ismailis were preoccupied with their revolutionary activities and survival in an extremely hostile environment. Now, this is not to say that they became dumb brutes or anything of the sort. Though, at least at first, their access to the wider literature of the Arabic world was largely cut off, in large part as a result of their conversion from the Arabic language to the Persian language, Farsi. They remained highly committed to the accumulation and expansion of their collective knowledge, and given their tenuous situation, they recognized they would need to be willing to accept it from just about any worthy source that might present itself. Quote, Hassani Sabah is credited with establishing an impressive library in Al-Ahmud. Later, other major Nazari fortresses in Persia and Syria were equipped with significant collections

of manuscripts, documents, and scientific instruments. The Nazaris also extended their patronage of learning to outside scholars, including Sunnis, 12 Arshiites, and even non-Muslims, end quote. Though there were Ismailis scattered far and wide across Seljuk-controlled Persia, the Turks' persecution of their sect and heavy-handed reprisals meant that they remained largely scattered and organized into small, largely autonomous cells that would occasionally receive updates and commands from their hidden commander from his inviolable mountain holdfast. The scattered and guerrilla nature of their struggle against their Seljuk overlords necessitated, as it so often does, a pivot toward asymmetrical warfare strategies and tactics. No great army could, or ever would, meet an enemy host in a frontal charge on a great

battlefield. Instead, the Nizarit would stick to the shadows and inspire the kind of terror that would keep their foes forever looking over their shoulders and doubting even their closest friends and most trusted guardians. Via a policy of targeted assassinations, conducted almost invariably in wide view of the public for maximum effect. In time, even the threat that the Ismaili leader was displeased with a sultan or general's policies could inspire them to change course drastically, lest they wind up with a dagger in their back or poison in their soup. The Ismailis were, of course, by no means the only organization to employ assassins to dispatch targets in this era, or any other era for that matter. During the Crusader period, all of the relevant factions,

Muslim and Christian alike, were known to have commonly resorted to such strategies. Still, the warriors of the Ismaili gained in time a rather special reputation, as they were so singularly focused on this specific practice above almost any other method of combat. Quote, As a result, soon any assassination of any importance in the central lands of Islam were readily attributed to the Nizaris. End quote. Unsurprisingly, such terror tactics came with an extremely high price for the Ismailis as well. Their own term for these warriors trained to assassinate the sex enemies was the fitayi, meaning the sacrificial ones.

They were, both by legend and apparent evidence, expected and required to give up their lives at a moment's notice in the unquestioning service of their order's master and whatever mission he set out for them. They were not, as a rule, expected to survive that mission, and in fact their willingness to die in the service of its completion was what made them so deadly and so terrifying. Moreover, the targets of such assassination tactics, often knowing well that even though they couldn't directly find any particular Ismaili surrounding them, but that they were definitely surrounding them, often resorted to the incredibly brutal but inarguably effective tactic of simple collective punishment. One of your generals or princes was killed by the assassins

in a particular region or village? Well, just round up the entire village and put them all to death. You'd be sure to sweep up at least some of the accomplices, and Allah could sort out the rest of them. As we might well expect, there were no shortages of myths and legends that sprang up about this secretive order of Islamic killers. Probably none more so than the origin of their popular name throughout the West, the Assassins. Legend tells that the acting Huja, who came to be known by many as the mysterious and cool Super K again, the old man of the mountain, this comes thanks in large part to the story-weaving largesse of Marco Polo, would induct young men into the assassin order by stretchlessly drugging them with large amounts of hashish slipped into their drinks during an

initial meeting with his agents. This, supposedly, left the recruits unconscious for a long enough period that he would then be transported to an unknown location, ostensibly Alamut itself, where he would then awake surrounded by all the pleasures of heaven and earth. I'm talking wine, women, and intoxicants of all varieties and flavors which were all his to be sampled. Once he'd had his fill, he would be approached by the old man of the mountain himself, who explained that he'd been chosen as aidai of the Nizari, and that, in exchange for his unbending loyalty unto death, he would, ultimately, be allowed to return to this pleasure palace, either in this life or the next.

