Introduction
* From the foreword to Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, translated from the Arabic by Franz Rosenthal, English translation by N. Dawood. London, 1958, Vol. I, pp. 5–9.
* Batiniyya was a term commonly applied to the Nizari Ismaili Assassins. Abu-Mansur Abd-al-Kahir ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi, Moslem Schisms and Sects Being the History of the Various Philosophic Systems Developed in Islam, trans. A. Halkin, Tel-Aviv, 1935, Part II, p. 107.
1 A House Divided
* Al-Muttaqi in B. Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, New York, 1974, Vol. II, p. 53.
* B. Lewis, The Arabs in History, Oxford, 1992, pp. 49–60.
† E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published 1776, Everyman edn, London, 1910, Vol. V, p. 255.
* F. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, New York, 1994, pp. 198–202.
† M. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilisation, London, 1958, Vol. I: The Classical Age of Islam, pp. 172–93.
* E. Kohlberg, ‘Some Zaydi Views on the Companions of the Prophet’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 39, No 1, 1976, pp. 91–8.
* Al Tabari in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. I, p. 213.
† A. Lambton, Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia, Aspects of Administrative, Economic and Social History: 11th to 14th Century, Albany, NY, 1988, p. 161.
* This title has long been applied by historians to the extended family or clan of Ali.
† P. Crone and M. Hinds, God’s Caliph, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 80–93.
* D. Nicolle. Armies of the Muslim Conquest, London, 1993, p. 26.
† For the evolution of the institution of military slavery in early Islam see J. Waterson, The Knights of Islam: The Wars of the Mamluks, London, 2007, pp. 35–40.
* Al-Tabari (citing Abu Mikhnaf) in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II, p. 53.
* Al-Jahiz in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. I, pp. 23–4.
* P. Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity, London, 1980, pp. 30–50.
† Transoxania roughly corresponds to what is today Uzbekistan and South Kazakhstan. They lie, of course, east of the Oxus River.
‡ E. Daniel. ‘Arabs, Persians and the Advent of the Abbasids Reconsidered’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 117, No 3, July–September 1997, pp. 542–8.
* Daniel, ‘Arabs, Persians and the Advent of the Abbasids’, pp. 542–8.
† A. Elad, ‘Aspects of the Transition from the Umayyad to the Abbasid Caliphate’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, Vol. 19, 1995, pp. 89–115.
‡ R. Bulliett, The View from the Edge, Cambridge, MA, 1994, pp. 37–47.
* D. Morgan, Medieval Persia, Oxford, 1988, pp. 19–24.
† T. El-Hibri, ‘Harun al-Rashid and the Mecca Protocol of 802: A Plan for Division or Succession?’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 24, 1992, pp. 461–80.
* Al-Tabari, The Early Abbasi Empire, trans. J. Williams, Cambridge, 1989, Vol. II, p. 102.
† Al-Tabari, The Early Abbasi Empire, Vol. II, pp. 34–5.
* For the perfumer’s tale see H. Kennedy, The Court of the Caliphs, London, 2004, pp. 15–16.
† Kennedy, Court of the Caliphs, pp. 25–6.
‡ The Abbasids commonly took throne names that had a propaganda value. The appeal of al-Mahdi is obvious given the influence of the idea of the Mahdi in the medieval Muslim world.
* Quran, Sura 21, v. 105.
* The Ismailis do not count Ali’s son Hasan as an imam, probably because of his collaboration with the Umayyads. The Twelver Shiites do recognise Hasan as an imam, hence Jafar ends up as number five for the Seveners and number six for the Twelvers.
† Ala-ad-Din Ata-Malik Juvaini, Chinggis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror, trans. J. Boyle from the text of Mizra Muhammad Qazvini, Manchester, 1997, p. 643.
* Al-Masudi in B. Lewis, Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East, London, 1973, p. 243.
* Bulliett, The View from the Edge, pp. 37–47.
† Bulliett, The View from the Edge, p. 59.
* H. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia, London, 1923, pp. 96–9.
† Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V, chs 1 and 10.
* R. Ettinghausen and O. Grabar, The Art and Architecture of Islam 650–1250, New Haven, CT, 1987, pp. 82–8.
