The assassins' reign of terror: how these 12th-century killers spread fear in the Middle East
In the 12th century, a sect of killers spread fear across the Middle East, executing a series of high-profile political murders. Steve Tibble introduces the original Assassins
There were 13 men: unlucky for someone. They were dressed to kill – but so was everyone else. In what was essentially an army camp, crammed with armed men, the assailants blended right in. Moving casually but intently through the bustling camp outside Aleppo in Syria, past stalls and shopkeepers, beggars and soldiers, they headed towards their target.
Suddenly their progress was checked by a shout from behind: “What are you doing here?” Cover blown, their response was shocking: an explosion of violence, weapons flashing, blood splashing. The team of Assassins erupted into the tent where their victim sat unawares, surrounded by generals, lackeys and bodyguards. The attackers’ daggers and swords struck once more.
The target that day in January 1175 was a Kurdish general, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub – better known to us as Saladin. He had displaced the Fatimid dynasty to rule as sultan of Egypt, and was now muscling in on Syria. That vicious attack on his life failed – for now. But who were these men? And why had they launched such a murderous and seemingly suicidal assault?
Power through murder
Those brutal killers were Assassins. The upper case seems pedantic, but it is important. In the true medieval sense, that term was used for members of the Nizari Ismailis, a Shia Muslim sect who sought to defend themselves and to project power through political murder. The word ‘Assassin’ (or hashishin) was used as a pejorative by those on the receiving end of their remorseless hit squads in the 12th and 13th centuries. And the name stuck, becoming synonymous for premeditated murderers or contract killers – even though most of the broader Nizari Ismaili community were in fact peaceful peasants, scholars and merchants.
The origins of this sect lay in the chaos of the Middle East in the late 11th century. Turkic tribes from the Eurasian steppes had stormed into the region and seized power from local Arab rulers, before starting to jockey among themselves for control of these new lands. Then, between 1092 and 1094, most of the major political leaders in the region died, including the vizier and caliph-imam of Fatimid Egypt, and the Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah, who ruled a vast empire stretching from Anatolia through the Middle East to central Asia. The resulting power vacuum was quickly filled with mayhem.
The Nizari Ismailis were widely despised by their powerful Sunni Muslim neighbours as heretics and traitors, so launched an audacious uprising against the Sunni Seljuq Turks in Persia – and, importantly for our story, sent out missionaries to set up bases in the mountains of Syria. This was occurring in the last decade of the 11th century, around the same time as the crusaders were sweeping into the area, carving out kingdoms of their own from which to defend the Holy Land.
By the start of the 12th century, the entire region had become disastrously fragmented. For the Nizari Ismailis – and for the recently arrived crusaders – Syria now seemed a land of opportunity. Members of this small breakaway sect were small in number and without obvious economic assets, but they had a terrifyingly effective secret weapon: the savage skills and unquestioning loyalty of a cadre of elite killers – the fidais.
Promise of death
During the crusades, most major players employed a similar strategy: channel enormous amounts of money and energy into acquiring big armies, the basic building blocks upon which almost all power structures were built. But assembling these voraciously expensive and disruptive armies was a big enough challenge for wealthy nations – how could minor players survive? The short answer is that, in most cases, they did not. Before long, almost all of them were swept away.
The Nizari Ismailis chose a revolutionary alternative: rather than rely on the generality of death embodied by large (and expensive) armies, they chose the specificity of death. Individuals are afraid of violent endings, so any power that could spark and exploit that primal fear had no need of costly, clumsy armies. For the Nizari Ismailis – now, for our purposes, synonymous with the Assassins – violent, targeted death became their power, and their promise.
Their overall goal was to secure the survival and growth of the sect in a hostile environment, but specific tactical objectives varied. Murders were perpetrated for political reasons, to intimidate, for revenge, for money – for example, to pay for the construction of castles – out of personal animosity or, frequently, a combination of these reasons.
In their remote bases in Syria, the Assassins perfected and professionalised their squads of fidais. Only the most committed and able, mentally as well as physically, were chosen to receive the rigorous training needed to fulfil their highly dangerous missions, often with slim chances of survival. Most of their attacks were on high-profile individuals, and took place in very public spaces. Every member of a fidai team had to be courageous and committed to the cause.