Not an interesting tale, but one that has some pretty big holes in it, especially for anyone who's experienced firsthand the effects and duration of THC. You're not likely to be able to slip enough into someone's tea to knock them out without them noticing. And moreover, it's not going to last nearly as long to get to some remote mountain castle for a romp and talk with the boss. Daftari writes, quote, Few details are known about the selection and training of the Nizari Fidais. However, contrary to the medieval assassin legends, fabricated by uninformed crusader circles and their occidental chroniclers, there is no evidence that Hashish was used for motivating

the Fidais, who displayed a strong group sentiment and solidarity, end quote. And as we'll see later, they are some of the most loyal, even unto the very end. Additionally, again, as anyone who's tried this stuff can tell you, you do not want to hotbox yourself right before a murder spree, unless you're planning on murdering a bunch of, like, tacos or something. Instead, these by all accounts were nothing less than a highly motivated, devout, and trained warrior sect who were fully committed to the cause of their organization, even at the expense of their own lives. Not like potheads with a knife or the like. A somewhat more plausible basis for the name assassin comes from a minor corruption of the followers of Hassan. Less clear even than this, though, is the specific levels and types of training that the Fidai may have received prior to their missions. Some tales, and even modern analyses, suggest that they, or at least some of them,

may have received some form of mission-specific specialized training that would allow them to better blend in with their targets surrounding. One tale in particular tells of the successful murder of the newly elected king of Jerusalem, the Frankish Marquis Conrad of Montferrat in 1192. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the center of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Listen to Season 1 to hear about England's first attempts at empire building, in Ireland, in North America, and in the Caribbean,

the first steps of the East India Company, and the political battles between King and Parliament. Listen to Season 2 to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution, and regicide which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the Fledgling Empire. In Season 3, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth and challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. Whilst in the city of Tyre, the sources, both Muslim and Christian alike it should be said, tell of two Fidais successfully disguising themselves as Christian monks and winning Conrad's confidence before publicly killing him. Farhad tells it, quote, the titular ruler of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem fell victim entire to the daggers of

two apparent monks who were allegedly Nizari emissaries in disguise sent by the old man. This event, occurring just before the death of Rashid al-Din Sinan himself, the original old man of the mountain, greatly impressed the Frankish circles. There is, however, much controversy regarding the instigator of this assassination. Many Muslim sources, as well as some Occidental ones, state that its instigator was in fact Richard I, surnamed the Lionheart or Coeur de Lion, the King of England from 1189 to 1199, and yeah, I'm talking about that King Richard, the Robin Hood one, him. Richard at that point was in the Holy Land, and was hostile to Conrad.

On the other hand, Ibn al-Atir, who was favorably disposed toward the Zangids and as such disliked Saladin the Great, reports that it was Saladin who persuaded Sinan to murder both Conrad and Richard in return for a certain sum of money. I mean, it could go any way. You can kind of see the difficulty in finding out, or even trying to find out, who did what to who. That's the nature of secret groups, isn't it? Now, I'm sure I could go on and on about the ins and outs of the Nizar-e-Ismaili order, about the Fidayi assassins and their deeds, supposed deeds and legends. I am not in any way qualified to do any of that, however. And in any event, that's not the actual purpose of this episode. I hope here simply to have laid the groundwork for them as an organization and something of their methods of operation, area of influence,

and how, by the middle of the 13th century, they'd come to occupy a formidable, nigh-on legendary place in the minds and nightmares of the Muslim and Christian worlds alike. And how, with the destruction of the Khwarizmian Empire by Genghis Khan as of 1221, that placed Alamut and its fanatical Ismaili defenders squarely in the sights of the rising tide of Mongol military might. The Nizari leadership was by no means blind to this new threat from the northeast. In 1221, its imam, Jalal al-Din Hassan, sent emissaries to the Great Khan as he resided in Balkh in modern Afghanistan. That same year, however, Jalal died and was replaced by his son and successor, the nine-year-old Ala al-Din Muhammad III, as the Nizari imam. By that point, however, and especially with the death of the somewhat softening Genghis as of 1227, and the accession of his son Oghene as the

second great Khan, the Mongols' war objectives had crystallized into that near-religious drive we've come to know and love so well, that the whole world must unquestioningly kneel before the Mongol standard as its obedient slave subjects or face complete annihilation. In the face of such a choice, the Nizaris and their imam began casting out for anyone, I mean anyone, who might ally with them to stave off this existential threat, Muslim or otherwise. Two of the recipients of this assassin plea for an anti-Mongol alliance were King Louis IX, the Saint of France, and King Henry III of England. And there's just a fantastic accounting of the Nizari emissary arriving before King Henry in 1238 and making his case, along with the English reply.

