15. The Origins of a Murderous Sect
The origins of the Order of Assassins can be traced back to the Sunni-Shiite split in Islam. For much of the medieval era, there had been a rough balance of power between Islam’s two main branches. The less numerous Shiites were championed by the smaller but rising Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt, while the more numerous Sunnis were led by the waning Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq. That balance was upset when the Seljuk Turks, who had recently adopted Sunni Islam, fell upon the Fatimids with all the zeal of the recently converted and broke their power between 1056 – 1060.
The Fatimids, defeated militarily in the field of battle, responded with clandestine warfare and turned to assassination as a political tool against the Sunni leadership. The architect of that campaign was Sheikh Hassan al Sabah (1034 – 1124), a shadowy and exotic Islamic scholar who led a radical Shiite faction, the Nizari Ismailis, and founded the Assassins cult. He grew up in Rayy, Persia, a city noted at the time for a tradition and history of radical Islamic thought. There, he swore allegiance to the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo, and dedicated his life to the Nizari Ismaiíli cause.
