In 1090, a man named Hassan-i Sabbah seized Alamut Castle — a fortress on a cliff in northern Persia, so high they called it the Eagle’s Nest. From there, he built one of the most feared networks in the medieval world: the Nizari Ismailis, a breakaway branch of Shia Islam that assassinated the most powerful men in the Middle East. But Hassan didn’t live like a warlord. Simple robes, plain food, days spent in study. And one iron rule: nobody — no matter who they were — stood above the law.
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Riddles of the Past·4/7·1′
The place
Alamut Castle
The Father Who Killed His Sons
The lord of Alamut who executed both his sons to prove that no blood is above the law
c.1100-1120 CE (during Hassan-i Sabbah's rule of Alamut)Alamut Castle
Moral of the Story
“True justice demands the most from those who hold the most power -- a leader who exempts his own blood from the law has no law at all, and the terrible price of absolute principle is that it spares nothing, not even the heart of the one who enforces it.”
Characters
H
Hassan-i Sabbah (lord of Alamut who condemned his own sons)M
Muhammad (Hassan's son, executed for drinking wine)U
Ustad Husayn (Hassan's son, executed for alleged murder)H
Husayn Qaini (Ismaili da'i allegedly murdered by Ustad Husayn)Source
Ata-Malik Juvayni, Tarikh-i Jahangushay (c.1260); Rashid al-Din Hamadani, Jami al-Tawarikh (c.1310); Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (1967); Farhad Daftary, The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, 2007); Marshall Hodgson, The Order of Assassins (1955); Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'HASAN SABBAH'