Hassan-i sabbah assassins creed
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This post/podcast episode is part one of a three part Tale. I’ll be dropping part two in a fortnight.
There is a shadowy tale from the medieval Near East that persists in the modern imagination. At some time in the 11th Century a heretical cult arose in the mountains of northern Iran and Syria. They lived in rugged castles – only approachable through near impenetrable passes. Approaching the fortress you soon had the sense the hills had eyes, and if those eyes did not approve of your presence, acolytes would rain stones down on you from high above. If you made it through the valley, a steep, narrow goat path awaited. Thousands of feet above, the cult’s ‘Eagle’s Nest’ – Alamut castle, and it’s charismatic leader – a prototypical James Bond supervillain if ever there was one. Sometimes referred to as ‘The Old Man of The Mountain’ – more on that in a second – this man was responsible for the murder of hundreds of Sultans, administrators and Holy Men. One tale of note, when the Crusaders arrived, and set up four Christian kingdoms on the Levant, the
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Hasan-i Sabbah
Ismaili religious and military leader (c. 1050–1124)
Hasan al-Sabbah[a] also known as Hasan I of Alamut, was a religious and military leader. He was the founder of the Nizari Ismai'li sect widely known as the Hashshashin or the Order of Assassins, as well as the Nizari Ismaili state, ruling from 1090 to 1124 AD.[2][3][4]
Alongside his role as a formidable leader, Sabbah was an accomplished scholar of mathematics, most notably in geometry, as well as astronomy and philosophy, especially in epistemology.[5][6] It is narrated that Hasan and the Persian polymath Omar Khayyam were close friends since their student years.[7] He and each of the later Assassin leaders came to be known in the West as the Old Man of the Mountain, a name given to the sect's leader in the writings of Marco Polo that referenced the sect's possession of the commanding mountain fortress of Alamut Castle.[8][9]
Sources
Hasan is thought to have written an autobiography, which did not surv
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Hassan-i Sabbāh, or Hassan aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ (c. 1034 - 1124), was a Persian Nizārī Ismā'īlī missionary who converted a community in the late eleventh century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran. He is recognized as the founder of what became Nizari Ismailism, supporting Nizar and his successors as the Ismaili Imam in opposition to the 9th Fatimid Caliph-Imam. Hassan acquired the fortress of Alamut as his headquarters in 1090, where he remained until his death. About 20 other fortresses as well as several towns were later added to geographically fragmented territory known as the Nizari State. Seven "Lords of Alamut" succeeded Hassan as rulers of this territory. During Hassan's rule, the Ismaili Imam remained "Hidden." Hasan (and his first three successors) were regarded as the chief representative of the Imam (Hujjah, or proof of the Imam). They were supreme leaders of the scattered Ismaili community. (It was during the rule of the fourth Lord of Alamut that Imam Hasan I announced his "resurrectio
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