And Indeed If
They Had Had Food Within It Never Would Have Been Taken.
But after being
besieged those three years they ran short of victual, and were taken.
The
Old Man was put to death with all his men [and the Castle with its Garden
of Paradise was levelled with the ground]. And since that time he has had
no successor; and there was an end to all his villainies.[NOTE 1]
Now let us go back to our journey.
NOTE 1. - The date in Pauthier is 1242; in the G. T. and in Ramusio 1262.
Neither is right, nor certainly could Polo have meant the former.
When Mangku Kaan, after his enthronement (1251), determined at a great
Kurultai or Diet, on perfecting the Mongol conquests, he entrusted his
brother Kublai with the completion of the subjugation of China and the
adjacent countries, whilst his brother Hulaku received the command of the
army destined for Persia and Syria. The complaints that came from the
Mongol officers already in Persia determined him to commence with the
reduction of the Ismailites, and Hulaku set out from Karakorum in
February, 1254. He proceeded with great deliberation, and the Oxus was not
crossed till January, 1256. But an army had been sent long in advance
under "one of his Barons," Kitubuka Noyan, and in 1253 it was already
actively engaged in besieging the Ismailite fortresses. In 1255, during
the progress of the war, ALA'UDDIN MAHOMED, the reigning Prince of the
Assassins (mentioned by Polo as Alaodin), was murdered at the instigation
of his son Ruknuddin Khurshah, who succeeded to the authority. A year
later (November, 1256) Ruknuddin surrendered to Hulaku. [Bretschneider
(Med. Res. II. p. 109) says that Alamut was taken by Hulaku, 20th
December, 1256. - H. C.] The fortresses given up, all well furnished with
provisions and artillery engines, were 100 in number. Two of them,
however, Lembeser and Girdkuh, refused to surrender. The former fell after
a year; the latter is stated to have held out for twenty years -
actually, as it would seem, about fourteen, or till December, 1270.
Ruknuddin was well treated by Hulaku, and despatched to the Court of the
Kaan. The accounts of his death differ, but that most commonly alleged,
according to Rashiduddin, is that Mangku Kaan was irritated at hearing of
his approach, asking why his post-horses should be fagged to no purpose,
and sent executioners to put Ruknuddin to death on the road. Alamut had
been surrendered without any substantial resistance. Some survivors of the
sect got hold of it again in 1275-1276, and held out for a time. The
dominion was extinguished, but the sect remained, though scattered indeed
and obscure. A very strange case that came before Sir Joseph Arnould in
the High Court at Bombay in 1866 threw much new light on the survival of
the Ismailis.
Some centuries ago a Dai or Missionary of the Ismailis, named Sadruddin,
made converts from the Hindu trading classes in Upper Sind.
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