At the top of the hierarchy sat Hassan, the Grand Master, the Supreme Preacher, the possessor of all the secrets. He was surrounded by a handful of missionaries, the da’is amongst whom there were three commissioners; one for eastern Persia, Khorassan and Kuhistan and Transoxania; one for western Persia and Iraq and one Syria. Immediately under them were the companions, the rafiks, the cadres of the movement. After receiving adequate instruction, they were entitled to command a fortress and to lead the organization at the city or province level. The brightest would one day be missionaries.
Lower down the hierarchy were the lassek, literally those who were attached to the organization. They were the rank and file believers, with no particular predisposition to studies or violent action. They included many shepherds from the Alamut region and a number of women and old men.
Then came the mujibs, the ‘answerers’, who were in fact the novices. They received some preliminary teaching and then, according to their capability, they were directed toward deeper studies in order to become companions, toward the body of the believers or toward the category which symbolized in the eyes of the Muslims of the time the real power of Hassan Sabbah, the class of the fida’is, ‘those who sacrifice themselves’. The Grand Master chose them from among the disciples who had huge reserves of faith, skill and endurance, but little aptitude for study. He never sent to his death a man who could become a missionary.
The training of a fida’i was a delicate task to which Hassan devoted himself with a passion. The fida’i would learn how to keep his dagger hidden, how to unsheathe it with stealth and plunge it into the victim’s heart, or into his neck if he was wearing a coat of mail; how to handle homing pigeons, and memorize codes to be used for rapid and secret communication with Alamut; sometimes the fida’i would have to learn a dialect or regional accent, or how to infiltrate a foreign environment and be part of it for weeks or months, lulling all distrust while awaiting the most propitious moment to strike; he would learn how to stalk his prey like a hunter, making a careful study of his behaviour, his clothing, his habits and at what time he went out and returned; sometimes, when the victim was an exceptionally well-protected personage, he would have to find a means to be employed by him, to get near to him and form a bond with some of his circle. It was told that in order to execute one of their victims, two fida’is lived for two months in a Christian convent, passing themselves off as monks. Such a remarkable talent for disguise and dissimulation could in no way have gone hand in hand with the use of hashish! Most importantly, the disciple had to acquire the necessary faith to confront death and a faith in a paradise which the martyr would earn at the very moment when his life was taken from him by the raging crowd.
No one could stand up to Hassan Sabbah. He had succeeded in building up the most feared killing machine in history. Nonetheless, another arose, at the bloody turn-of-the-century — that of the Nizamiya, which out of loyalty to the assassinated Vizir, went on to sow death with different methods which were perhaps more insidious, certainly less spectacular but whose effects were to be no less devastating.
CHAPTER 20
While the crowd was attacking the remains of the Assassin, five officers gathered around the still warm body of Nizam. They were in tears and stretched out their right hands as they mouthed in unison: ‘Rest in peace, master. None of your enemies will live!’
But where would they begin? The list of outlaws was long, but Nazam’s orders were clear. The five men almost had no need to consult each other. They muttered a name and stretched out their hands anew. Then they kneeled down and together raised up the body which had been emaciated by illness but was now weighed down by death, and carried it in a cortege to his quarters. The women had already assembled to wail and the sight of the cadaver renewed their ululations, arousing the ire of one of the officers: ‘Do not cry while he is still unavenged!’ The women were afraid and broke off their crying to look at the man who was already making his way off. Then they started up their noisy lamentations again.
The Sultan arrived. He had been with Terken when the first cries reached him. A eunuch who had been sent out for the news came back trembling. ‘It’s Nizam al-Mulk, master! A killer jumped on him. He has given you the rest of his life!’ The Sultan and Sultana exchanged a glance and then Malikshah arose. He put on his long cloak of karakul, patted his face in front of his spouse’s mirror and then ran off to see the deceased, feigning surprise and a state of the gravest affliction.
The women stepped aside to allow him to approach the body of his ata. He leant over, uttered a prayer and some appropriate phrases before returning to Terken for some discrete celebrations.
How curiously Malikshah behaved. One would have thought that he would have profited from his tutor’s disappearance to take complete control over the affairs of his empire, but not so. He was so happy at finally being rid of the man who checked his passions, that he frolicked — and there can be no other word for it. Every meeting was cancelled as a matter of course, as was every reception for an ambassador and the Sultan’s days were given over to polo and hunting while his nights were spent in bouts of drinking.
Yet more serious was the fact that upon his arrival in Baghdad he had sent a message to the Caliph, saying: ‘I intend to make this city my winter capital. The Prince of Believers must decamp post haste and find another residence.’ The successor of the Prophet, whose ancestors had been living in Baghdad for three and a half centuries, requested a month’s grace in order to put his affairs in order.
Terken was worried by this frivolity which was little worthy of a thirty-seven-year-old sovereign who was master of half of the world, but her Malikshah was what he was so she let him fool around and took the opportunity this gave her to establish her own authority. It was to her that emirs and dignitaries had recourse and it was her trusted men who replaced Nizam’s acolytes. Between trips and drunken binges the Sultan gave his agreement.
On 18 November 1092 Malikshah was in the north of Baghdad hunting wild ass in a woody and swampy area. Only one of his previous twelve arrows had missed its target. His companions were singing his praises and none of them dreamed of matching his feats. The trip had made him hungry — a feeling he expressed in oaths. The slaves set to it. There were a dozen of them brought along to dismember, skewer and gut the wild beasts which were to be roasted in a clearing. The meatiest leg was for the sovereign who took hold of it and ripped it to pieces hungrily while treating himself liberally to some fermented liquor. From time to time he munched on fruit preserved in vinegar which was his favourite dish and huge vessels of which were carried everywhere Malikshah went by his cook so that he would never have to do without.
Suddenly he was beset with violent stomach cramps. Malikshah screamed in pain and his companions trembled. He threw down his goblet and spat out what he had in his mouth. He was bent double, he threw up everything he had eaten, became delirious and then fainted. Around him dozens of courtiers, soldiers and servants trembled as they watched him with disbelief. No one would ever know whose hand slipped the poison into his liquor, or was it in the vinegar, or the game? Nonetheless everyone made their calculations: thirty-five days had passed since Nizam’s death. He had said ‘less than forty’ and his avengers were on time.