In the English chronicler and Benedictine monk Matthew of Paris' Chronica Majora, translated into English by John Allen Giles in 1899, it goes, About this time, special ambassadors were sent by the Saracens, Muslims, chiefly on behalf of the old man of the mountain, to the French king, telling him that a monstrous and inhuman race of men had burst forth from the northern mountains and had taken possession of the extensive rich lands of the east, that they had depopulated Hungary major and had sent threatening letters with dreadful embassies, the chief of whom declared that he was the messenger

of God on high, sent to subdue the nations who rebelled against him. These people had very large heads, by no means proportionate to their bodies, and feed on raw flesh and even on human beings. They are incomparable archers and cross over any rivers in portable boats made by hides. Of robust strength and large in their bodies, impious and inexorable men, as their language is unknown to all within reach or knowledge. They abound in their flocks, herds, and breeds of horses. The horses are very swift and able to perform a journey of three days in the one. The men are well armed in front, but not behind, that they may not take to flight,

and that their chief is a most ferocious man, named Khan. These people inhabit the northern regions, either the Caspian Mountains or the adjacent places, and are called Tartarsars from the river Tra. They are very numerous and are believed to have been sent as a plague on mankind and although they sallied forth on other occasions they seemed this year to rage more fiercely than usual. The inhabitants of Gotland and Hrysland, that is Scandinavia, dreading their attacks did not, as was their custom, visit Yarmouth in England, at the time of the herring fisheries, at which place their ships usually loaded. And owing to this, herrings in that year were considered of no value on account of their abundance,

and about 40 or 50, though very good, were sold for one piece of silver, even in places at a great distance from the sea." End quote. Now, before going on, just to quickly pause here and rhapsodize on this letter for a moment before continuing. Don't you just love these kind of detailed accountings? Isn't it just absolutely wild to hear these Persians telling their enemies, the Christian Europeans, whoa, guys, hold on, we might have our differences, but wait up, wait up, wait

up. Listen, we know about these other guys who make all of us look like bosom brothers. Those guys are out and out monsters from hell. And in this particular series, we have heard this same story time and again. People with actual contact with the Mongols saying, whoa, now, hey, drop everything. Your little disputes don't matter anymore. They're coming. I can prove it. Haven't you noticed all the extra fish recently?

That's why. Also, I love the blending of fact and fiction in the description. I mean, huge heads? No. Different head and face shape? Different strange haircuts and helms? Yeah, sure. Eating raw flesh?

Eh, not so much. Eating just about anything that moves? Yeah. Eating people? Well, you know. If the times are tough, you do what you gotta do. The only thing I really shake my head at completely is the idea of the Mongols, the Tartars, were unarmored on their backs so that they wouldn't run away.

I mean, we all know that they did that all the time. One of their favorite tactics was to run away, to get the enemy to chase after them and then circle back around and kill them all. It's inexcusable that that line of storytelling was still being used as fact. And widely circulated. That, you know, the Tartars fleeing was unthinkable. It's just, it's beyond the pale. It's beyond stupidity.

Oh, oh yes. And of course that the leader is named Khan, rather than it being his title. Classic. Just classic. Anyways, on with Matthew of Paris's chronicle. Continuing the quote. This powerful and noble salesman messenger, who has come to the French king, was sent on behalf of the whole of the people of the East to tell these things, and he has assistance from the Western nations, withstand the attacks of such people, nothing remained to prevent their devastating the countries of the West, according to the saying of the poet, For when your neighbor's house doth burn, the fire will seize yours in turn. He therefore asked assistance to this urgent and general emergency, that the Saracens, with the assistance of the Christians, might resist the attacks of these people.

The Bishop of Winchester, who happened to be then present, and wearing the sign of the cross, interrupted his speech, and replied jocosely, End quote. It will probably surprise none of you that both the kings of France and England were far more of a mind to listen to the Bishop of Winchester's advice, leave the dogs to devour one another, than to the pleas, however earnest, emphatic, and eloquent, of their hated Muslim enemies to unite against this supposed common enemy. Instead, as we've seen in earlier episodes, the sovereigns of Christendom would take this newly proffered knowledge of a fearsome, unknown enemy to the Far East, making war against the Islamic world, and conclude that, well, obviously they must be pro-Christian. Let's go find them and join up, and together we'll crush these Mohammedans once and for all. We will never regret this decision.

As heretics to the Muslim world, and infidels to the Christian world, and creatures of nightmare and shadow to both, the Ismailis were left to largely fend for themselves against the inexorable Mongol advance westward. They did not, of course, take this lying down. They would use whatever methods they possibly could, by hook or by crook, to attempt to stave off the onrushing doom. As related in the quote by Rashid al-Din at the beginning of this episode detailing Goyat Khan's curl tie and enthronement, the 35-year-old, not-so-old man of the mountain, ala al-Din Muhammad III, sent forth a pair of emissaries from Alamut to the great Mongol conclave in an attempt to mend those frayed bridges between the Nizari sect and the

Mongol war machine. It seems that we don't quite know the specifics of what was said by either party, which is really a shame. But in any case, such a detente quite apparently held exactly zero appeal to the great Khan Guyuk, who instead, quote, commanded that the Tazik army in Persia, two out of every ten men should be set out and reduce the rebell and total submission to the Khan's will, had long since shut. Ever since the Ismaili assassins had been dispatched, and they certainly had, against Mongol targets, their fate had been effectively sealed. In the words of Jabba the Hutt, there would be no bargain.

