Quest for the real assassin’s creed

Millions have played the thrilling video game series, Assassin’s Creed, developed by Ubisoft. But how many know the true story of the conflict between the real-life Assassins and the Knights Templar? And where would we find evidence today in the Middle East of the bases from where the Assassins planned their deadly missions?

In the video game franchise, we see a conflict stretching back thousands of years between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order. Players are invited to relive the memories of their genetic ancestors, who are Assassins, via a curious machine called the Animus. We root for the Assassins because they believe in free will while the Templars are an evil and inhuman force seeking to impose ruthless order and control.

But now let’s get into a time machine and go back eight hundred years to the crusades that were raging in modern Lebanon and Syria. Your real ancestors would be appalled to hear that you heroise the Assassins. To most people in the medieval Middle East, Muslim and Christian, they were a murderous death cult that posed an enormous danger. Their main tactic was to send out trained killers on suicide missions to kill political leaders who got in their way with one dagger blow.

So, who were the real Assassins? They were founded by a mystic, Hasan-i Sabah, born in the mid-11th century in modern Iran. He studied geometry, astronomy, and philosophy and could have been a respected scholar, only he decided instead to set up a fanatical sect that would use murder to spread its influence. Hasan adhered to the Nizari Ismai’ilism branch of Shia Islam and regarded both Sunni Muslim sultans and Christian crusader princes as deserving targets for death.

Muslim chroniclers like Ibn al-Qalanisi and the Italian traveller Marco Polo wrote about this strange group of homicidal zealots. It was claimed that Hasan used hashish to control his followers, hence the nickname they were given: “Hashshashiyin” or Assassins as we known them. Some have disputed whether they could have operated in the very effective that they did while under the influence of narcotics. It may simply have been way to denigrate them.

Marco Polo claimed that Hasan, who he called “The Old Man of the Mountain”, could command his young trainee assassins to leap from a great height to their deaths. He also wrote that Hasan built a luxurious garden to simulate paradise with beautiful women who seduced the drugged-up assassins. But then the trainees were suddenly removed from this idyllic setting and told that they could never experience such pleasure again unless they accepted martyrdom while on a mission to kill. Then they would find themselves once more in the garden.

The Assassin headquarters was at Alamut in Iran but as they spread their operations across the region, they took over other fortresses. This included Masyaf Castle in the

Hama Governate of Syria. Begun in the Byzantine era, it was heavily modified by the Assassins and is still an impressive structure today. Other Syrian castles where remains can still be seen include Al-Khaf, Al-Qadmus, Abu Qubays, Al-Khawabi, and Aleika. These were bases used to conduction operations against the Seljuk Turks and Crusader kingdoms.

One of the most audacious killings by the Assassins was the Christian crusader prince, Conrad of Montferrat (c.1146-1192). He was lord of Tyre, in modern Lebanon, during the Third Crusade. In 1192, Conrad was chosen to be the new King of Jerusalem but never got to take up his position.

Having defended the city against Saladin, the mighty Muslim ruler of Syria and Egypt, Conrad was murdered by two assassins while riding home through the streets at night. One of the killers pretended to hand him a letter but then plunged a dagger into Conrad’s abdomen. The two Assassins had been posing as monks for several months before springing their murderous surprise.

The only force that got the better of the Assassins was the Knights Templar. With their structured organisation, they were resilient to assassination as a dead leader could be rapidly replaced from the ranks. Their formidable discipline as a fighting unit also inoculated the Templars against Assassin guerilla tactics. But most astonishingly, the intrepid knights even managed to force the Assassins to pay an annual tribute to the order in the region of 2,000 gold pieces.

Templar power overcame Assassin deviousness. When the Templars discovered that the Assassins were trying to sneak out of paying the tribute through secret negotiations with the Christian king of Jerusalem, they tracked down the Assassin diplomatic party and slaughtered them on the road out of the city.

The Templars never destroyed the Assassins outright. It hardly made sense. Far better to shake them for money than annihilate this homicidal gang. However, when the Mongols invaded the region in the 13th century, things went badly wrong for the Assassins. Unwisely, they attempted to assassinate a leading Mongol prince and the punishment for that was their utter destruction. In contrast, the Templars opened lines of communication to the Mongols and even collaborated with them against common enemies.

Today, the Assassins are a historical memory and a very popular video game. Yet their legacy endures in the landscape and the stories of their uncompromising campaign of death.