Know that Ali thy Lord hath
vouchsafed to show thee the place destined for thee in Paradise....
Hesitate not a moment therefore in the service of the Imam who thus deigns
to intimate his contentment with thee," and so on.
William de Nangis thus speaks of the Syrian Shaikh, who alone was known to
the Crusaders, though one of their historians (Jacques de Vitry, in
Bongars, I. 1062) shows knowledge that the headquarters of the sect was
in Persia: "He was much dreaded far and near, by both Saracens and
Christians, because he so often caused princes of both classes
indifferently to be murdered by his emissaries. For he used to bring up in
his palace youths belonging to his territory, and had them taught a
variety of languages, and above all things to fear their Lord and obey him
unto death, which would thus become to them an entrance into the joys of
Paradise. And whosoever of them thus perished in carrying out his Lord's
behests was worshipped as an angel." As an instance of the implicit
obedience rendered by the Fidawi or devoted disciples of the Shaikh, Fra
Pipino and Marino Sanuto relate that when Henry Count of Champagne
(titular King of Jerusalem) was on a visit to the Old Man of Syria, one
day as they walked together they saw some lads in white sitting on the top
of a high tower. The Shaikh, turning to the Count, asked if he had any
subjects as obedient as his own? and without giving time for reply made a
sign to two of the boys, who immediately leapt from the tower, and were
killed on the spot. The same story is told in the Cento Novelle Antiche,
as happening when the Emperor Frederic was on a visit (imaginary) to the
Veglio. And it is introduced likewise as an incident in the Romance of
Bauduin de Sebourc:
"Volles veioir merveilles? dist li Rois Seignouris"
to Bauduin and his friends, and on their assenting he makes the signal to
one of his men on the battlements, and in a twinkling
"Quant le vinrent en l'air salant de tel avis,
Et aussi liement, et aussi esjois,
Qu'il deust conquester mil livres de parisis!
Ains qu'il venist a tiere il fut mors et fenis,
Surles roches agues desrompis corps et pis,"[1] etc.
(Cathay, 153; Remusat, Nouv. Mel. I. 178; Mines de l'Orient, III.
201 seqq.; Nangis in Duchesne, V. 332; Pipino in Muratori, IX.
705; Defremery in J. As. ser. V. tom. v. 34 seqq.; Cent. Nov.
Antiche, Firenze, 1572, p. 91; Bauduin de Sebourc, I. 359.)
The following are some of the more notable murders or attempts at murder
ascribed to the Ismailite emissaries either from Syria or from Persia: -
A.D. 1092. Nizum-ul-Mulk, formerly the powerful minister of Malik Shah,
Seljukian sovereign of Persia, and a little later his two sons.
