The Leader of the Assassin's Creed | Rashid Din Sinan

Divergent ideologies, a life of training to be an assassin and spiritual enlightenment are but a few ways to describe the man that was Rashid-Din-Sinan, who would come to be known as the Old Man of the Mountain. He became the chief enemy of Saladin, and his name would bring fear to kings, emperors and lords. From an assassin who took orders and perhaps went on many missions that have now been lost to history, he became the leader of the Syrian Ismaili subgroup of Islam and was a prominent figure in the history of the third crusade, being known and feared by all who took part. Rashid led a community of some 60,000 faithful men from his mountain castle in Masyaf, a fortress built high in the mountains of northern Syria. Sinan would become the assassin's leader and he employed a strategy of assassination to influence and control anyone, mostly the Sunni Muslims but also the Christian crusaders who may have threatened the group's independence. The assassin's particular glimpse of divine knowledge is what made them different to the regular Muslim. Sinan and his followers would much like the Knights Templar use the guise of Islam much like the Templars did with Christianity to hide their true beliefs. Like the Gnostics, they believed that man possesses fragments of the divine spark which gives possession of the secret knowledge which can reunite man with God. Sinan and his followers claimed to possess this knowledge. Over the years, Sinan would claim many high-ranking victims, including kings, due to the fanatic loyalty of his assassin followers. A leader of the order of assassins possessing secret divine knowledge and being feared by the kings and emperors. Who was Rashid bin Sinan? This is his story. Sinan was born in southern Iraq around the year 1135. His statements from the non-Ismaili sources about the environment in which Sinan spent his early years suggest that his parents were 12 Ash'is who believed that the succession to Muhammad must remain in his family for specific members who were designated by divine appointment. Before Sinan's first appointment as a Dai, which is generally someone who engages in Dawah, the act of inviting people to Islam, he is reported to have taken a full course in Ismaili theology and philosophy at the madrasa of Imam Hassan ibn Muhammad at the mountain fortress of Alamut. This happened after he argued with his brothers which made him abandon the family home and journey to the fabled Alamut castle. The fortress at Alamut had already grown in legend from the original old man of the mountain named Hassan Sabah who had set up an assassin's guild and had trained and educated them but their secrets would stay at the fortress. Nevertheless, the activities that Sinan got up to besides studying cannot be ascertained. Many believe Sinan had his assassin training there as the stronghold was known to forge the most loyal well-trained assassins in the world who were willing to die for their doctrine. Hassan Sabah and his successors had achieved something revolutionary, they established the Shaiti state. The Shaiti believes that Muhammad's son-in-law Ali was his successor as political and religious leader. They believe Ali to be the first Imam and through him and his sons this office was passed on. These Imams were powerful religious leaders of almost divine status for the Shaitis. The Shaiti state consisted of not a single land ruled by a king but a network of castles and mountain strongholds separated by thousands of miles, defended not by armies but by assassins, bribery and secret propaganda. They were dedicated to science, learning and philosophy and were ruled by a hierarchy based on spiritual attainment. They would abandon the traditional teaching of Sharia and other teachings in Islam. The original founder of the group of assassins Hassan Sabah, his mystical branch of Islam went beyond human reason and had several levels of initiation and the secrets of his order supposedly gave its participants special powers. This web of armed communes would have attained a height of libertarianism unknown elsewhere in Islamdom. Sinan would convert to the Ismaili belief when he went to Alamut. There he became friendly with Hassan II who would later be known as the Lord of Peace and he would become the Imam of the Nizari Ismailis. After Sinan's training was complete, he returned to Iraq where he was put in charge of the Ismaili sect of the district of his hometown of Basra. In 1162, Hassan II would become the Imam and the leader of the Nizari Ismailis. Sinan would become the Dai of Syria, being next in line to the Imam himself. In the castle of Kath in northern central Syria, Sinan began his work as chief of the assassins order. His time learning had come to an end and his friendships, character and tenacity had elevated him to the position of chief. Sinan would become famous all over the region, his teachings were inspiring and were seen to be infallible. He was a gifted healer and according to legend, had telepathic and mind-reading powers and since this particular sect's hierarchy was based on learning and spiritual attainment, Sinan's strange powers no doubt catapulted him to the top. He was no longer an assassin but the leader of the assassins. Sinan would begin recruiting new members, he would teach them everything he knew including spiritualism, philosophy, various languages and what would come to be called spycraft, gathering information, putting out communications in secret code and using pigeons to send messages and of course, teaching the new recruits how to kill silently and effectively. Though Sinan had been sent by Hassan II to Syria, his leadership was independent, his followers began to believe him as the Imam and his status would become semi-divine. Under his leadership, the Syrian Ismaili sect became far more than just a branch of a new religion, it became one of the most powerful forces in the Middle East, it was one feared by the Crusaders and traditional Muslims alike. Westerners would call Sinan, the old man of the mountain. Sinan became the embodiment of emanations flowing from the unknowable God but in 1164, Sinan apparently openly renounced Islam and declared that the resurrection had arrived. The contemporary Syrian chronicler Kamal al-Din describes scenes of wild frenzy where men and women mingled in drinking sessions and some even declared that Sinan was