From the Foreign Quarterly Review. VON HAMMER'S HISTORY OF THE ASSASSINS.*

THERE is no term in more familiar use throughout Europe than that of Assassin, yet to the generality of readers little is known of the singular sect from which the appellation has been derived. William, archbishop of Tyre, and the Cardinal de Vitri, bishop of Acre, writers of the thirteenth century, gave some short notices of that terrible band of murderers, the followers and ministers of the celebrated Old Man of the Mountain, with whom the champions of the cross came in contact in Syria; and Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish traveller, Hafton, the Armenian prince, and Marco Polo, the illustrious Venetian and father of modern travel, made known their first and chief establishment in Persia. The notions concerning them were vague and unsettled; their religious system and political constitution, remained enveloped in obscurity; and the wonderful narrative of the last-named traveller, the details of which will be found in the course of this article, tended to cast a veil of mystery and fable over the society to the eyes of Euro

peans.

8vo.

Museum.-VOL. XIII.

by Witthof, whose work we have not seen, but from the character given of it by the author whose work we are now to review, we should regard it as of little value. The last and completest work on the subject is that which stands at the head of this article, written by one of the most celebrated orientalists that modern Europe has produced. This history brings forward, from purely oriental sources, new and surprising views of the nature and organization of the Order, as Mr. Von Hammer denominates it. In English, we may here observe, there is no satisfactory account of the Assassins, except the short notice given of them by Sir John Malcolm, in his valuable History of Persia; and his statements do not, on every point, exactly tally with those of their German historian. The work has now been published nine years, but we have reason to believe that it is very little known in England, and are tempted to think that the interest and novelty of its details will induce our readers to excuse us for going so far back.

Mr. Von Hammer depicts the Assassins as forming an Order, at once military and religious, like the Templars and the Teutonic Knights, with whom he compares them; and, like them, subject to the control and guidance of a Grand Master, who was named the Sheikhel-Jebel, corruptly rendered the Old Man of the Mountain, who, from his seat at Alamoot in the north of Persia, like the General of the Jesuits from Rome, directed the motions of his numerous and devoted subjects, and made the most haughty monarchs tremble at his name. This novel and interesting view of the subject Mr. Von Hammer derives from Arabic and Persian authorities, from Ibn Khaledoon and Macrisi, from Mirkhond, Lary, Jelalee, of Kaim, and others. His work is divided into seven books, in which, after a very valuable introduction, he narrates the origin, progress, and downfall, of the Order, and concludes with a very spirited and detailed account--the first ever given in Europe-of the capture of Bagdad and the overthrow of the Caliphat, which fell, along

with the empire of the Assassins, beneath the victorious arms of Hulagoo, the Tartar Khan. From this work we shall endeavour to convey to our readers some idea of the organization of the sect, and display the mighty ills which may be brought on the human race by the agency of secret associations, in the history of the most powerful and most destructive one which ever existed. We must, however, previously, with Mr. Von Hammer, give some account of the state of Islam, in the times that succeeded the death of the Prophet.

Mohammed appointed no Caliph to succeed him. The murder of Othman transferred the Caliphat and Imamat, i. e. the supremacy in empire and in religion, to Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, and his deposition and death again transferred them to Moawiah. From this period dates the great schism of the Mohammedan church. The Soonites, with their numerous subdivisions, acknowledged the first three Imaums and Caliphs; the Shea-ites maintain that Ali and his posterity were the only rightful successors of the Prophet. The principal sects of the latter were four, dissenting from each other on the grounds of Ali's claims to the Imamat, and the order in which it descended to his posterity. Of these we shall only notice the Imamee, as being the one most iminediately connected with the Assassins.

