The origin of the word Assassin is this person: Who is Hasan-i Sabbah?

Hasan-i Sabbah is thought to be a descendant of Himyeri kings in Southern Yemen. His father settled in Kufa from Yemen, then in Qom, and finally in the city of Rey. Although his exact date of birth is unknown, it is estimated that Hasan Sabbah was born in 1052 or 1053 in Kum. His father, Ali bin Muhammad, is a well-known person from the Imamiyya branch of the Shia sect. Hasan Sabbah, who was well educated in the fields of philosophy, theology, logic, and fiqh, received his first education as a Twelver Imam in Rey, the center of Ismaili movements.

Thanks to a Fatimid dais named Emire Zarrab (a cleric who was appointed to invite the Ismaili sect), he learned the Ismaili teachings, which he called heresy until that day. After all this training, Hasan Sabbah, who participated in the Fatimid cause, swore allegiance to Caliph al-Mustansir, the imam of the period.

Hasan-i Sabbah (1050 – 12 June 1124) was a religious and military leader, founder of the Nizari Ismaili state. He was also the founder of the intelligence team known as the Assassins (Persian, Hashshashin), which consisted of a group of specially trained spies. He has been known in the West as the Old Man of the Mountain since Marco Polo, as he captured a mountain fortress called Alamut. 

Abdülmelik Ibn Attaş, the head of the Ismaili sect in Iraq, came to Rey in 1072. When he meets Hasan Sabbah, he tells him to go to Cairo and introduce himself in the presence of the caliph. A few years later, Hasan Sabbah goes to Egypt. To talk about the friendship of Ömer Hayyam and Nizamülmülk mentioned in Sergüzeşt-i Seyyidina, where Hasan Sabbah's life is told; It is told that all three of them were students of the same teacher in Nishapur. However, considering the age difference between them and the fact that they spent their youth in different parts of Iran, contemporary scholars say that this story is a fabrication.

Throughout his life, he engaged in many academic subjects. Besides religious and military leadership, he was experienced in mathematics (especially geometry), astronomy, and philosophy (especially epistemology).

Hasan Sabbah reaches from Rey to Isfahan and from there to Silvan via Azerbaijan in 1076. When he denied that Sunni scholars were superior and said that only imams could explain religion; Silvan Kadi expels Sabbah from the city. Afterward, Meyyafarikin comes to Akka via Mosul, Sincar, Rahbe, Damascus, Sayda, and Sur and goes to Egypt to meet with the last Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir. Even the caliph appoints him as his deputy. But whether Hasan Sabbah met with the caliph is controversial; sources differ.

After the death of Caliph al-Hakim, the Fatimid caliph Mustansir remained in the caliphate for 60 years. Then he chooses his son Nizar to be the caliph. Seeing the support behind Nizar, the vizier of the Fatimids, Efdal, chose the other son Müstali, who was more passive, instead of making him the caliph. When the people of Cairo adopted Müstali's caliphate, Nizar and his sons went to Alexandria and rebelled there. Realizing this dangerous situation, Müstali had them brought back to Cairo and imprisoned, and Nizar dies here after a while.

Hasan Sabbah, who supported Mustansir at that time, supports Nizar and even gives a sermon on his behalf, contrary to Efdal's attitude after his death. The greatest support for the Nizâriyye branch of the Ismilis, who are now divided into two as Nizâriyye and Mustâlliyye, comes from Hasan Sabbah; He also brings Nizar's grandson to Alamut and raises him. After that, a new period begins for the Nizaris in Alamut Castle, which is separate from the Fatimids.

Hasan Sabbah, whom the Ismailis call Sayyidina Hasan bin Sabbah, manages to avoid being caught in the early stages of his life full of journeys, and he plans to take the Alamut Castle, which he has set his sights on. Alamut Castle is in the hands of a person named Mahdi under the control of the Seljuks. Hasan Sabbah attracts some of the Mahdi's soldiers to Ismailism. On September 4, 1090, he secretly entered the castle under the name Dikhuda and managed to live in the castle for a while. After a while, the Mahdi realizes that many of his soldiers are Ismailis and that Dikhuda is Hasan Sabbah.

Mehdi realizes that Hasan Sabbah has established dominance in the castle and sees that there is nothing he can do. According to a rumor, Hasan Sabbah asks Mahdi to sell the castle to him. Hasan Sabbah, who does not harm the Mahdi's life, gives him a bond of three thousand dinars inside the castle. Hasan Sabbah now takes over Alamut and starts his movement, which he calls the invitation-i cedide.

