The Nizaris (the Assassins) of the Syrian mountains

Who rules

Name

Probably Nasr al-Ajami, the Persian da'i sent from Alamut to succeed Rashid al-Din Sinan (not pinned for 1 January 1200; some accounts name Sinan's successor Abu Mansur ibn Muhammad)

Title

Chief missionary (da'i) of the Syrian Nizaris, the 'Old Man of the Mountain' (the Franks' name)

Since

After Sinan's death in 1193

Born

Not known

Family

Appointed by the Nizari imam at Alamut, Nur al-Din Muhammad II (imam 1166-1210)

Confidence

low

Sinan died in 1193 at al-Kahf and was buried at Salamiyah (Wikipedia, following Daftary). After him Alamut kept closer control of the Syrian mission. The Wikipedia account of the chief da'is makes Nasr al-Ajami Sinan's successor and still links him to the murder of Raymond, son of Bohemond IV, at Tortosa in 1213, which would make him chief through 1200; the Rashid al-Din Sinan article gives the successor as Abu Mansur ibn Muhammad or Nasr al-Ajami.

Whether these are one man or two is not settled in the sources at hand.

Overlord

The Nizari imam at Alamut in Persia, Nur al-Din Muhammad II.

What the realm holds

• Masyaf, the chief castle (Masyaf)
• al-Kahf, Sinan's residence
• al-Qadmus
• al-Khawabi, facing Tortosa
• al-Ullayqa, al-Maniqa and al-Qulay'a in the hills above Margat and Jabala
• al-Rusafa near Masyaf
• The villages of the sect in the Jabal Bahra

How it was acquired

Al-Qadmus was sold to the Nizaris in 1133, after Sayf al-Mulk ibn Amrun had recovered it from the Franks in 1132; al-Kahf was ceded to them in 1138; Masyaf was taken in 1140-1141 from Sanqur, who held it for the Banu Munqidh of Shayzar; al-Khawabi came in 1141. Sinan took al-Ullayqa and refortified Masyaf, al-Khawabi and al-Rusafa (Wikipedia, Order of Assassins and Masyaf Castle).

Allies and rivals

Neighbours and rivals: the Hospitallers (Margat, Krak), the Templars (Tortosa, Chastel Blanc), to whom the Syrian Nizaris paid tribute in the 1170s; al-Mansur of Hama; the lords of Shayzar and Abu Qubays; the Nusayri villagers of the same mountains. Relations with al-Zahir of Aleppo in 1200 are not pinned.

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 the castles are held by the Nizaris under Alamut's appointee. The Nusayri (Alawite) villagers of the same mountains and of the hills east of Latakia and Jabala do not act as one body that winter: a thirteenth-century Alawite treatise names local families (the Banu al-Ahmar, Banu al-Arid and Banu Muhriz) who held fortresses there in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and sponsored the sect, and the shaykh al-Makzun al-Sinjari, who later united and led them, came from Sinjar and died in 1240; so no province is drawn for them. No fighting involving them is recorded for that winter.

The killing of Raymond, Bohemond IV's son, at Tortosa (1213) and Bohemond's siege of al-Khawabi are later.

Wealth

Mountain farming, the dues of the sect's villages, and tribute and payments received for protection; they also pay tribute to the military orders (amounts not given here).

Military

Castle garrisons and the fida'is. No figures.

Threats

• The Hospitallers and the Templars on the coast
• The Ayyubid princes of Hama and Homs
• Local Nusayri and Kurdish rivals in the mountains

Where the sources disagree

• Wikipedia dates Conrad of Montferrat's murder to 1191; it was on 28 April 1192.

Evidence: The Syrian Nizaris left little writing of their own for this period; the leaders after Sinan are known from a few Arabic notices and inscriptions, and the Frankish stories are legend-tinged.

On the map: The Nizari ground is drawn as a block of castle districts; the lines between their villages and those of the Nusayris and of the Frankish orders were not fixed.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online