They were described by their enemies as fanatical and brainwashed, but by admirers as dedicated and skilful. Regardless, the fidais were extraordinarily focused and effective – the ninjas of the 12th century Middle East.
There were lurid descriptions of the Assassins as drugged-up fanatics eager to die for a twisted cause
Then, as now, there were many lurid descriptions of the Assassins as drugged-up, deluded fanatics eager to die for a twisted cause. But this was all part of the illusion – an essential element in the promise of ‘unstoppable death’ at the heart of the brand. The fear sown by the fidais – along with their own fearlessness and relentlessness, which made them such terrifying and efficient killers – was at the core of the Assassins’ power. As one of their leaders retorted to an attempt at intimidation by an enemy, a general commanding vast armies: “Do you threaten a duck with the river?” If death was a river, in other words, the fidais were all too happy to swim in it.
Most of the associated rumours were untrue. It is unlikely, for instance, that fidais were given drugs such as hashish (cannabis resin) to numb their senses and inspire fanaticism before they carried out a hit. Being under the influence of narcotics would have been counterproductive: a skilled Assassin needed to have his wits about him.
Old Man of the Mountain
The Assassins’ political murders started with a huge success in 1092, when a fidai named Bu Tahir Arrani stabbed the Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk as he was being carried in a litter towards Baghdad. Other Sunni leaders were then attacked and killed, including Janah al-Dawla, the Turkic governor of Homs, in 1103. Even Mawdud, the ruler of Mosul and the general entrusted with coordinating the campaign against the crusaders, was killed in Damascus in 1113, despite being surrounded by the best bodyguards that money could buy.
Mawdud’s successor, Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi, fared no better, assassinated while at his prayers in the Great Mosque of Mosul in 1126. Members of the fidai squad were, as usual, cut down by the numerous bodyguards stationed around the target, with only one, “a youth from Azaz”, surviving. (This was highly embarrassing for his mother, who was deeply proud of the celebrity status her brave son enjoyed in the sect and was already in mourning for him when he returned alive.)
By the mid-12th century, the Assassins had become feared across the region. This reputation was further confirmed under the rule of Rashid ad-Din Sinan, known as Sinan, who became ruler of the de facto Nizari Ismaili state in Syria and Persia in 1162. He strengthened the Assassins’ network of mountain fortresses and perfected their deadly craft. Under him, the fidais became an even more professional and fearsome weapon – more formalised, better trained and increasingly highly motivated.
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Sinan was an extraordinary figure: highly intelligent, a great leader and capable of acting with profound strategic insight. He was also a man of a deeply esoteric, mystical and, some would say, even ‘magical’ disposition. As one Sunni commentator later wrote, “the Ismaili sect followed him as they had followed no one else, and he was able to achieve what no other had achieved”.
The main Nizari source about his life, an early 14th-century biography, was written by the scholar Abu Firas, who went to some lengths to emphasise the leader’s orthodox Islamic credentials but also listed Sinan’s supposed occult achievements. There were stories of telepathy and clairvoyance. Sinan was never seen eating, and he did not say much, but deliberately adopted strange poses. There were rumours among his own people that he did not cast a reflection in water.
He became known as the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ – a title that, though originally a personal honorific, was later used to signify the Assassins’ leader in Syria, a little like ‘Caesar’ or ‘Sultan’. This helped create a sense of fear that transcended death: regardless of who was in charge at any moment, there was always an ‘Old Man of the Mountain’.
The ‘death cult’ image that Sinan so fastidiously cultivated was a huge success. The Assassins’ enemies fomented ‘legendary’ tales in attempts to denigrate and isolate their ruthless foe, but the killers benefited from the additional fear these stories fuelled. As one Nizari poet put it, a single fidai could strike fear into the heart of the most powerful king. And there was one particular ‘king’ that the Assassins had in their crosshairs.