Guyuk, however, did not live long enough to see his forces dispatched against the assassins of Alamut, or their old man hidden away in his pathetic little mountain. Instead, ever sickly through his life and possibly poisoned by the secret agents of his great enemy Lord Batu of the Golden Horde, whom he was on his way to do battle with when he took ill, Guyuk suddenly died at the age of 42 in 1248, after less than two years of the Great Khan of the Mongols. As the Great Hordes were once again, and quite suddenly, forced to vastly scale back and reduce their field operations in order to select the empire's replacement emperor,

like so many other peoples across Eurasia, this served as a temporary reprieve to the Nizari of Alamut from the death sentence hanging directly over their heads. That reprieve would last some four years, until the formal, and quite unexpected, election of not one of Guyuk's Ogedei Borgin, but rather his cousin of the House of Tolui, Monka. Monka's election and elevation to Great Khan, as you'll remember, was not without its own high drama, as entire factions of his extended family conspired to ambush and slaughter him and his entire family line at his own coronation ceremony, but were, by chance, found out and stopped before they could quite arrive. As part of his grand vision to complete the work begun by his forebears,

while also sweeping his own house clean of the treacherous rats that had clearly infested it and conspired against him, Manka sentenced thousands upon thousands of his own subjects and family members to death, either directly or by sending them on suicidal military missions against impossible odds. Part of this broad repowering up of the Mongol war machine was, of course, following through on what first Ogedei then Goyuk, had planned for Persia, namely clearing it of any force that might stand against the might of the Khanate, or rebelled against it, by not having, you know, surrendered utterly just yet. Again, from Rashid al-Din, quote,

And first, because of a number of persons seeking justice against the heretic Ismailis had been brought to his most noble notice. He dispatched against them into the lands of the Tajiks in the year of the ox his youngest brother, Hulagu Khan, upon whose forehead he had observed the signs of conquest, sovereignty, royal majesty, and fortune. End quote. Apparently, his suspicions of the Ismailis had been inflamed to the point of no return, quote, by a number of Sunni ulama at his court who desired their downfall. His resolve to take action against the Ismailis seemed to have taken shape,

especially when the chief qadi of Qazwan appeared before him wearing a coat of mail, explaining that he always wore armor under his clothing for fear of the heretics of Alamut. End quote. There were surely other, more strategic considerations at play in this decision, but it certainly makes for a good story of the fearsomeness of these Ismaili assassins of Alamut. Hulagu would be placed in charge of the far western warfront in Persia, while Manka's second brother, Kublai, was placed in charge of the ongoing conquest of China far to the southeast of Mongolia proper.

Both were therefore ennobled with the title of Ilkhan, again, a rank technically lesser than, but in time just as powerful and noble as the four original Khanates of the Empire. Here in the story, we're lucky enough to once again receive a first-hand accounting of the goings-on at the royal court of Mongke Khan from our old friend, the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck, who we've used as a source before. William had, much like his contemporary, Giovanni of Plano Carpini, been dispatched by the papacy to find, meet with,

and try to secure some form of formal alliance with the Mongol emperor. And, you know, if possible, try to get his people to convert to Catholicism, of course. You know, if you can. The first two he was able to do. The second two, not so much. William arrived at the camp of Monca in early 1254, where he spent the first half of that year learning all that he could about these strange people and their equally strange customs. William is also apparently either the first or one of the first Europeans to learn and adopt the terms Aksashins and Haksashins to describe the Persian Alamut Ismailis. That would play so prominent a role in the affairs of the Mongol court during his stay among them. Incidentally, prior to this, the term had been used by the crusaders, but had specifically referred to the Ismaili sect of Syria only, not Persia or Alamut.

During his stay at Karakorum, William took a special note of the exceedingly strict security measures in place by the Mongol guards against all foreigners. He wrote, quote, Of the city of Karakorum, you must know that exclusive to the palace of the Khan, it is not as grand as the village of Santigny, and the monastery of Santigny is worth ten times that of the palace. There are two quarters in it, one of the Saracens, in which there are

markets, and where a great many Tartars gather on account of the court, which is always near this city and on account of the great number of ambassadors. The other quarters are the Catheans, all of whom are artisans. We arrived there following the court on Sunday before the accession, May 17th. The next day, we, the monk, and all the household were summoned by Bulgai, who was the Grand Secretarian Judge, and all the envoys who were in the habit of frequenting the monk's house. And we were separately called into Bulgai's presence, first the monk, and then we after him.

