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Assassins: The Medieval Murder Cult That Terrorized the Middle East

Khalid Elhassan January 23, 2025 14 min

Assassins - The Old Man of the Mountain and his followers, as depicted in the TV series 'Al Hashashin' — The Old Man of the Mountain and his followers, as depicted in the TV series 'Al Hashashin'. TMDB

10. Terrorizing the Mighty

Assassins - The assassination of Nizam al Mulk — The assassination of Nizam al Mulk. Flickr

The Order of Assassins’ first significant victim was Nizam al Mulk, a grand vizier who had held absolute power in the Seljuk Empire for two decades years before the Assassins got him in 1092. He would not be the cult’s only prominent victim. During their centuries of operations, the cult’s suicide squads killed many powerful Middle Eastern figures. Their numbers included numerous sultans, viziers, generals, Crusader higher ups such as a King of Jerusalem, and at least two Caliphs. In his youth, King Edward I of England was grievously wounded and barely survived an attack from an Assassin who had snuck into the royal tent when Edward was in the Holy Lands on Crusade.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.