Saladin, a usurper desperate to shore up his image as a legitimate ruler, found it useful to pose as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy – and as Shia ‘heretics’, the Nizari Ismailis were handy scapegoats. They, along with the crusaders, were the unifying bogeymen of his self-justification. The Assassins correctly identified that his new Ayyubid empire posed an existential threat to the Nizari Ismaili sect – and decided that he should be eliminated.
Hard target
As outlined at the start of this story, and reported by the chronicler Ibn al-Athir the following century, the first fidai team struck while Saladin was besieging Aleppo in 1175, when 13 men armed with knives were dispatched to kill him. The attack was timed to coincide with the communal meal, when servants and guests would be distracted. But, as we’ve seen, on that occasion the fidais were thwarted by a piece of bad luck. An emir in Saladin’s camp recognised them as Nizari Ismailis, and asked: “What has brought you here? On what business have you come?”
Knives were drawn: the Assassins stabbed the emir “with some deadly blows, and one of their number charged towards Saladin to slay him but was killed before he could reach him”, said Ibn al-Athir. The fidai who got closest had his head hacked off by an emir, and Saladin’s chancellor, Imad al-Din, wrote that “the others were not killed until they had killed a number of people”. The Assassins failed on this occasion – but they did not die quietly.
The next year, Saladin was besieging the castle of Azaz, belonging to one of his Sunni rivals, north-west of Aleppo. Here the Assassins launched another, even more deadly attempt on his life, with a smaller but more focused team ordered to strike Saladin’s neck and head. Al-Athir wrote that “while Saladin was in a tent belonging to one of his emirs, [an Assassin] leapt on him, struck him on the head with a dagger and wounded him”.
The blade met iron rather than flesh and bone. Spooked by the earlier attempt on his life, Saladin was almost totally covered in layers of concealed armour.
“Had it not been for the mailed helmet under his cap,” wrote Ibn al-Athir, “he would have been killed. Saladin grasped the [Assassin’s] hand in his, although he was unable totally to prevent him striking a blow.”
The sultan’s men rushed to his aid, and killed that assailant. Another member of the hit squad killed one of Saladin’s commanders; a third fought on until he was killed by Saladin’s brother. The last surviving fidai escaped from the tent but was torn apart by the crowd outside. A bloodied Saladin was hustled away “in a state of shock, hardly crediting his escape… The sultan rode to his tent, terrified by this event, with his blood flowing down his cheek and the collar of his chain mail wet.”
The last surviving Assassin escaped from Saladin’s tent but was torn apart by the crowd that had gathered outside
Saladin quickly sent a reassuring message back to Egypt to dispel any sign of weakness and to discourage possible uprisings. “There was only a scratch with some few drops of blood,” he wrote. But he knew that he could no longer ignore the Assassins.
In July 1176, Saladin moved his armies into the heart of Nizari Ismaili territory and “ravaged their land, destroying and burning”. His armies besieged their fortress of Masyaf, about 30 miles north-west of Homs.
No further hostilities developed. Sinan did not want a huge army camped outside his castle, ravaging the hard-won Nizari lands in Syria. Saladin wanted to preserve his life and family, and he had plenty of other enemies to attend to. Both sides quickly sought peace.
After this, the Assassins generally remained neutral, presumably having given reassurances to Saladin about his personal safety. He seems to have pulled back from further antagonism, and even included them in treaties that might affect their interests.
End of the Assassins
Ultimately, the Assassins failed to overthrow the Seljuq Turks or their successors. They carved out a couple of minor principalities for a time, but little more, and did not hold any major cities. They were eventually brushed aside by much larger, more violent and less easily intimidated military opponents. In 1256–57, they were destroyed by the Mongols in Persia, then neutered by Sultan Baybars and the Mamluks in Syria after 1265.
The Assassins had persisted for more than a century and a half – far longer than might have been expected. Despite being vastly outnumbered by their Sunni enemies, they had made themselves heard, hated and feared. They pushed the bounds of dedication and commitment to new limits. And it is that extraordinary legacy, with all its faults, that deserves to be remembered.
This article was first published in the October 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Authors
Steve Tibble is honorary research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London. His latest book, Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain, is published by Yale in September.