God. The divine status that Sinan had achieved due to his strange powers, intellect and apparent enlightenment made his followers treat him as a God. What Sinan learned exactly in the fortress of Alamut is unknown, the real religion of the assassins is also unknown, though it is thought they practised some form of Islamic dualism. Although dualism is fundamentally incompatible with Islam, which teaches that God is the sole principle and is good, the political unity of the Muslim world had long been in decay, with many sects fighting over the succession to the leadership of Islam. This allowed for the manifestation of new religious tendencies. The assassins had certain pre-Muslim beliefs, but it is thought that their ideology had evolved completely. Like the Gnostics, they believed in the divine spark, a form of enlightenment and they thought that prayer and belief alone would not guarantee you to go to paradise, but achieving enlightenment and ascending your spirit through secret knowledge of the divine spark would. According to accounts of European chroniclers, the assassin leaders demonstrated their complete dominion over their men by commanding them to leap to their deaths. Their willingness to sacrifice themselves made their reputation and attacks feared, their mission was to sow fear of the sect and at the same time weaken the resolve of their enemies by the murder of key figures. The order of assassins was so unorthodox that they would sometimes find themselves allied with the Christians and were even tolerated by the Crusader states and the Templars, which conveys how far they had strayed from traditional Islam. An example of this is when Amalric, the king of Jerusalem, was attempting to negotiate an alliance with Sinan and one condition was that the assassins convert to Christianity. However, as Sinan's envoy was returning from Jerusalem, he was ambushed and killed by some Templar knights. The Templars were likely concerned that King Amalric was being duped, for they understood whatever religion the assassins professed, it would be no more than an illusion. The assassins saw the world differently and their inner secret beliefs would remain regardless according to the Templars. The Templars would be accused of heresy over a hundred years later for the worshipping of false idols, so perhaps they already knew the intentions of the assassins as they were fooling the world themselves. Sinan's enemies included anyone who tried to consolidate the region that would have threatened his group's independence. Thus, he found himself with many enemies among the Crusaders and the Sunni Muslim leaders such as Saladin, who were attempting to unite Islam. In 1174, Saladin put an end to the Fatimid Caliphate rule in Cairo and he suddenly became the most powerful man in the Middle East. Sinan knew he must put an end to Saladin before he gained complete control over Iraq and Syria and so he sent assassins to kill him. Twice, his assassins failed him. The first attempt in 1174, a group of thirteen assassins entered Saladin's camp but were detected before they could carry out their attack and many were slain. The second attempt on Saladin's life was when he was besieging the fortress of Azzaz. While Saladin was resting in one of his captain's tents, an assassin rushed forward at him and struck his head with a knife. Saladin was wearing head armour and survived. The assassin then slashed at his body but due to Saladin's armour, he escaped with minor injuries. The assassin was soon killed and Saladin was reportedly unfazed but that would all soon change. Saladin would begin to campaign against the assassins and would besiege Masyaf, one of their strongholds. One night, Saladin's guards noticed a spark glowing down the hill, which then vanished into a tent in the camp. Saladin was asleep during this, but he soon awoke to find a figure leaving his tent. He saw the lamps in the tent were displaced and beside his bed laid a note pinned by a poisoned dagger. The note threatened that he would be killed if he did not withdraw from the assault. Partly out of fear and partly out of gratitude to Sinan for not having him killed when he could have, Saladin would sue for peace. In 1176, a truce was called between the two and some historians have reported that the assassins fought alongside Saladin in 1187 and together they won a decisive battle against the Crusaders at the horns of Hattin, a victory that allowed Saladin to later recapture Jerusalem from the Christians. Toward the end of Sinan's life, he was responsible for one of the most famous assassinations of the Crusade. In 1192, Conrad of Montferrat was elected as the King of Jerusalem. He was already hated by most of the Islamic world for his slaughter of Muslim prisoners. He had also angered Sinan by seizing one of the assassins' ships that had landed in Tyre and he killed the ship's captain. Sinan would soon have his revenge. Two assassins who had been disguised as monks in Conrad's household attacked him in the streets of Tyre. They would stab him repeatedly, giving him fatal injuries. One assassin was killed while the other was captured and tortured. At first, the assassin claimed it was Richard the Lionheart that had hired him, but many believe that this is a lie and it was really Sinan who was scheming from the shadows. In 1193, when Sinan was around 60 years old, it is not clear whether he died from natural causes or if there was foul play involved, but many of his followers believed that Sinan had actually gone into hiding from his enemies and would re-emerge to lead them once again when it was safe for him to do so. The new leader of the assassins did not have Sinan's abilities and never again were the order as strong as they had been. Sinan was described as an outstanding personality, but also an efficient administrator. He consolidated the assassin position in Syria, organising and training recruits. He bought and built new castles and fortified the old ones. He was a ruthless, deceitful, pious and self-disciplined man, with eyes as fierce as meteors, and he had a physician's power of healing and a tyrant's power of destruction. After 1193, Sinan's name faded into legend, becoming immortalised by the Assassin's Creed franchise, for which he is mainly known for today. I hope you all enjoyed the video, if you did, make sure to like, subscribe and share, and I'll see you all soon for another history profile.