And they inquired most minutely whence we were, why we'd come, what was our business. And this inquiry was made because it had been reported to Monk Akan that 40 Hassassians had entered the city under various disguises to kill him. Furthermore, Monk A Khan has eight brothers, three Uttarain, and five by the father.

One of these Uttarain ones he sent to the country of the Haqqashians, whom they call Mulekhut, and he ordered them all to death. End quote. This initial encounter between the Mongols of Munker and the Ismaili of Al-Aldin would so motivate the old man of the mountain to strike back boldly and directly at his powerful foe. This would occur in the year before William of Rubik's arrival at Karakorum in 1253. An advanced force under the command of the Christian Mongol general Khatbukha

seized several Ismaili strongholds in Chilistan, putting their inhabitants to the sword, before laying siege to the fortress of Gherkhud. In all human history, there are few stories like that of ancient Egypt. On the banks of the Nile, these people created one of the most enduring and significant cultures. Their tale comes to life in the History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore the tales of this amazing culture, from the legendary days of creation and the gods, all the way to Cleopatra, and everything in between. The History of Egypt podcast is written and produced by a trained Egyptologist. We go much deeper than your average documentary

or magazine article to uncover tales of life, great endeavours, and the amazing arc of a mighty kingdom. The History of Egypt podcast is available on all podcasting platforms, apps, and websites. Come, visit ancient Egypt, and experience a legendary culture. According to Hamad al-Mustafi, some 12,000 Ismailis were killed in the town of Tün on the orders of Hulagu. Now, apparently, many of these deaths were actually due to an outbreak of cholera that ripped through the besieged Nisari ranks. So, in reprisal for Manka ordering Hulagu to move against them, they had dispatched some 40 assassins, and by some translations, that number is rendered as 400, but I don't

know, that seems a little high to me. I don't know. To try to kill him. Apparently, if they only sent 40, they should have sent 400, and if they sent 400, maybe they should have sent 4,000, because in any case, it clearly didn't work. Monk Khan was not killed by Fidai, and that is the only accounting of them at all in William's travelogue.

Their specific fates remain uncertain, though if I had to guess, they were found out, caught, and then tortured to death in order to give up their fellows. That they had attempted such a thing at all did little more than to ensure that Mongol vengeance would be absolute and uncompromising. Meanwhile, back over in Persia, Hulagu rode at the head of his army, crossing the Oxus River into Kurasan. As ordered, his first objective was to reduce utterly all opposition from the heretic Ismaili sects that hid out in their mountain fortresses. His specific instructions were as follows, quote, Overthrow Garkut and Lamassar. Turn their heads down and their bodies up. Let not remain in the

world a single castle, not even one heap of earth, end quote. Pretty straightforward, right? Hulagu, for his part, took his sweet time in preparing his army to make their long march across Persia and into the further west beyond. Thus, it was only in 1256 when the Ilkhan's forces converged on the western side of the Oxus from their seemingly random and chaotic march formation of being scattered in every direction without apparent order, although we, of course, know far better by this point. Their first target would be the same as that of Katbuka the year prior, the township of Tun, where its inhabitants were, once again, slaughtered without mercy,

sparing only women and children no taller than the axle of an ox cart, in classic fashion. The massacre, quote, had the intended effect of persuading the Ismaili governor of Chuhistan, Shams al-Din, to surrender to the Mongol commander in person, end quote. By this point, Allah al-Din had in fact been mysteriously murdered in his own hut and was thus replaced as the Nizari Imam and old man of the mountain by his son and heir, the 25-year-old Rukin-al-Din Kursha. Kursha, likewise taken aback at the scale and seemingly almost casual nature of the Mongol slaughter inflicted upon his people, sent forth his own brother, named Shahanshah,

to the Mongol commander stationed at Hamadan, a fellow known as Commander Yasaur, bearing a message of submission to the Mongol Empire. This, however, was deemed as not good enough by the Noyon commander, who advised nothing less than the personal and in-person submission of the Nizari leader himself to the Ilkhan himself, whose arrival, by the way, was imminent. He also advised them that in order for their surrender to be accepted, the Ismaili needs must demolish every castle and fortification that they now possessed all across their country. Brother Shahanshah was thus returned to his elder brother and delivered the message. The conditions were, by design, not supposed to be easy to fulfill.

