Muhammad died on 1st September 1210. Immediately on his accession Hasan reversed the policy of his father and grandfather and brought his people back to observance of the ritual law; moreover, the form of Islam which he reintroduced was Sunnism. For a time the Nizaris became almost respectable in the eyes of the outside world, while Hasan became known to the world at large as the "New Muslim".
It is certainly possible that Hasan was playing a complicated game, merely pretending to be a good Sunni for political reasons, but if so he was extremely thorough about it; for he arranged a public cursing of his father and grandfather and brought eminent men from Qazvin to go through the library at Alamut and pick out heretical books, which he then burnt ceremonially. Moreover, Hasan's family background gives reason for thinking he was sincere: his mother was a Sunni Muslim who after her son's accession went on pilgrimage to Mecca and is said to have been an ascetic, and he married four Sunni wives. His sister, too, was probably a Sunni. It may well be that he identified himself with his mother's religion in reaction to his father's views.
Within his own territories Hasan not only insisted on the observance of the ritual law, but he also built a mosque and a bath in every village to mark the incorporation of his territory into the orthodox community. In all this he was obeyed unquestioningly, for to his people he was still the Imam; a somewhat ironical situation.
Hasan's foreign policy reflected his Sunni enthusiasm. He was on good terms with the Caliph of Baghdad, who accorded his mother special honours when she passed through that city on her way to Mecca. This was important, for although the Caliphate had little political authority it had enormous prestige among the Sunnis even though Nasir, the Caliph at the time, was probably a Shiite. Nasir's friendship was instrumental in securing Hasan his wives from the Gilan nobility, among whom his conversion was at first viewed with suspicion.
Under Hasan the Ismailis for the first time engaged in open warfare as opposed to terrorism. Hasan entered into an alliance with the lord of Azerbaijan against a man who had formerly been an Azerbaijani general but who had now set himself up as lord of Eastern Iraq. The Caliph of Baghdad also sent forces, troops coming from as far away as Syria. Most of the expenses were paid by the lord of Azerbaijan, and one gets the impression that the whole enterprise was regarded by the participants as something of a lark. The campaign lasted for a year and was successful; perhaps undeservedly so. The rebel lord was killed near Hamadan, and Hasan received two towns as his share of the loot.
These military adventures, including the preparations, occupied the first two years of Hasan's reign. It was the first time that any ruler of Alamut had left his territory at all, let alone been absent for such a long time. But after this Hasan returned home and went no more a-roving, relying instead on the traditional Nizari method of assassination to rid himself of enemies.
Hasan does not appear to have been an intellectual or to have written anything. He reigned for only eleven years, dying of dysentery in 1221. His heir was his son Muhammad III, but he was aged only nine at his father's death and so the government was in the hands of the vizier. Suspecting that Hasan's death had been due to poison, the vizier put to death Hasan's wives and sister and a large number of his relatives and confidants. Probably the suspicion was unjust, for Hasan's womenfolk had nothing to gain from his death and much to lose.
Muahammad is said to have undone all the work of his father and to have broken once more with orthodoxy. However, this does not seem to have been a deeply thought out rejection of Sunnism, for Muhammad, even if he was perhaps not so mad as some historians made out, was certainly no intellectual and was incapable of formulating sophisticated theological doctrines. It seems probable, in fact, that Hasan III's rapprochement with Sunnism was never formally abandoned but that breaches of the ritual law were no longer punished severely.
We actually know little about how far the Nizari community had accepted Hasan III's Sunni ideas. Although the early excitement of the Resurrection nearly fifty years earlier must have faded away by the time Hasan came to power, the Nizaris continued to think of themselves as special. Clearly, however, their situation needed to be thought out anew in the changed circumstances brought about by Hasan III's reform. Oddly enough, however, this revision occurred, not in Hasan's own time, but in the seemingly unpropitious reign of his son Muhammad III. This was due largely to the work of a remarkable scholar called Nasir al-Din Tusi.
