Hassassin
The Order of Assassins (Arabic: حَشّاشِین, romanized: Ḥaššāšīyīn; Persian: حشاشين, romanized: Ḥaššāšīn) was a Nizari Isma'ili Shia Islamic military order founded by Hasan-i Sabbah in 1090. Based out of the Nizari Isma'ili state, which comprised a network of mountain castles in Persia and Syria, they conducted several high-profile assassinations throughout the Levant during the Crusades. The Assassins held a strict subterfuge policy in the region and are believed to have killed hundreds of people who were deemed enemies of their state over the course of 200 years, including other Shias (the Fatimids), as well as Sunnis (the Abbasids and Seljuks) and Christians (the Crusaders) alike.
The English word "assassin" is derived from the Arabic word hashshashin, which shares etymological roots with the word hashish, supposedly referring to the order's tactics and a common but contested belief that many of their assassinations were carried out by individuals under the influence of the drug.
The two primary divisions were of the Persian Assassins in Alamut Castle and of the Levantine Assassins in Masyaf Castle. In 1253, the order began to collapse as a result of the Mongol campaign against the Nizaris. By 1256, the Assassin network had been defeated, but some independent Levantine strongholds continued to resist, prompting the Mongol army to begin massacring hundreds of thousands of Nizari Isma'ilis, largely destroying the religious community as a whole by the following year.
Contemporaneous historians of the Assassin period include ibn al-Qalanisi, Ali ibn al-Athir, and Ata-Malik Juvayni. The former two referred to the Assassins as batiniyya, an epithet widely accepted by Isma'ilis themselves.
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