† Lewis, Islam in History, p. 252. Marwan was the progenitor of the Umayyad family.
* H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century, London, 1986, p. 171.
* Al-Suli in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. I, pp. 39–42.
* Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 3.
2 Statehood and Separation
* M. Brett, ‘The Realm of the Imam: The Fatimids in the Tenth Century’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 59, No 3, 1996, pp. 431–49, quoting from Al-Maqrizi Itti az al-Hunafa. After the rebellion was crushed its leader’s body was sent around the whole of North Africa as a dire warning to any other potential rebels.
* Latimer’s words of comfort to his companion at the stake before their being burnt as heretics, ‘We shall this day light such a candle. By God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out,’ meaning that their sacrifice and indeed any persecution would make their faith stronger still, seems to be one of the world’s great universal truths.
† Brett, ‘The Realm of the Imam’, pp. 431–49.
* Y. Lev, ‘Army, Regime, and Society in Fatimid Egypt, 358–487/968–1094’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 19, No 3, August 1987, pp. 337–65
† Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 648.
* The jurist al-Hammadi al-Yamani, Disclosure of the Secrets of the Batiniyya and the Annals of the Qaramita, trans. M. Holland, Cairo, 2003, pp. 36–7.
† Al-Yamani, Disclosure of the Secrets of the Batiniyya, p. 39. The verses are from the Quran: Sura 11, v. 40; Sura 38, v. 24 and Sura 34, v. 13.
‡ Medieval Bahrain encompassed much of the eastern coast of Arabia.
* Al-Yamani, Disclosure of the Secrets of the Batiniyya, pp. 109–10.
* Al-Maqrizi in Lewis. Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. I, pp. 45–6.
† Al-Muizz spoke the language of complex genealogy and theocracy in his letters to the East to claim the universal caliphate for his family, but with the nobles of Egypt, after his conquest of that country, he was decidedly blunt. When asked what his claim to be of the family of Fatima was, he drew his sword half way from its scabbard and said, ‘this is my genealogy.’ Then he showered his audience with gold coin and this was enough, it would seem, for his claim to be accepted by his pragmatic new subjects.
* For the best and clearest explanation of the complexities of these negotiations, particularly as relating to the potential minefield of entitlement to the title of Mahdi by the Fatimids, see M. Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth century CE, Leiden, 2001, pp. 20–60.
† Lewis, Islam in History, p. 254.
* M. Hodgson, The Order of the Assassins, The Hague, 1955, pp. 54–6.
* Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, pp. 330–7.
† Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 656.
‡ Al-Maqrizi in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. I, pp. 51–9.
* One cubit is equal to about forty-five centimetres.
† A description of the formation of the sect is given by M. Hodgson, ‘Al-Darazi and Hamza in the Origin of the Druze Religion’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 82, No 1, 1962, pp. 5–20.
* Lev, ‘Army, Regime, and Society in Fatimid Egypt’, pp. 337–65.
* E. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, Cambridge, 1902, Vol. II, pp. 400–1.
* The Arabic word maghrib denotes North Africa but is also the word for sunset. The implication here might be that al-Jamali wanted to send Hasan very, very far away.
† J. Al-Muscati, Hasan Bin Sabbah, trans. A. Hamadani, 2nd edn, Pakistan, 1953, p. 30.
3 Whetting the Blade
* W. Ivanow, ‘An Ismaili Poem in Praise of Fidawis’, Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, No 14, 1938, p. 71.
* In Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 57.
† Mazdak, who died between 524 and 528, was a Persian religious reformer who was hanged by the Sassanian king Chosroes I, who also massacred Mazdak’s followers. There was a large component of socialist or even communist ideals in his religious message. To call someone a Mazdakdite became a standard slur in medieval Islam that clerics enjoyed hurling at each other.
* Al-Ghazali defined a new relationship between the caliph and the sultan. Constituent authority belonged to the sultan, who designated the caliph, but the validity of the sultan’s government was made dependent upon his oath of allegiance to the caliph, and the latter’s appointment of him. The institutional authority of the caliph rested primarily on the Sunni community, and his functional authority was built on the sharia. This was vital if the Saljuqs were to be the ‘anointed’ kings of Islam and if their swords were to the consecrated tools of the Sunni revival.
* S. Stern, ‘The Early Ismaili Missionaries in North-West Persia and in Khurasan and Transoxania’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 23, No 1, 1960, pp. 56–90.
* From the Siyasatnama. In Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 211.
† H. Darke, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings: The Siyar al-Muluk or Siyasatnama of Nizam al-Mulk, London, 1960, p. 231.
‡ Al-Muscati, Hasan Bin Sabbah, p. 46.
* Darke, The Book of Government, pp. 90–100.
* Al-Muscati, Hasan Bin Sabbah, pp. 29–30.
† D. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army, Berkeley, 1978, p. 73.
‡ Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 22.
§ Zahir al-Din Nishapuri in Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 8.
¶ Morgan, Medieval Persia, p. 4.
* For a description of the expenses of equipping oneself for the Dar al-Harb see H. Robinson, Oriental Armour, London, 1967, pp. 33–51.
† For a more complete exposition of the philosophy by the archery master al-Yunini, see J. Latham and W. Paterson, Saracen Archery, London, 1970, ch. 1.
‡ For a fuller explanation of Turkish archery and its use, logistics, effectiveness and the training required for troops to be able to carry it out effectively, see Waterson, Knights of Islam, chs 5 and 6.
* See J. France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade, London, 1994, pp. 24–6.
* Al-Muscati, Hasan Bin Sabbah, p. 50. The Mubaraki Guards were the bodyguard of her now-dead brother.
* For the lack of perception of this key concept among Middle Eastern commanders, even in the recent past, see S. Pelleterie, The Iran–Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum, New York, 1992.
† One European chronicler even wrote that long-term confinement underground brought about the Assassins’ ecstatic visions of the garden of Paradise. See H. Runte, ‘A Forgotten Old French Version of the Old Man of the Mountain’, Speculum, Vol. 49, No 3, 1974, pp. 542–5.
* For a fuller discussion on etymology and De Sacy’s achievement see Browne, A Literary History of Persia, Vol. II, pp. 204–5. It is important to remember that any terms used by the Nizari Ismailis’ enemies to describe the sect were, needless to say, slanderous.
* Lewis, Islam in History, p. 86.
† H. Gibb (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Islam: New Edition, Leiden, 1960, Vol. II, p. 802.
* In fact the only pre-existing models of formulistic religious murderers prior to the Assassins, at least in the Middle East, were in Iraq. These were carried out by the eighth-century followers of Abu Mansur al-Ijli of Kufa, who used only a cord to strangle their victims, and by the followers of another Shiite extremist, Mughira Ibn Said, whose adherents clubbed their victims to death. It has been suggested that both groups felt themselves to be restricted to primitive weapons until the arrival of the Mahdi, who would allow them the use of steel. See B. Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam. London, 1967, p. 4. The shananshah theory came originally from the pen of the eighteenth-century writer Gébelin.
* L. Fortescue, ‘The Western Elburz and Persian Azerbaijan’, Geographical Journal, Vol. 63, No 4, 1924, pp. 301–15.
† Al-Muscati, Hasan Bin Sabbah, p. 113.
‡ Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2. In fact the porter is referring to lechery rather than the desire for religious murder, but the same problem of loss of performance applies, I am sure.
* The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian, London, 1908, p. 76.
† Gibbon eloquently described it thus. ‘The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us an adequate notion.’ Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I, p. 452.
‡ E. Wedgwood, The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville: A New English Version, New York, 1906, p. 239. This is in the middle of a passage in which De Joinville is discussing the Assassins. He confuses them with the Syrian Bedouin.
§ P. Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usama Ibn Munqidh, New York, 1929, p. 194.
* S. Calderini, ‘Alam al-din in Ismailism: World of Obedience or World of Immobility?’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 56, No 3, 1993, pp. 459–69.
† R. Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, London, 2005, p. 249.
* W. Ivanow ‘Alamut’, Geographical Journal, Vol. 77, No 1, January 1931, p. 42.
* Ivanow, ‘Alamut’, p. 45.
† C. Edmonds, ‘A Visit to Alamut in 1920’, Geographical Journal, Vol. 77, No 6, June 1931, p. 555.
* Translated from Marco Polo in C. Nowell, ‘In the Old Man of the Mountain’, Speculum, Vol. 22, No 4, October 1947, pp. 497–519. Polo’s Aloaddin was Ala al-Din, the seventh and penultimate grand master of the Persian mission.
† S. Menache, The Vox Dei: Communication in the Middle Ages, New York, 1990, p. 100.
‡ Al-Yamani, Disclosure of the Secrets of the Batiniyya, p. 47.
* The drinking of alcohol in Muslim lands in the Middle Ages was a lot more common than the faith of the population would suggest. Indeed the English word ‘booze’ almost certainly has a Persian-Turkish origin from buza, an alcoholic beverage made from millet, barley or rice. See B. Laufer, ‘On the Possible Oriental Origin of Our Word Booze’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 49, 1929, pp. 56–8.
† Burchard of Strasbourg’s report is recorded in Arnold of Lubeck’s Chronica Slavorum. English translation in Lewis, The Assassins, p. 3.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 676.
* Abu’l-Mahasin in Al-Muscati, Hasan Bin Sabbah, pp. 53–5.
* Stern, ‘The Early Ismaili Missionaries’, pp. 56–90.
† Browne, A Literary History of Persia, Vol. II, p. 316.
* Lewis, The Assassins, p. 51.
† Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 678.
* Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 255.
* Sura 5, v. 45.
* F. Griffel, ‘Toleration and Exclusion: Al-Shafi and al-Ghazali on the Treatment of Apostates’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 64, No 3, 2001, pp. 339–54.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 680.
† From the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, in E. Franzius, History of the Order of the Assassins, New York, 1969, p. 60.
* From the Zabda of Kamal al-Din in Lewis, The Assassins, p. 105.
* Lewis, The Assassins, p. 57.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, pp. 681–2.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, pp. 684–5.
† Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 686.
4 New Blood in a New Land
* H. Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles of the Crusades, London, 1932, pp. 56–7.
* Even in recent times, Lebanon, which effectively made up much of the coast of medieval Syria, nicely reflected this mix of creeds. When forming its first independent government in 1943, it had to assure a 6:5 fixed ratio of Christian to Muslim seats and cabinet-level positions for every sect’s representatives, including Shiites of various leanings and the Druze, in order to form a nation-state. Medieval Syria’s religious politics would have been just as complex.
* Tancred fully embraced oriental politics, despite being a Norman knight who had only arrived in the Levant with the First Crusade. He titled himself Grand Emir of Antioch and in 1108 even fought with Islamic allies against Baldwin le Bourg over Edessa in the Battle of Tel Bashir.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, p. 115.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, pp. 139–41. The ‘Cathedral Mosque’ is the Great Mosque of Damascus, erected under the Umayyads in 706.
* From an anonymous Syrian poet in E. Sivan, L’Islam et la Croisade: Ideologie et Propagande dans le Reactions Musulmanes aux Croisades, trans. M. McCrystall, Paris, 1968, p. 30.
* Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, p. 146.
* Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, p. 148.
† Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, p. 146.
* S. Blair, Islamic Inscriptions, Edinburgh, 1988, p. 57.
† Sivan, L’Islam et la Croisade, p. 41.
* H. Gibb, ‘The First and Second Crusades from an Anonymous Syriac Chronicle’, trans. A. Tritton, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1933, p. 92.
† Gibb, ‘The First and Second Crusades’, p. 94.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, p. 178.
† H. Dekmejian and A. Thabit, ‘Machiavelli’s Arab Precursor: Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 27, No 2, November 2000, pp. 125–37.
‡ Gibb, ‘The First and Second Crusades’, p. 96.
§ Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, p. 178.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, p. 180.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, pp. 189–91.
† S. Stern, ‘The Epistle of the Fatimid Caliph al-Emir [al-Hidaya al-Amiriyya] – Its Date and Its Purpose’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1950, pp. 20–31.
* C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, Edinburgh, 1999, p. 44.
† A. Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab Eyes, trans. J. Rothschild, London, 1983, p. 44.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, p. 163.
* Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 467.
* Gibb. The Damascus Chronicles 1932. p. 190.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, pp. 192–5.
* Saladin, like Buri, was also fairly cavalier about his choice of bodyguards. During the siege of Acre (1188–90) the sultan tried to attract into his askari a Sicilian knight, the ‘Green Knight’, whose abilities he admired. See J. Richard, ‘An Account of the Battle of Hattin Referring to the Frankish Mercenaries in Oriental Moslem States’, Speculum, Vol. 27, No 2, 1952, pp. 168–77.
* Hitti. An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, pp. 88–9.
† Hitti. An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, p. 70.
‡ Lewis, The Assassins, p. 4.
5 The Gathering Tempest
* Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 20.
* Lambton, Continuity and Change, p. 33.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 687.
* From The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1911).
* Sadr al-Din quoted by Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 312.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 704.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 98.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 105.
† Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, p. 106.
* Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, pp. 126–8.
† Juvaini, Chinggis Khan, pp. 126–7.
* Edward Gibbon found it ‘whimsical’ that the actions of a Khan in distant Asia should affect such things, but as one of my university tutors, Dr David Morgan, once pointed out, it just goes to prove that history really is all about the price of fish.
* See Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. Luard, London, 1872, Vol. III, pp. 488–9.
† The myth of Prester John was so pervasive that Marco Polo even recorded passing though his lands and wrote of Tenduk, his seat of government (The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 141). The defeat of Jalal al-Din in 1231 had, of course, added fuel to the fire, as the Mongols then advanced to the upper Tigris which was exactly where Europeans expected to find the empire of the legendary king.
* M. Komroff (ed.), The Contemporaries of Marco Polo: Consisting of the Travel Records to the Eastern Parts of the World of William of Rubruck [1253–1255]; The Journey of John of Piano de Carpini [1245–1247] and the Journey of Friar Odoric [1318–1350], London, 1929, p. 41.
† Komroff, The Contemporaries of Marco Polo, p. 41.
‡ Komroff, The Contemporaries of Marco Polo, p. 41.
* Komroff, The Contemporaries of Marco Polo, p. 139.
* Juvaini, p. 708.
6 The White Donkey and the War Charger
* Al-Muttaqi in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II, p. 212.
* Gibb, The Damascus Chronicles, 1932, p. 341.
* F. Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis, London, 1994, p. 24.
* Komroff, p. 269.
* B. Lewis, ‘Kamal al-Din’s Biography of Rashid al-Din Sinan’, Arabica. Revue D’Etudes Arabes. Extrait, Tome XIII, Fascicule 3, 1966, pp. 231–2.
* Lewis, ‘Biography of Rashid al-Din Sinan’, pp. 231–7.
* R. Broadhurst, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, London, 1952, p. 264.
* Quoted in Daftary, p 71. From the Historia Rerum in Patribus Transmarinis Gestarum.
* Lewis, ‘Biography of Rashid al-Din Sinan’, pp. 234–5.
* Lewis, ‘Biography of Rashid al-Din Sinan’, 1966, pp. 236–7.
* B. Lewis, ‘Saladin and the Assassins’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 15, No 2, 1953, pp. 239–45.
* M. Cameron Lyons and D. Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, Cambridge, 1982, p. 320.
* The Third Crusade: An Eyewitness Account of the Campaigns of Richard Couer De Lion in Cyprus and the Holy Land, ed. K. Fenwick, London, 1958, p. 51. The author of the chronicle is anonymous but the original work is known as the ‘Carmen Ambrosii’ and Ambroise, a Norman troubadour, went with Richard to the Third Crusade.
* Fenwick, p. 52.
† Fenwick, p. 54.
7 Destruction in the Homeland
* T. May, ‘A Mongol–Ismaili Alliance? Thoughts on the Mongols and Assassins’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2004, pp. 231–9.
† Gog and Magog, or Yajuj and Majuj, in the Quran are the nations under the dominion of Satan. In the medieval Islamic mind the numerous barbarians of North Eastern Asia were the personification of Yajuj and Majuj. The expectation of the vast size of this army is expressed in Sura 21, v. 96: ‘Until, when Gog and Magog are let loose, and they hasten out of every mound.’
‡ Whilst the quotation here is taken from Komroff, p 167, I have a made a small adjustment to the text. The number of Assassins sent to kill Mongke has been settled at four hundred and not forty as many versions of the friar’s journal have it. See, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke, 1253–1255, trans. P. Jackson and D. Morgan, Hakluyt Society, Aldershot, 1990, p.222.
* Komroff, p 247.
† Ibn al-Athır, al-Kamil fi al-Tarıkh, cited by May. I am extremely grateful to Dr Timothy May for pointing out to me the mechanics of the flowering and subsequent decay of the Ismaili–Mongol alliance.
* Juvaini, p. 608.
* Juivani, p. 610.
† J. Smith, ‘Mongol Campaign Rations: Milk, Marmots and Blood?’, Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. VIII, 1984, p. 223.
* John of Plano Carpini in Smith, p. 224.
* Juvaini, p. 625.
* Juvaini, p. 630.
* Juvaini, p. 633. A parasang is a Persian measurement of about three miles. ‘Their fruit is as it were the heads of Satan’, is from the Quran: Sura 37, v. 3.
† Lewis, The Assassins, p. 94.
* Juvaini. p 722.
* Juvaini, p. 725.
† The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 44.
‡ Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II, p. 23.
* Abu’l-Faraj in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II, p. 24.
* Abu’l-Faraj in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II, p. 24.
† Abu’l-Faraj in Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, Vol. II, p. 24.
‡ The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 44.
* Komroff, p. 171.
† S. Virani, ‘The Eagle Returns: Evidence of Continued Ismaili Activity at Alamut and in the South Caspian Region Following the Mongol Conquests’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 123, No. 2, 2003, pp. 351–70.
8 Mamluks, Mongols and Crusading Kings
* The Persian poet Omar Khayyam was linked in legend as being one of three schoolfellows in Nishapur, along with Nizam al-Mulk and Hasan-i-Sabbah. The three allegedly made a vow that the first of them to achieve success in life would help the other two in their careers. Nizam al-Mulk achieved this, but after offering Khayyam a regular stipend he double-crossed Hasan who vowed to take revenge. The tale is impossible, by simple virtue of the dates of birth of the protagonists but Khayyam was mentioned in the Ismaili text The Seven Chapters of the Father of Our Lord and he was certainly a radical by reputation, as well as being a brilliant mathematician. In 1074 he reformed the Persian calendar for Malikshah. See G. Sarton, ‘The Tomb of Omar Khayyam’, Isis, Vol. 29, No 1, 1938, pp. 15–19.
* M. Van Berchem, ‘Epigraphie des Assassins de Syria’, Journal Asiatique. Serie IX, Mai-Juin 1897, pp. 453–501. Translated from the French by M. McCrystall.
* Wedgwood, pp. 234–5.
* The battle is known in the European sources as La Forbie.
* Wedgwood. pp. 233–4.
† Wedgwood, p. 234.
‡ Wedgwood, pp. 234–8.
* The Travels of Marco Polo. p 77.
* For a full account of the remarkable career of Baybars, from being sold as a child slave to becoming one of the greatest leaders of the medieval world, see, Waterson, chapters five and six.
† H. Gibb, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Cambridge, 1958, Vol. I, p. 106.
9 Both Forgotten and Remembered
* Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia: Inferno, Canto XIX, Verses 48–9. c.1308. English translation by M. McCrystall.
* Juvaini, p. 41. The story is also found in the Secret History of the Mongols (see suggested further reading).
* From Brocardus’s Directorium ad Passagium Faciendum, in Lewis, The Assassins, p. 2.
* Komroff, p. 247.
* The poems, both in the original French and with selected English translations, can be found in F. Chambers, ‘The Troubadours and the Assassins’, Modern Language Notes, Vol. 64, No 4, April 1949, pp. 245–51.
* Wedgwood, pp. 238–9.
† Wedgwood, p. 239.