Tusi always maintained that he was kept in Alamut against his will, but this is probably untrue. The library at Alamut (in spite of Hasan III's depredations) was renowned for its excellence and it attracted scholars from throughout Iran; it must have been a powerful draw to an intellect of the calibre of Tusi's. For Tusi was not merely an astronomer and astrologer; he wrote a vast amount on religion, philosophy, mathematics, and physics. He is listed as the author of no less than fifty-six works, most of which were in Arabic though some were in Persian, and he also wrote Persian poetry. Among his prose works were treatises on ethics, mineralogy and precious stones, and geomancy. Nor was he merely a bookworm; he also conducted scientific experiments, for he is recorded as investigating the effect of sudden loud noises on troops to see what difference it made if they were warned in advance.
Not surprisingly in view of the breadth of his interests, Tusi became involved in Ismaili philosophy and theology while he was at Alamut and he made an important contribution to late Ismaili thought. His own religious views, however, are uncertain. He is said to have been brought up as a Twelver Shiite, but he was accepted among the Ismailis as one of themselves. Whatever he may have been, his writings have played an important part in shaping Ismaili ideas down to our own day.
It is perhaps a pity that so original a thinker was not born some sixty years earlier, for it would have been fascinating to have had his account of the doctrine of the Resurrection when that event was still pristine. As it was, he found himself at Alamut when its greatness was in the past, and he was obliged to write about Nizari ideas, not as they had been at their zenith, but in the context of Hasan III's repudiation of them. This involved him in much subtle reasoning, for the Nizaris' position was a strange one. The outer world, declared non-existent by a previous Imam, Hasan II, was still there, and the Nizari community as a whole had not been translated to some celestial plane of being. These facts had to be explained away somehow. To a cynical observer the Imam might appear to be in the position of a prophet who predicts the end of the world on a given day and then has to explain the failure of his prophecy to his disillusioned followers.
Of course, the doctrine of the Resurrection was much subtler than this rather unfair analogy implies, and the Nizaris succeeded in coming to terms with their situation without too much difficulty. Nevertheless some considerable rethinking was required, especially as regards Hasan III's reconciliation with Sunnism.
The way out of the difficulty was found in the idea of alternating periods of concealment and manifestation. This had always been part of Ismaili thinking, but now it was refurbished and brought up to date to fit the new circumstances. It had long been accepted that it was legitimate, indeed praiseworthy, for Ismailis to practise tactical dissimulation of their teaching during difficult periods. In the same way, it was now held, the Imam might arbitrarily decide to conceal his true nature, wholly or partially. This had happened in the past, after the disappearance of Ismail's son and again after the death of Nizar. At other times, as in the reigns of Hasan II and Muhammad II, the Imam was visible and his true status was known to all. But Hasan III had chosen to revert to a condition of only partial manifestation, in which he could be seen but his true status was hidden.
No reason, Tusi said, could be assigned for these changes. The will of the Imam is inscrutable, because it is the Will of God. Moreover, it is not only the Imam's actions that are inscrutable; his words may be so too. This deliberate obscurity of utterance is obviously likely to make things difficult for his people, and indeed Tusi cites one Imam (perhaps Hasan II or Muhammad II) as saying: "Our orders are very difficult to carry out, our mystery is closely guarded, a hard thing made harder. No one can bear it except for the angel who stands close to the throne of God, or a prophet who is the apostle of God, or the believer whose heart God has tried with faith." Tusi probably quotes these words to help his readers to adjust to the changes brought about by Hasan III, but in the historical perspective of the Mongol invasion, soon to be loosed on the People of the Resurrection, they carry an unconscious note of terrible prophecy.
In spite of Tusi's arguments, many Nizaris probably did not relish the idea of a compulsory return to the observance of ritual law. Tusi confronts this difficulty at some length. There are, he says, two classes of people among the faithful: the strong and the weak. The strong are those who have reached union with God; having gained this state, they never lose it. The weak, on the other hand, are on the path to Realization but have not got there yet. Anyone who neglects the ritual law without having first attained union with God is a heretic and lacks all religion.
