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Hasan Sabbah, Founder of Iranian Assassins

Hasan Sabbah was a staunch opponent of Arab domination over Iran who revolted during the Seljuk period by embracing Islam.
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Introduction to Hasan Sabbah

Hasan Sabbah was one of the Iranians who revolted during the Seljuk period. He was a staunch opponent of Arab domination over Iran. The religion of him and his followers was Ismailism, which is a branch of the followers of Shia imams. The difference is that they believe in seven imams instead of 12. They consider that Imamate after Imam Jafar Sadiq, the sixth Imam of Shiites, is the right of his son Ismail, so he is the last Imam. The power centre of Ismailism was in Egypt, where the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt declared this religion official in this country. Hasan Sabbah was also an Ismailism, so he went to Egypt, where he met with Hakim Nasir Khusraw Qubadiani and Khwaja Al-Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din al-Shirazi. He was a knowing man, and especially after he went to Egypt, he used books from the library of the Fatimid caliphs. Therefore, he became familiar with Europe history and learned about the history of Rome and ancient Greece, and became more enlightened.

Hasan Sabbah’s goals

After Hasan-I Sabbah increased his information in Egypt, he realized that Ismailism, like other sects of Islam, was under the influence of the Arabs. So, he tried to create a movement to free Iranians from the material and intellectual domination of the Arabs. While studying the history of ancient Greece and Rome in Egypt, he found that Persia was a great nation many years ago. The country had powerful kings, and even Egypt was considered one of Persia’s countries in the past. But the reign of the Arabs had caused the Persian people to decline, and they would not have regained their past prosperity and power unless they saved themselves from the domination of the Arabs. Hasan-I Sabbah decided to create a united nation with Persian origins from the various Persian tribes, who were under Arab domination or intellectual influenced by them. He resorted to religion to achieve this goal because he thought it could not happen in any other way. Then he came to Iran, and since he had an influential speech, his followers quickly increased. After a long period of dominating the Alamut region, he captured many castles throughout Iran. And the most important of which was Alamut Castle near Qazvin, his main headquarters. By announcing the Qiyamah uprising, a rebellion against foreigners in Iran, he finally managed to capture some cities in Iran. So, he could openly fight against the Seljuk Malik-Shah and his minister, Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk Tusi, who strongly disagreed with Ismailism. Hasan-I Sabbah’s way of eliminating his opponents was that murderer directly killed people with missionary zeal, that is, assassination. Their movement continued for nearly 95 years until Hulagu Khan, the Ilkhanate king, extinguished the flame of this movement and killed their last leader, Rukn al-Din Khurshah.

Hasan-I Sabbah School

The school of Sabah was Alamutian, also known as Hashishion, and the root of the word Assassin in English is also from the school. The followers of Hasan-I Sabbah were famous as Hashshashin because, at that time, Hashish meant medicine and Hashshash meant drug seller, and Hashshashin is the Arabic plural of Hashash. They were the first people who considered the goal superior to the means and allowed themselves to infiltrate the enemy’s organization by pretending and tricking. For this reason, any army could not come close to Alamut for many years since the agents of Alamutian used to infiltrate them and kill their commanders. This cult included ten levels. They told People, at the lower level, that the Quran contains profound and hidden definitions in addition to its apparent meaning. At the last level, a person accepts everything, even his personal experiences, only if logic dictates it. Such strict ideas are seen only in some Buddhism thought. Hasan Sabbah believed that not all people could reach the highest level, and therefore he kept most of the people in the lower ranks to obey his orders. Many underground organizations like Illuminati and Freemasonry have been fascinated by Hasan-I Sabbah and his organization.

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