The Assassins by Bernard Lewis

Author:Bernard Lewis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2008-07-15T00:06:00+00:00

From the Caliph too came help of another kind. `After residing for a year and a half in Iraq, Arran and Azerbayjan Jalal al-Din now returned to Alamut. During these journeyings and in the course of his residence in those countries his claim to be a Muslim had been more widely accepted and Muslims now mixed with him more freely. He asked the emirs of Gilan for the hands of their women in marriage.' The emirs were understandably reluctant either to accept or to refuse the proposals of so redoubtable a suitor, and compromised by making their consent conditional on the sanction of the Caliph. A messenger was promptly sent from Alamut to Baghdad, and the Caliph obliged with a letter authorizing the emirs to give their daughters to Jalal al-Din `in accordance with the laws of Islam'. Armed with this decree, he took four Gilani princesses to wife; one of them had the privilege of bearing the next Imam.22

Jalal al-Din Ilasan's religious, military and matrimonial adventures illustrate the remarkable strength of his position. By a decree no less sudden and sweeping than that which introduced the Resurrection, he abolished it and restored the rule of law - and was obeyed, in Quhistan and Syria as well as in Rudbar. In the course of his campaigns, he left Alamut, as none of his predecessors had done, and stayed away for a year and a half without mishap. Instead of despatching murderers to kill officers and divines, lie sent armies to conquer provinces and cities, and by building mosques and bathhouses in the villages completed the transformation of his domain from a lair of assassins to a respectable kingdom, linked by ties of matrimonial alliance to his neighbours.

Like other territorial princes, Jalal al-Din made and changed alliances. At first he seems to have supported the Khorazmshah, and even had the bidding-prayer recited in Rudbar in his name. Then he transferred his allegiance to the Caliph, and helped him in various ways, including the removal by assassination of a rebel emir who had entered the service of the Khorazmshah, and of a Sharif in Mecca. Later, he was quick to recognize and ingratiate himself with a new and terrible power that was rising in the East. They [the Ismailis] said that when the WorldEmperor Jenghiz Khan set out from Turkestan, before he came to the countries of Islam, Jalal al-Din had in secret sent couriers to him and written letters tendering his submission and allegiance. This was alleged by the Heretics and the truth is not clear, but this much is evident, that when the armies of the WorldConquering Emperor Jenghiz Khan entered the countries of Islam, the first ruler on this side of the Oxus to send ambassadors, and present his duty, and accept allegiance was Jalal al-Din.'23

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