It seems that by Tusi's time the notion of a hierarchy of initiates had been revived in Alamut. Tusi describes this hierarchy, though he does not give the functions of the various grades; indeed, he says that the Ismaili student must not disclose this knowledge to unauthorised people. At the top, of course, is the Imam; next to him is the Supreme Proof, and other ranks are the Door to the Secrets, the Tongue of Knowledge, the Missionaries, the Teachers, and finally the Pupils. Another official, who seems to be an innovation at this time, is the Hand of Strength. This last rank was probably introduced in the reign of Hasan III, and its occupant was possibly a disciplinarian charged with imposition of the ritual law. There is a suggestion that the Hand of Strength came into conflict with a Proof who maintained the esoteric teaching.
Tusi's exposition of of Ismaili doctrine is an important work, but I can't help feeling that his approach lacks something. The sense of excitement that comes to us from the scanty writings of the Resurrection period is missing in Tusi; for all his intellectual sophistication, he was no mystic; he conveys subtle ideas but no passionate conviction.
One day in 1255, however, when Khur Shah was ill in bed, Muhammad got drunk and lay down to sleep with some companions in a hut near his sheepfold at Shirkuh. At midnight he was found murdered, his head having been struck from his body by a single blow from an axe. Two of his companions had also been wounded, one fatally.
After a week of uncertainty and rumour, suspicion fell on one Hasan-i-Mazanderani, who was Muhammad's favourite companion. This man had fled to Alamut from the Mongols; he was handsome, and Muhammad conceived a passion for him. He allowed Hasan great liberty of speech, but in spite of his fondness for the youth he used to torment him in all kinds of ways: most of his teeth were broken and part of his penis had been amputated by the sadistic Muhammad. Even when Hasan grew older, Muhammad still preferred him to anyone else; he gave him his own mistress as a wife but continued to sleep with her openly himself, whereas Hasan might do so only when Muhammad permitted it. It is said that it was Hasan's wife who denounced her husband after Muhammad was murdered.
Because Hasan had Muhammad's ear, anyone who wanted a favour had to approach Muhammad via Hasan, and sometimes Hasan would issue orders on behalf of Muhammad without consulting him. In this way Hasan accumulated great wealth through bribes, though he was unable to make use of it for fear of Muhammad. He had to follow Muhammad's example by wearing old tattered clothes and going with him on his sheep-tending expeditions. For these reasons - and, according to Juvaini, for love of Islam and hatred of heresy, though this seems less probable - he murdered Muhammad. Khur Shah is said not to have had anything to do with the crime directly, though he may have connived at it.
Hasan was not arrested, but one day he was sent to see to the royal flock of sheep. While he was with them a man sent by Khur Shah crept up on him and struck off his head with an axe. Some say that this was done to prevent him talking about Khur Shah's complicity in the murder of Muhammad, though it may also have been to serve Hasan in exactly the same way that he had served Muhammad.
Even if Khur Shah was guilty of complicity in his father's murder, he did not have long to enjoy the fruits of his crime, for the Nizari state, which had survived so many threats, was soon to meet its end from the implacable Mongols.
The Mongols came from the eastern part of Central Asia. They conquered much of the known world and indeed became a serious threat to Europe at one time. The first Mongol rule, Jenghis Khan, invaded Transoxiana and Iran in 1219-27. At first he proposed a treaty of friendship with the Seljuq Sultan, Shah Muhammad, but the Sultan treacherously killed some Mongol envoys. Jenghis Khan then embarked on a series of campaigns, during which great cities were captured and destroyed, their populations being slaughtered by the million. Shah Muhammad evaded the pursuing Mongol force and took refuge on one of the off-shore islands in the Caspian, where he died. The Mongol troops now continued on what has been described as the greatest reconnaissance raid in history, for they invaded Georgia, passed into what is now southern Russia, entered the Crimea, where they defeated a Russian army, and returned across the Volga to rejoin Jenghis Khan, who was on his way home. This momentous expedition covered some 6,000 miles and brought the Mongols knowledge of the wider world that lay further to the West beyond the Islamic lands, a knowledge that was the foundation of their subsequent invasion of Russia and Europe.