In fact, knowing Mongol diplomacy well enough, it seems almost a certainty that Hulagu's demands to Kursha were designed to be basically impossible for him to accept, thus justifying a full-on attack by the Mongols. Imam Kursha attempted to play for time, drawing the negotiations out by first asking for a year's grace to consider, which was granted. He then sent to Hulagu a different, distinguished emissary on his behalf, who now asked that the fortifications of Alamut itself, as well as the fortresses at Lamassar, be exempted from the Mongol demand for their deconstruction. By this point, Hulagu was well and truly out of patience at the rather transparent games the Ismaili leader was playing with him. Rather than making reply via the emissary's scent, though not requested, Hulagu

responded via action, setting his main army out for the Nizari castles in the Rudbar region, roughly towards the direction of Alamut from his camp in Kushan. He also sent out orders that all Mongol regiments across the Iraqi Ajam prepare for full-scale war. Pausing again at Damawand, Hulagu again sent a message to Kushan, No, like seriously, come to me right now. Though he did allow that if the imam must be delayed by more than, say, five days due to whatever preparations he might need, he could send ahead of him another of his brothers in the meantime. This, at least, Kusha did, though upon the boy's arrival, Hulagu returned him at once, quite evidently disgusted that the imam would offer up a child in place of himself.

At last, Hulagu allowed the first brother sent to him, Sha'ansha, to return to the Nizar hideout at Rudvar, with a final ultimatum for the Imam. Destroy the castle at Maimudis, and present himself in person before Hulagu, and quote, he would be received with honor. Otherwise, God alone knew what would befall him, end quote. And as if to drive that point home, Hulagu now put to death virtually all of the other Nazaris who had been sent to his care. Arriving outside of the castle of Maimodis, not far from Alamut itself in early November 1256, Hulagu beheld with his own eyes for the first time the sheer level of fortification that he was up against, and was notably impressed.

He consulted with his commanders about what their plan of action should be. Should they besiege the fortress at once, or should they pull back for the winter and wait for the following spring? Though the majority of his advisors, citing the impossibility of foraging sufficient supplies for these soldiers, much less the animals, during the winter months, encouraged a seasonal withdrawal, several of Hulagu's most trusted comrades, including General Katabuka himself, insisted that laying siege at once was the best option, an opinion with which Hulagu readily agreed. From Daftari, quote, to prepare for war. To provide poles for their mangonels, the Mongols felled the trees which the Nizari themselves had planted in former times. When battle was joined, the Nizari gained some initial victories, pouring down stones from their own mangonels upon the besiegers.

But on the second day of fighting, the Mongols brought into play a Chinese ballista, known as a Kaman-il-Gav, with a range of 2,500 paces. After a few demonstrations of their Chinese plaything, letting the Nizari within the fortress see and feel for themselves that they could no longer strike back against their besiegers, the Ismaili defenders of Mahmudoudiyah ceased fighting and called for a truce to discuss terms, which was granted. As it turned out, the imam himself, Karsha, was within this particular fortress when it fell under the Mongol siege, and he at first thought to ride out and meet, at long last, personally with Hulagu. It's impossible to say for certain what might have happened if he'd gone through with his initial plan to surrender to the Mongol Khan

right away. Perhaps fate might have proceeded very differently for him and his people. That does seem unlikely, however. As things went, though, after securing a guarantee of safe conduct from the Mongols for their leader's transit to meet with the Khan, Kershaw got a case of cold feet. Quote, Kershaw was evidently persuaded not to come down by some zealous Fidais, who, in contradistinction to the foreign scholars present at his court, were strongly against surrendering to the Mongols. End quote. This, of course, only further irked Hulagu, who once again, perhaps rightly, felt like he was being jerked around by the enemy playing for time, just hoping that the deep winter snows would arrive and save him from his imminent destruction.

Alas for the Ismailis, the weather remained unseasonably mild that year, and the snows did not arrive. His patience exhausted, Hulagu called off the parley and resumed bombardment of the fortress on November 15th, now on a vastly larger scale than before. After two or three days of this non-stop pounding, Kusha had finally had enough and sent forth another of his brothers, Iranshah, along with a, quote, delegation of notables, end quote. Imam Kusha himself descended from Castle Maimudis on November 19th, surrounded by a further group of dignitaries, and presented himself to Lord Hulagu. He had reigned as Imam of the Alamut Nizaris for one year to the day,

and his surrender marked the end of the Persian Nizaris, founded some 160 years prior upon the bloodless capture of Castle Alamut by Hassan-i-Shabakh. The following day, Kershah had his family brought out of the fortress, along with the meager treasure that had been stored within, and offered them up to the Mongol Khan. However, when the Mongols themselves proceeded up to the Maimadi's fortress to proceed with its destruction, they found, to their own and also undoubtedly to Khurshah's shock and dismay, that a contingent of the Fidai assassin warriors still within had decided to make a last stand of things. For three days, the group inside would fiercely resist the Mongol incursion into their sanctum, before finally being cut down to the last man.