The Inamee were divided into Imamites and Ismailites, who both held that after the twelfth Imaum according to the former, or the seventh according to the latter, the Imaum had vanished, and that the dignity was continued in a succession of inrisible Imaums. The latter derived their appellation from Ismail, the son of Jaafer Zadik, the seventh, and, according to them, the last visible Imaum; the former continued the series through Ismail's younger brother, Musa Kasim, to Askereé, and his son, Mohammed Mehdee. The claims of these Imaums to the Caliphat were, in the time of the first Abbassides, so strong and so generally acknowledged, that Maimoon publicly declared Ali Reeza, the eighth of them, his successor, to the great discontent of the whole family of Abbas, who would probably have contested the point, had not Ali Reeza fortunately died before Maimoon, and with him died the hopes and prospects of the Imamee: But the other branch, the Ismailites, was more fortunate, and at length succeeded in placing one of their members, named Obeid-allah, on the throne of Egypt.

To understand fully how this was accomplished, we must cast a glance on the state of opinion in the East at that period. The ancient religion of Persia, pure as it was in its commencement, had been in the course of time greatly corrupted. Macrisi enumerates seven sects, one of which, named Mazdekee, from Mazdek its founder, advanced principles destructive of all religion and morality. It professed universal freedom and equality, the indifference of human actions, and the community of goods; and strange as it would appear, did not history furnish instances of similar folly, it numbered among its adherents the king of Persia, Cobad, the father of Noosheerwan. The imprudence of this monarch cost him his crown; and his son, Noosheerwan, con

vinced of the pernicious influence of the sect, endeavoured totally to eradicate it with fire and sword. In this he did not completely succeed; the opinions continued to exist in secret, and again broke out, in the time of the Caliphs of the house of Abbas, when the followers of Mokannah* and Babek filled Persia with blood and devastation.

In this stormy period there lived at Ahras, in the south of Persia, a man named Abdallah, the son of Maimoon al Kaddah. He had been educated in the maxims of the ancient religion and policy of Persia; and national animosity inspired him with the idea of overthrowing the faith and the empire of the victorious Arabs. The bloody experience of his own times taught Abdallah the folly of attempting to overturn the prevailing religion and the reigning dynasty, so long as the conscience and the swords of the military were under their direction; and he saw clearly that secretly to undermine them was the only path to ultimate success. Knowing, also, how hazardous it is to attempt all at once to eradicate those prejudices in favour of the throne and altar, which are so deeply rooted in the minds of men, he resolved that the veil of mystery should envelope his design, and that his doctrines, which, in imitation of the schools of India and of Pythagoras, he divided into seven degrees, should only be gradually communicated to his disciples. The last and highest of these degrees taught the vanity of all religions, and the indifference of all actions, as neither here nor hereafter would they be rewarded or punished. With the greatest zeal, by means of missionaries, he disseminated his opinions and augmented the number of his disciples, and to gain them the more ready acceptance among the followers of Islam, he masqued his projects beneath a pretended zeal for the claims of the descendants of Mohammed the son of Ismail, to the Imamat.

During the life-time of Abdallah and his sons, these principles spread, in secret, far and wide, by the activity of their missionaries or Dais, as they were called. The plan of Abdallah was to extend his system gradually, and never to proclaim it openly until the throne should be in the possession of one of its disciples; but this deep-laid scheme was broken by the impetuosity of Ahmed of Cufa, surnamed Carmath, who, fully initiated in all the degrees of the secret system, boldly proclaimed the doctrine of INDIFFERENCE, and erected the banner of insurrection against the Caliphs, who were still in the height of their power. The contest was long and bloody, the holy city of Mecca was conquered, 30,000 Moslems fell in its defence, and the sacred black stone was carried off in triumph to Hajar. The struggle continued during a whole century, till the conflagration was at length quenched in the blood of the followers of Carmath. Notwithstanding this severe check, the doctrines of Abdallah still spread in secret, and at length, in the year 297 of the Hejira, an able missionary, a second Abdallah, succeeded in delivering from prison a pretended descendant of Mohammed the son of Ismail, and in placing him on the throne in Africa, under the name of Obeid-Allah Mehdee.

* The celebrated veiled Prophet.