Alamut Castle is geographically a castle located in the Elburz Mountains in Iran, northeast of Qazvin. Alamut, which comes from the words Aluh and Amut, means "eagle's nest" or "eagle education" in the Taberistan dialect of the old Persian language. In addition, when the numerical values in the abced account are given to each of the letters in the name "Aluh Amut" and added together, the date of 1090, when Hasan Sabbah captured Alamut, comes out. Iranian historians have sought a mysterious meaning behind this situation.

The Ismaili community was slandered as "mulhid, zindiq" (non-believer) by the Sunni-believing Seljuk rulers. Westerners, on the other hand, named the same group as "Hashashis" (junkgoers) based on Marco Polo's narrative. The Fedais, who were self-sacrificing warriors, whom the Ismailis took action to protect themselves and deter the aggressors, killed many politicians and commanders, especially the Seljuk chief vizier Nizamülmülk, caused them to be called "assassins/assassins" by the western authorities of the Crusaders period. They originally gave this name to the Syrian Ismailis. Later, the idiom became common to the Ismailis of Iran by European travelers and chroniclers. Over the years, the subject has come to the fore a lot and everything related to the Ismailis is surrounded by epics and fairy tales. However, all Ismaili centers, especially Alamut Castle, had reached an advanced stage in science such as astronomy and chemistry. The richest library of the period was in Alamut Castle.

Venetian Marco Polo visited the ruins of Alamut in 1273, 16-17 years after it was burned down by Hulagu Han. By adding his own imaginary and exaggerated interpretations to the false and false information given by the Sunni Muslims living in the region he is in contact with, about the Ismailis, Hasan Sabbah defined Alamut as a paradise that produces means of death from people, that is, the bodyguards. However, it is a true science paradise and has trained scholars; He never mentioned the Alamut library, which was burned by the Mongols and contained two hundred thousand books. Traveling to the palace of Kublai Khan with his father and uncle, Marco Polo departed from Akka in 1271 and passed through Iran in 1292. He wrote his work with the help of a scribe in 1298 in Venice, where he returned after seventeen years in China. As it can be understood, it is highly probable that Marco Polo wrote down what he heard while passing through Iran fifteen years after the collapse of Nizari Ismailism, therefore it does not reflect the truth.

Marco Polo, as it is pronounced in Persian, presented Pir-i Alamut (Hasan Sabbah) as the man of great evil to the West under the name of "Mountain Old Man". “The Mountaineer Old Man kept and raised twelve-year-old boys in his palace who seemed to him to be brave men. When the time came, they were sent to the garden in groups of four, ten, and twenty, and they were made to drink poppy. They would sleep for three days and then carry them asleep to the garden, where they would be awakened. After a while, when these young men awoke, in the magnificent garden they found themselves in, they truly believed they were in heaven. Beautiful young girls were always with them, putting on great entertainment, and singing; Everything they wanted was given. For this reason, they never wanted to leave this garden with their own system. Whenever the Old Man wanted to send someone to death, he would summon him and say: “Go and do this job. I'm making you do this because I want you to go back to Heaven and live happily ever after, having everything here." So the trained assassins (assassins) would go, and their deed would be carried out with great enthusiasm.”

Hasan Sabbah sees Nizamülmülk, the vizier of the Seljuk State, as the biggest enemy in achieving his goals. It is also rumored that Hasan Sabbah sent letters to Sultan Melikşah on this subject. Hasan Sabbah sees Nizamülmülk as the reason for the first Nizari blood spilled. Meanwhile, the death of Sultan Melikşah creates a great opportunity. While the Seljuk State was struggling with the turmoil, Hasan Sabbah became stronger by settling in Alamut. In fact, the Nizarids acted before the Seljuk army and assassinated Nizamülmülk.

Hasan Sabbah is very well structured seizing up to fifty castles, large and small, with Alamut Castle as the center. It manages to exist for a long time with its flat and unevenly dispersed lands from Syria to eastern Iran. Hasan Sabbah's best strategy to destroy the Great Seljuk State would be to capture the castles and prepare a fortified defense and space that is difficult to reach. Although he struggled against the Seljuk Empire; he can't achieve anything except some castles; It cannot go beyond wearing down the Seljuks.

It is said that Hasan Sabbah died in 1124, at the age of ninety. After Hasan Sabbah's death, his most trusted commander, Buzurg Umid, takes over.