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particularly vulnerable, having only meagre stocks of drinking water. The Grand
Master found the answer. Instead of drawing his water from the neighbouring
rivers, he had an impressive network of cisterns and canals dug in the mountain
to collect rainwater and the melting snows. The visitor to the ruins of the castle
today can still admire, in the large room where Hassan lived, a ‘magic basin’
which filled itself up with as much water as was taken out from it, and which, by
a stroke of ingenuity, never overflowed.
For provisions, the Grand Master had storage shafts fitted out for oil, vinegar
and honey, he also stockpiled barley, sheep fat and dried fruit in sufficient
quantities to get them through an almost total blockade – which, at that time, was
far beyond the capacity of any besiegers, particularly in a region which had a
harsh winter.
Hassan thus had an infallible shield. He had, one could say, the ultimate
defensive weapon. With his devoted killers, he also possessed the ultimate
offensive weapon. How can precautions be taken against a man intent on dying?
All protection is based upon dissuasion, and we know that important personages
are surrounded by an imposing guard whose role is to make any potential
attacker fear inevitable death. But what if the attacker is not afraid of dying, and
has been convinced that martyrdom is a short-cut to paradise? What if he has
imprinted in his mind the words of the Preacher: ‘You are not made for this
world, but for the next. Can a fish be afraid if someone threatens to throw it into
the sea?’ If, moreover, the assassin had succeeded in infiltrating the victim’s
entourage? Nothing could be done to stop him. ‘I am less powerful than the
Sultan but I can harm you more than he can,’ Hassan wrote one day to a
provincial governor.
Thus, having forged the most perfect tools of war imaginable, Hassan Sabbah
installed himself in his fortress and never left it again; his biographers even say
that during the last thirty years of his life he only went out of his house twice,
and both times it was to go up on the roof! Morning and evening he was there,
sitting cross-legged on a mat which his body had worn out but which he never
wished to change or have repaired. He taught, he wrote, he set his killers on to
his enemies, and, five times a day he prayed on the same mat along with
whoever was visiting him at the time.
For the benefit of those who have never had the opportunity to visit the ruins
of Alamut, it is worth pointing out that this site would not have acquired such
historical importance if its only advantage had been its inaccessibility and if the
plateau at the mountain’s summit had not been large enough to support a town,
or at least a very large village. At the time of the Assassins it was reached by a
narrow tunnel to the east which emerged into the lower fortress with its tangle of
alleys and little mud houses in the shadow of the walls; the upper fortress was
reached by crossing the
maydan
, the large square, the only meeting area for the
whole community. This was shaped like a bottle lying on its side, with its wide
base in the east and its neck toward the west. The bottleneck itself was a heavily
guarded corridor at the end of which lay Hassan’s house whose single window
looked out on to a precipice. It was a fortress within a fortress.
By means of the spectacular murders which he ordered, and the legends
which grew up around him, his sect and his castle, the Grand Master of the
Assassins terrorized the Orient and the Occident over a long period. In every
Muslim town high officials fell and even the crusaders had two or three eminent
victims to lament. However it is all too often forgotten that it was primarily at
Alamut that terror reigned.
What reign is worse than that of militant virtue? The Supreme Preacher
wanted to regulate every second of his adherents’ lives. He proscribed all
musical instruments; if he discovered the smallest flute he would break it in
public and throw it into the flames; the transgressor was put in irons and given a
good whipping before being expelled from the community. The use of alcoholic
drinks was even more severely punished. Hassan’s own son, found intoxicated
one evening by his father, was condemned to death on the spot; in spite of his
mother’s pleadings he was decapitated at dawn the next day as an example. No
one ever dared to swallow a mouthful of wine.
The justice of Alamut was, to say the least, speedy. It was said that a crime
had been committed one day within the fortress and that a witness had accused
Hassan’s second son. Without attempting to verify the fact, Hassan had his last
son’s head cut off. A few days later, the real culprit confessed; he in turn was
decapitated.
Biographers of the Grand Master mention the slaughter of his son in order to
illustrate his strictness and impartiality; they point out that the community of
Alamut became a haven of virtue and morality through the blessing of such
exemplary discipline, and this can very easily be believed; however, we know
from various sources that the day after these executions Hassan’s only wife as
well as his daughters rose up against his authority, and that he ordered them
thrown out of Alamut and recommended that his successors do the same in the
future in order to avoid the womenfolk having any influence over their correct
judgement.
To loose himself from the world, create a void around his person, surround
himself with walls of stone and fear – such seems to have been Hassan Sabbah’s
demented dream.
However this void started to stifle him. The most powerful kings have jesters
or jovial companions to lighten the oppressive atmosphere which surrounds
them. The man with the bulging eyes was incurably alone, walled up in his
fortress, shut up in his house, closed to himself. He had no one to talk to, only
docile subjects, dumb servants and awestruck disciples.
Of all the people he had known, there was only one to whom he could still
talk, if not as friend to friend then at least as man to man and that was Khayyam.
He had thus written him a letter in which despair disguised itself behind a thick
façade of pride:
‘Instead of living as a fugitive, why do you not come to Alamut? Like you, I
have been persecuted but now it is I who persecute. Here you will be protected,
looked after and respected. No emir on earth will be able to harm a hair of your
head. I have founded a huge library where you will find the rarest works and will
be able to read and write at leisure. In this place you will find peace.’
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