With the Nizari Imam and his family now in his possession, Hulagu's task of clearing out the remaining Nizari fortifications became much, much easier. Quote, Some 40 castles were thus demolished after the evacuation of their garrisons. In Rudbar, only the commanders of Alamut and Lamassar refused to surrender, perhaps thinking that their imam was acting under duress and was observing a new sort of takiyah, which is a practice specific to Shia Islam for the most part, whereby those faced with persecution are permitted to hide or even deny their faith and beliefs in order to survive. After trying, and failing, to personally appeal to the commander of Alamut, Hulagu left the siege of the fortress to his lieutenant, Balagai, while he and Kursha proceeded to the next fortress, the nearby Lamassar.

After just a few days of siege, the commander of Alamut threw in the towel and at last surrendered. Due to the intervention of Khusha with Kholugu, the defenders were allowed, in a rather uncharacteristic fashion for Mongol conquerors, to have three days' grace in which to bring down their belongings from the castle. Of course, once their counter-siege weaponry had all been dismantled and removed. Critically, in the course of this grace period, the Persian scholar and chronicler Atta Malik Juveni, who had been traveling with Hulagu's party this whole time, incidentally, was allowed to accompany the Khan into Alamut itself and into its great, and to this point rather closely guarded and secret, library, in order

to salvage any work that he felt was worth saving from the utter destruction that was to follow. Giovanni himself writes of the library, quote, I went to examine the library, from which I extracted whatever I found in the way of copies of the Quran and other choice books. I likewise picked out the astronomical instruments such as carcis, parts of an astrolabe, armillary spheres, complete and partial astrolabes, and others such as there were. As for the remaining books, which related to the Nisari's heresy and error, and were founded on tradition not supported by

any reason, I burnt them all. Although the treasuries were copious with gold and silver without limit, I recited over them the words, O yellow be yellow, and O white be white, and magnanimously shook my sleeve upon them. End quote. Giovanni was also greatly impressed by the storage facilities and the food supplies that he found at Alamut, as well as the castle's water

supply systems and fortifications. He even went on to describe the difficulties faced by the large group of Mongols who were assigned to the task of demolishing the castle. The fortress at Lamassara, meanwhile, proved to be a far tougher nut to crack. Like Alamut, it refused to surrender even when personally asked to do so by the Imam Kushan. Unlike Alamut, its defenders weren't about to give up any time soon. Hulagu himself, as before, moved on, leaving his general Tayyar Bukha to oversee the siege, which would ultimately last for more than a year to follow. Over the course of this campaign against the Ismaili forces and holdings,

with the exception of these two fortresses, Imam Kurshah proved to be Hulagu's absolute trump card in securing the swift and often bloodless surrender of the enemy forts and castles. As such, the Ismaili leader was awarded all sorts of respect and honors that could be given as a guest of the Lord Khan. As the campaign began to draw down toward its inevitable conclusion, however, with the surrender of almost all the Nisari positions, Hulagu found that his guest was no longer nearly as valuable as he'd once been.

As such, when Kershaw requested of Hulagu that he be sent on to Karakorum in order to have an audience with the great Khan Mungka himself, Hulagu was only too happy to send the Nizari Imam off on his merry way to Margolia. Yeah, man, go on. Have a nice time. See you when you get back. Daftari recounts of the fateful trip, quote, On March 9th, 1257, Kershaw set out with nine companions and a group of Mongol guards, led by Berjai. Kershaw was not evidently treated respectfully by his escorts, and by the time they reached Bukhara, he had to engage in fistfighting with his Mongol guards, end quote. Well, this is certainly going well, isn't it? When they finally did reach Karakorum and were presented to the Great Khan, Manka just flat out refused to meet with the Nizari Imam, citing the fact that the agreement between him and Hulagu had been that, you know, he would get the Ismaili force to

surrender to the Mongols. And I look around and look around and the forts at Lamasar and Gurkha, well, they still haven't surrendered, have they? Sorry, kiddo, you haven't finished your mission. Please try again later. Kursha and his travel companions were then informed that they were to be brought back to Persia to, you know, finish their end of the deal. But that was basically like Clemenzo and Rocco talking Polly into the car to go on a business-as-usual day drive. In the course of this return journey, as the party rested for the night just off the main road in the Kangai Mountains of northwestern Mongolia. Khasha and his travel companions were taken away one by one and then brutally murdered by their Mongol guards.