Shah Muhammad was succeeded by Jalal al-Din, who conducted a dashing and temporarily successful campaign against the Mongols. Such was his valour that even Jenghis Khan was impressed: surrounded by his enemies after a battle, he cut his way through their ranks, recaptured his standard, and galloped his charger over a thirty-foot cliff into the Indus, bearing the banner over his head. Jengis Khan forbade his men to shoot at him and held up his courage as an example to his sons.
After this escape Jalal al-Din, with the few men who remained to him, invaded India and compelled the king at Delhi to give him his daughter in marriage. From this base he tried, a few years later, to reinvade Iran, but after many battles and adventures he was finally defeated, and while fleeing was killed by Kurdish tribesmen. His legend lived on, however, and in subsequent years a number of pretenders arose claiming to be Jalal al-Din.
Hulagu's invasion was planned to deal with the Nizaris among other enemies. The reasons for this hostility are not wholly clear, but probably the Mongols had not realized at first how dangerous the Nizaris were reputed to be; increasing contacts with Muslims revealed this to them. For example, a Muslim official at the Great Khan's court was found to be wearing mail beneath his clothes, and on being questioned explained that he did so for fear of Ismaili assassins.
As for the Ismailis, they, like the Mongols, dreamt of world-wide domination, and therefore naturally looked on the Mongols as enemies, especially after an embassy they sent to the Mongol court was rejected. Impossible though the Ismaili's ambitions may seem today, they may not have looked so hopeless to the Mongols, for Ismaili representatives were widespread at the time and were possibly to be found as far afield as India. There are even reports of an Ismaili mission to Western Europe to try to arrange an alliance with the Christians against the Mongols. The Christians, however, still bemused by the delusion that the Great Khan was a Christian monarch (the legendary Prester John), were hoping for an alliance with him against Islam, so the Ismailis' mission had little chance of success.
Hulagu reached Nizari territory in Quhistan in the spring of 1256. Assassins were sent against him but he continued his advance, although the fortress of Gird Kuh held out. By September the Mongol armies wre approaching the castle of Maymun Diz, where Khur Shah was in residence. Hulagu demanded his surrender; he tried to temporize.
Khur Shah first sent his brother Shahanshah to Hulagu to offer his submission. Hulagu accepted, on condition that Khur Shah came in person and that all the Nizari fortresses were destroyed. Khur Shah said he would come in a year's time; he needed the year, he claimed, to dismantle the castles. He also asked that the castles of Alamut and Lamasar be exempted from the destruction order. Hulagu replied that he must either come himself in five days or send his son.
Khur Shah sent his son and carried out some token dismantlings. Hulagu suspected that the boy was not really Khur Shah's son; in any case, he was ony seven or eight years old, so Hulagu sent him back and asked instead for another brother to replace Shahanshah, who had been there for many months. Khur Shah sent another brother, Shiranshah, and also a number of Nizari dignitaries. By now, however, Hulagu's leisurely advance had brought him only three days' journey away; he sent Shiranshah back with an ultimatum. Khur Shah must either destroy Maymun Diz at once and come himself, or face the consequences. Meanwhile, Hulagu secretly killed a number of the Nizari hostages and then laid siege to Maymun Diz, arriving so suddenly that he nearly captured Khur Shan there and then at the foot of the castle.
The castle was very strong and could have held out almost indefinitely. However, Khur Shah was under pressure from the non-Ismaili scholars at Maymun Diz, notably Tusi, to surrender. The Mongols bombarded the castle with mangonels built from timber planted there by the Nizaris themselves. Khur Shah prevaricated desperately for a final fortnight, but at last he sent down a negotiating party, one of whose members was Tusi. Next day he came down himself.
The Mongols then started demolishing the castle, though first they had to dispose of a devoted band of Nizaris who refused to surrender; this took four days. Khur Shah was treated well to start with, for the Mongols needed him to persuade the rest of the Nizari fortresses to surrender. Not all of them did so at first, evidently supposing that Khur Shah's orders were a ruse and not intended to be obeyed. Gird Kuh, Alamut, and Lamasar held out. After a few days the Alamut garrison changed its mind; they were allowed three days to remove their belongings, and then the Mongols moved in to destroy the buildings, even Hulagu himself climbing up to take a look. So great was the strength of the fortifications that the soldiers' task proved very hard; picks were useless and the men had to light fires on the roofs.
