Of These Aliites, Eventually Called Shiahs, A Chief
Sect, And Parent Of Many Heretical Branches, Were The Ismailites, Who Took
Their Name, From The Seventh Imam, Whose Return To Earth They Professed To
Expect At The End Of The World.
About A.D. 1090 a branch of the Ismaili
stock was established by Hassan, son of Sabah, in the
Mountainous
districts of Northern Persia; and, before their suppression by the
Mongols, 170 years later, the power of the quasi-spiritual dynasty which
Hassan founded had spread over the Eastern Kohistan, at least as far as
Kain. Their headquarters were at Alamut ("Eagle's Nest"), about 32 miles
north-east of Kazwin, and all over the territory which they held they
established fortresses of great strength. De Sacy seems to have proved
that they were called Hashishiya or Hashishin, from their use of the
preparation of hemp called Hashish; and thence, through their system of
murder and terrorism, came the modern application of the word Assassin.
The original aim of this system was perhaps that of a kind of
Vehmgericht, to punish or terrify orthodox persecutors who were too
strong to be faced with the sword. I have adopted in the text one of the
readings of the G. Text Asciscin, as expressing the original word with
the greatest accuracy that Italian spelling admits. In another author we
find it as Chazisii (see Bollandists, May, vol. ii. p. xi.); Joinville
calls them Assacis; whilst Nangis and others corrupt the name into
Harsacidae, and what not.
The explanation of the name MULEHET as it is in Ramusio, or Mulcete as
it is in the G. Text (the last expressing in Rusticiano's Pisan tongue the
strongly aspirated Mulhete), is given by the former: "This name of
Mulehet is as much as to say in the Saracen tongue 'The Abode of
Heretics,'" the fact being that it does represent the Arabic term
Mulhid, pl. Mulahidah, "Impii, heretici," which is in the Persian
histories (as of Rashiduddin and Wassaf) the title most commonly used to
indicate this community, and which is still applied by orthodox Mahomedans
to the Nosairis, Druses, and other sects of that kind, more or less
kindred to the Ismaili. The writer of the Tabakat-i-Nasiri calls the
sectarians of Alamut Mulahidat-ul-maut, "Heretics of Death."[1] The
curious reading of the G. Text which we have preserved "vaut a dire des
Aram," should be read as we have rendered it. I conceive that Marco was
here unconsciously using one Oriental term to explain another. For it
seems possible to explain Aram only as standing for Haram, in the
sense of "wicked" or "reprobate."
In Pauthier's Text, instead of des aram, we find "veult dire en
francois Diex Terrien," or Terrestrial God. This may have been
substituted, in the correction of the original rough dictation, from a
perception that the first expression was unintelligible. The new phrase
does not indeed convey the meaning of Mulahidah, but it expresses a main
characteristic of the heretical doctrine.
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