The witness continued: ‘I passed through Nishapur four years after Khayyam’s death. As I venerated him as one should a master of science, I made a pilgrimage to his last home. A guide led me to the cemetery. Upon turning to the left after entering, I saw the tomb adjoining the wall of a garden. Pear and peach trees spread out their branches and had dropped so much blossom on to his sepulchre that it was hidden under a carpet of petals.’
A drop of water fell into the sea.
A speck of dust came floating down to earth.
What signifies your passage through this world?
A tiny gnat appears — and disappears.
Omar Khayyam was wrong. Far from being as transitory as he said, his existence, or at least that of his quatrains, had just begun. But, was it not for them that the poet, who dared not wish it for himself, wished immortality?
Those who had the terrifying privilege at Alamut of being allowed in to see Hassan Sabbah did not fail to notice the silhouette of a book in a hollow niche in the wall, behind a thick wire grate. No one knew what it was, nor dared to question the Supreme Preacher. It was assumed that he had his reasons for not depositing it in the great library where there were great works which contained the most unspeakable truths.
When Hassan died, at almost eighty years old, the lieutenant he had designated to succeed him did not dare install himself in the master’s den and even less did he dare open the mysterious grate. For a long time after the disappearance of the founder, the inhabitants of Alamut were terrified by the mere sight of the walls which had sheltered him; they avoided venturing toward this previously inhabited quarter lest they come across his shade. The order was still subjected to the rules which Hassan had decreed; the community member’s permanent lot was one of the strictest asceticism. There was no deviation, no pleasure, and only more violence against the outside world, more assassinations than ever, most probably to prove that the leader’s death had in no way weakened his adherents’ resolve.
And did these adherents accept this strictness good-naturedly? Less and less. Murmurs started to be heard. Not so much amongst the veterans who had won Alamut while Hassan was alive; they still lived with the memory of the persecutions they had undergone in their countries of origin and feared lest the slightest relaxation make them more vulnerable. However, these men were becoming less numerous every day and the fortress was more and more inhabited by their sons and grandsons. From the cradle, all of them had been accorded the most rigorous indoctrination which forced them to learn and respect Hassan’s onerous directives as if they were divine revelation. But most of them were becoming more resistant. Life was staking its claim on them again.
Some dared one day to ask why they were forced to spend their whole youth in that barracks-type convent from which all joy had been banished. They were so thoroughly repressed that henceforth they guarded against uttering the slightest discordant opinion. That is, in public, for meetings started to be held secretly indoors. The young conspirators were encouraged by all those women who had seen a son, brother or a husband depart on a secret mission from which he had not returned.
One man made himself the spokesman for this stifled and suppressed longing. No one else would allow himself to be put forward: he was the grandson of the man Hassan had designated as his successor and he himself was named to become the fourth Grand Master of the order upon the death of his father.
He had a distinct advantage over his predecessors. Having been born a little after the death of the founder, he had never had to live under his terror. He observed his home with curiosity, and naturally with a certain amount of apprehension, but without that morbid fascination which paralysed all the others.
He had even gone into the forbidden room once, at the age of seventeen, had walked around it, gone up to the magic basin and dipped his hand into the icy water then stopped in front of the niche which enclosed the manuscript. He almost opened it, but changed his mind, took a step back and then walked backwards out of the room. He did not want to go any further on his first visit.
When the heir wandered, in pensive mood, through the alleyways of Alamut, people gathered around while not getting too close and uttered curious formulae in blessing. He was also called Hassan, like Sabbah, but another name was already being whispered around him: ‘The Redeemer! The Long-Awaited!’ Only one thing was feared: that the old guard of the Assassins, who knew his feelings and who had already heard him rashly censure the prevailing atmosphere of severity, would prevent him from acceding to power. In fact his father did try to impose silence upon him, even accusing him of being an atheist and of betraying the teachings of the Founder. It was even said that he had two hundred and fifty of his partisans put to death and expelled two hundred and fifty others, forcing them to carry the corpses of their executed friends on their backs down to the foot of the mountain. However, due to a trace of paternal feeling, the Grand Master did not dare follow Hassan Sabbah’s tradition of infanticide.
When the father died, in 1162, the rebellious son succeeded him without the slightest hitch. For the first time in a long while real joy broke out in the grey alleyways of Alamut.
But was it really a question of a long-awaited Redeemer, the adherents asked themselves. Was it really this man who was to put an end to put an end to their suffering? He himself said nothing. He continued to walk around distractedly in the alleyways of Alamut or he spent long hours in the library under the protective eye of the copyist who was in charge of it, a man originally from Kirman.
One day he was seen walking decisively toward Hassan Sabbah’s former residence. He threw the door open, walked up to the niche and shook the grate with such violence that it came away from the wall letting a stream of sand and bits of stone pour on to the floor. He lifted out Khayyam’s manuscript, tapped the dust off it, and carried it away with him under his arms.
It was then said that he shut himself up to read, to read and to meditate, until the seventh day, when he gave the order that everyone in Alamut, men, women, and children, should assemble in the maydan, the only place large enough to hold them all.
It was 8 August 1164. The sun of Alamut was beating down on their heads and faces but no one thought of protecting himself. Toward the west there rose a wooden dais, decked out with a huge standard, one red, one green, one yellow and one white, at each of the four corners. It was in this direction that everyone’s gaze was directed.
Suddenly he appeared, dressed all in dazzling white, with his slight young wife behind him, her face unveiled, her eyes cast to the ground and her cheeks flushed with confusion. In the crowd it seemed that this apparition dispelled the last doubts; people were boldly murmuring: ‘It is He. It is the Redeemer!’
Solemnly he climbed the few steps to the platform, and gave his faithful a warm gesture of welcome, intended to silence the murmurings. Then he went on to pronounce one of the most astonishing speeches ever heard on our planet:
‘To all the inhabitants of the world, jinns, men and angels!’ he said. ‘The Mahdi offers you his blessing and pardons all your sins, both past and future.