The historian Juvaini was a member of Hulagu's entourage and it is to him that we owe most of what little we know about the structure of Alamut. He describes how the rocks had been hollowed out to make tanks for all kinds of provisions; a man waded into the honey tank without realizing how deep it was and nearly drowned. Juvaini was allowed to examine the library; he picked out the Korans and other books which he regarded as non-heretical and also the astrolabes and other astronomical apparatus, but everything else, including no doubt hundreds of fascinating books about Ismaili philosophy, he burnt. For this piece of philistinism it is hard to forgive him.
Lamasar continued to hold out for a further year, and Gird Kuh for longer still. With the surrender of Alamut, however, Khur Shah's usefulness to the Mongols was largely finished. He was still treated as an honoured guest rather than as a prisoner, however; he fell in love with a Mongol girl and was allowed to marry her, and he was presented with a hundred male camels so that he could indulge his taste for watching camels fighting. He then asked to be sent to the Mongol court. According to Juvaini he reached it, but was reproached by Mangu for failing to secure the surrender of Gird Kuh and Lamasar, and was murdered by his escort on the way back to Iran. According to another source he never reached Mongolia at all but was killed on his journey out by orders of the Great Khan, who said that he was not worth providing relay horses for.
As soon as Khur Shah set out on his fateful journey all the Nizaris held by the Mongols, including Khur Shah's own family, babies and all, were put to death. Nevertheless, later generations of Ismailis were to claim that a son of Khur Shah - the next Imam - had previously been taken away to a place of safety.
So ended the long saga of the Nizaris at Alamut. The Sunnis rejoiced at their downfall, but unwisely. The Nizaris were perhaps enemies of Islam, but the Mongols were no friends to it. Two years later Baghdad followed Alamut to destruction. Hulagu was confirmed in his decision to attack the city by Tusi, who advised him that a fellow-astrologer's warnings of dire consequences that would follow from such a course might safely be disregarded. The Caliph was killed by being rolled in a blanket and trampled to death, the Mongols having a superstitious fear of spilling royal blood. As usual, the inhabitants of the city were slaughtered, only the houses of Christians being spared; 800,000 people are said to have been killed. The destruction of Baghdad was perhaps the crowning disaster of the whole Mongol invasion: an incalculable material, literary, and scientific treasure was obliterated. As the literary historian E.G. Browne puts it, the loss suffered by Muslim learning defies description and almost surpasses imagination; `the very tradition of accurate scholarship and original research, so conspicuous in Arabic literature before this period, was almost destroyed. Never, probably, was so great and splendid a civilization so swiftly consumed with fire and quenched with blood.'
There is a Nizari story which relates to this period. After the expulsion of the Mongols some of the Nizaris who had surrendered to them were imprisoned by their indignant comrades. Among these prisoners was one Jamal al-Din, whose father had once been caught out by Sinan in a theft. He had stolen a casket containing gold during an earthquake, but Sinan, instead of making him give it back, ordered him to keep it. On this man's death the treasure had passed to his son, who had buried it at Masyaf when the Mongols arrived.
Jamal al-Din made a vow that, if he were released, he would build a shrine to Sinan. While he was in prison Sinan came to him in a dream and told him that he would be released next day. As soon as he was free he was to go to Masyaf and retrieve the casket, which would be unharmed except for a scorch mark caused by the Mongols' having lit a fire near the spot where it was hidden. He was to use the money it contained to build a shrine to Sinan on the mountain where he had confronted Saladin. Everything happened as the dream foretold, and the shrine was duly built.
Although Sultan Baybars seemed at first to be friendly to the Nizaris, their position deteriorated under the Mamluks, and gradually they came to be mere hired assassins at the orders of the Sultan. And yet the Nizaris survived, and their descendants have continued to live in the fastness of their mountains down to the present day.
It might seem that this would be the end of the story. But Ismaili ideas were not so easily disposed of. They have continued to flow secretly underground ever since, and have sprung forth in unexpected places right down to our own time.