The Assassin Legends

Myths of the Isma‘ilis

Dados Bibliográficos

ID19929697
AutoresFarhad Daftary (autor correspondente)
Ano1995
Data de publicação1995-01-01
Open AccessNão
TipoBOOK
PeriódicoThe Assassin Legends (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraI.B. Tauris (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5040/9780755612284
OpenAlexW1546013811
Open LibraryOL1122767M
ISBN9780755612284
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11

For hundreds of years Westerners have been fascinated by stories of the Assassins, their mysterious leader and their remote mountain stronghold at Alamut in Northern Iran. The legends first emerged in the 12th and 13th centuries, when Crusaders in Syria came into contact with the Nazari Isma‘ilis, one of the communities of Shi‘ite Islam who, at the behest of their leader Hassan Sabaa (mythologized as the “Old Man of the Mountain”), engaged in dangerous missions to kill their enemies. Elaborated over the years, the tales culminated in Marco Polo's claim that the “Old Man” controlled the behaviour of his self-sacrificing devotees through the use of hashish and a secret garden of paradise. So influential were these tales that the word “assassin” entered European languages as a common noun meaning “murderer”. Daftary traces the origins and early development of the legends - as well as investigating the historical context in which

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology) · Ignorance · Islam · Literature · Meaning (existential) · Paradise · Political science · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Assassins (Ismailites) · Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 · Historiography · Islamic legends · legends · Syria