In the words of Juvaini, quote, He and his followers were kicked to a pulp and then put to the sword. And of him and his stock no trace was left, and his kindred became but a tale on men's lips and a tradition in the world. And quote, Leave the guns, take the cannoli. While Khurshid had been off at what was to be his last journey, in the meantime, seemingly perfectly in sync with his elder lord brother, Hulgu had gone ahead and, well, exterminated the entire population of Persian Nazarees that had been placed into his care following the surrender of their towns and fortresses. Quote, Karshaf's family and dependents detained at Kazuin were put to the sword by Karakhai Bitki.

While Otgo Chinna, the Mongol commander of Khorasan, summoned the Chuhistani Mizaris to great gatherings and slaughtered some 12,000 of them. End quote. From Juvaini himself, quote, they spared no one over 10 years except for younger women, which Rassi Daldin would later correct to read as except artisans. End quote. According to Hodgson, the slave markets of Khorasan were glutted with Ismaili women and children who were, as a result of their status as quote-unquote heretics, denied the traditional prohibition on enslavement granted to fellow Muslims. Juvaini chillingly concludes that the fact that such wholesale slaughter and brutality went in direct contravention of Hulagu's own prior agreement with Karsha,

was of no consequence to the Khan, as, quote, It had been laid down in the original yasa of Genghis Khan, and also in the decree of Munker Khan, that none of these people should be spared, not even a babe in its cradle, end quote. It's not personal. It's strictly business. What's most striking to me about this whole playing out of events, I mean, you know, apart from just how absolutely like the climax of The Godfather it all is, is how it seems to have hinged almost entirely on the dumb, blind luck of Hulagu getting Iman Kershaw into his clutches essentially right off the bat.

And I'm not the only one who sees it this way. Now, and I mean absolutely no disrespect, but when Dan Carlin blows by the Nizari's on his way to Baghdad, he really does make it seem as though the Mongols were just able to steamroll these Persian mountain fortresses through the sheer power of awesome. It's been ages, admittedly, since I listened to that specific line, but at least as per my memory, Dan makes it sound as though Hulagu had B-1 bombers on station overhead ready to drop a few bunker busters into each castle and then just move on, which is not the case. Instead, Jivani, who again was there, recounts time and again, quote, the impregnability and self-sufficiency of the Nizari fortresses, especially Alamut, which would have enabled them to withstand Mongol sieges for indefinite periods. He also recalls how Alamut had earlier successfully

resisted the Seljuk armies for over a decade, end quote. The final Nizari holdout before Cezette-Gurkha would demonstrate this abjectly. It would continue to resist the besieging Mongol forces at its doorstep for more than 13 years after the surrender of Alamut, only yielding in December of 1270 when it finally succumbed to a combination of rampant disease, almost certainly cholera, and having run out of any clothing or cloth. In all, it had held out for 17 years since it had first been invested by Hulu's advanced guard force. By that point, the Mongols had gone ahead and constructed permanent structures and houses all around the fortress. And as a reward for their mind-bogglingly tenacious self-defense, and finally coming out after nearly

two decades, what did they receive? Death to the last man, of course. Slaughtered by the Mongols. By that point, Hulagu's successor, the Ilkhan Ahaba. Such had always been their ultimate fate. For the Nisari Ismailis, this was destruction on a scale so absolute that it can scarce be conceived. Hodgson perhaps puts it best in his chapter on the sect in the Cambridge History of Iran, as follows, quote, that this handful of villagers and small townsmen, hopelessly outnumbered, should again and again reaffirm their passionate sense of grand destiny, reformulating End quote. dreams of all the Islamic world for a century and a half, this in itself is an astonishing achievement. End quote. For the Mughals, on the other hand, the eradication of the Nisar-e-Ismaili sect of Alamut, the dreaded assassins, was little more than a speed bump. A small, though necessary, ramble to clear out of their God-ordained path toward domination

not merely of Alamut, not merely of Persia, not merely the wider Dar al-Islam beyond, but the entire world bending to their righteous might. And with that desert thorn in their side now removed and cast into its deserving flame. The next target that was now aligned in the sights of Hulagu Khan was the crown jewel of the Islamic world itself, the great and shining city of peace, sitting astride the twin rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates, Baghdad. Thanks for listening. was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory

and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts.