In the spring of 1089 an army of two hundred thousand men was on the march, with elephants and instruments of siege. The intrigues and lies which instigated its march are insignificant for it was to accomplish what every army must. It began by taking possession of Bukhara without the least resistance and then it headed on towards Samarkand. Arriving at the gates of the city, Malikshah announced to Ahmed Khan in a pitiful message that he had come at last to deliver him from the yoke of the heretics. ‘I have asked nothing of my august brother,’ the Khan replied coldly. Malikshah was astonished whereas Nizam was not at all disturbed. ‘The Khan is no longer a free agent. We must act as if he did not exist.’ In any case, the army could not retrace its steps. The emirs wanted their share of the booty and would not return empty-handed.
In the first days, the treachery of a tower guard permitted the assailants to sweep into the city. They took up position to the west, near the Monastery Gate. The defenders fell back to the souks in the south, around the Kish Gate. According to their faith, one section of the population decided to provide for the Sultan’s troops, feeding them and giving them encouragement and another section embraced the cause of Ahmed Khan. Fighting raged for two weeks, but there was never a second’s doubt of the outcome. The Khan, who had taken refuge with a friend in the district of the domes, was quickly taken prisoner along with all the Ismaili chiefs. Only Hassan managed to escape through a subterranean canal at night.
Nizam had won, it is true, but by dint of playing the Sultan off against the Sultana he had poisoned irreparably his relations with the court. Even if Malikshah did not regret having conquered the most prestigious cities of Transoxania so easily, his self-respect suffered at having allowed himself to be abused. He went so far as to refuse to organize the traditional victory banquet for his troops. ‘It’s out of avarice,’ Nizam whispered spitefully to all and sundry.
As for Hassan Sabbah, he learnt a valuable lesson from his defeat. Rather than try and convert princes, he would forge a fearsome instrument of war which would bear no resemblance to anything which mankind had known until then: the order of the Assassins.
CHAPTER 17
Alamut. A fortress on a rock six thousand feet high in a countryside of bare mountains, forgotten lakes, sheer cliffs and narrow passes. The greatest army could only reach it in single file and the most powerful catapults could not graze its walls.
The Shahrud River, nicknamed the ‘mad river’, dominated the mountains, swelling up in springtime with the melted snow of the Elburz mountains and snatching up trees and stones as it sped down its course. Woe to him who dared approach it! Woe to the army which dared pitch camp on its banks!
Every evening a thick, woolly mist rose from the river and the lakes, stopping half-way up the cliffs. To those who were there, the castle of Alamut was at such times an isle in an ocean of clouds. Seen from below, it was the abode of the jinns.
In the local dialect, Alamut means ‘the eagle’s lesson’. It was told that a prince who wanted to build a fortress to control these mountains released a trained bird of prey. The bird, after flying around in the sky, came to land on this rock. The master understood that no other site would be better.
Hassan Sabbah had imitated the eagle. He had searched the length and breadth of Persia for somewhere to gather, teach and organize his faithful. He had learnt from his misadventure in Samarkand that it would be unrealistic to try and seize a large city, for confrontation with the Seljuks would be immediate and would inevitably turn out to the empire’s advantage. He thus needed something else, a mountain redoubt which was inaccessible and impregnable, a sanctuary from which he could develop his activity in all directions.
Just as the flags captured in Transoxania were being unfurled in the streets of Isfahan, Hassan was in the vicinity of Alamut. The site had been a revelation for him. From the moment he first saw it from in the distance, he understood that it was here, and nowhere else, that his task would be accomplished and that his kingdom would arise. Alamut was at that time one fortified village among so many others, where a few soldiers lived with their families along with some artisans, farmers and a governor, named by Nizam al-Mulk, who was a courageous nobleman called Mahdi the Alawite, whose only concerns were his irrigation water and his harvest of nuts, raisins and pomegranates. The turmoil taking place in the empire did not disturb his slumber.
Hassan started by sending out some companions, local men, to join the garrison, preach and convert. Some months later they were ready to announce to the master that the ground was prepared and that he could come. Hassan turned up disguised as a Sufi dervish as was his practice. He strolled around, inspecting and checking everything. The governor received the holy man and asked him what would please him.
‘I need this fortress,’ said Hassan.
The governor smiled, thinking that the dervish certainly did not lack humour. His guest, however, was not smiling.
‘I have come to take possession of this place. I have won over all the men of the garrison.’
The outcome of this exchange was, admittedly, as extraordinary as it was incredible. Orientalists, who have consulted the chronicles of the time, particularly the accounts set down by the Ismailis, needed to read and re-read them in order to reassure themselves that they were not the victims of a hoax.
Indeed, let us take another look at the scene.
It was the end of the eleventh century, or to be exact 6 September, 1090. Hassan Sabbah, the brilliant founder of the Order of the Assassins, was about to take over the fortress which was to be, for 166 years, the seat of the most fearsome sect in all history. Now, there he was, seated cross-legged in front of the governor, to whom he was saying, without raising his voice:
‘I have come to take possession of Alamut.’
‘This fortress has been given to me in the Sultan’s name,’ the governor replied. ‘I have paid to obtain it.’
‘How much?’
‘Three thousand gold dinars!’
Hassan Sabbah took a piece of paper and wrote: ‘Pay the sum of three thousand gold dinars to Mahdi the Alawite for the fortress of Alamut. May God meet our needs, for He is the best of protectors.’ The governor was unsettled and did not think that the signature of a man dressed in homespun might be honoured for such a sum. However, when he arrived in the city of Damghan, he was able to cash his gold without any delay.
CHAPTER 18
When news of the taking of Alamut reached Isfahan it aroused little concern. The city was much more interested in the conflict which was currently raging between Nizam and the palace. Terkan Khatun had not pardoned the Vizir for the operation he had conducted against her family’s preserve. She urged Malikshah to rid himself of his overpowerful Vizir with no further ado. For the Sultan to have had a tutor upon his father’s death she pronounced absolutely normal as he was then only seventeen years old; today he was thirty-five, an accomplished man, and he could not leave the management of affairs indefinitely in the hands of his ata; it was time for people to know who the real master of the empire was! Had the Samarkand business not proved that Nizam was trying to impose his will, that he was tricking his master and treating him as a minor before the whole world?