The Eagles' Serene Palace of Symmetric Wisdom - Historical and Intellectual Genealogy of the Nizaris of Alamut by Seyed Soroush Vahhabi.pdf

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The Eagles’ Serene Palace of
Symmetric Wisdom:
Historical and Intellectual Genealogy of the Nizaris of Alamut
Seyed Soroush Vahhabi
1
To the Memory of Major Peter Willey:
Soldier, Scholar, Adventurer
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Introduction
With the decline and fall of the luxurious Fatimid Empire, the first Isma’ili ‘civilizational-state’ and the
scholastic throne of Shi’i Isma’ilism, the Muslim world’s enduring lust for the eradication of the Shi’i
religio-political philosophy in general and the Isma’ili doctrines in particular seemed relatively fulfilled.
The Fatimid caliphate (910-1171) once included all of North Africa, Sicily, Egypt, the Red Sea coast of
Africa, Yaman, the Hijaz (including the ideologically strategic cities of Mecca and Medina), Syria and
Palestine. It had exemplified a Shi’i doctrinal antithesis of the Sunni Muslim world as led by the
Abbasid caliphate: in urban structure, the Fatimid capital, Cairo, rivalled Abbasid Baghdad as the
international metropolis of the Islamic world; in doctrines, the philosophical Fatimid Isma’ilism
challenged the conservative Sunni theology by inserting Neoplatonic and Aristotelian intellectual trends
in Isma’ili metaphysics and cosmology; and in political administration, it emphasized the inalienable
right of a certain lineage to the caliphate of the entire Muslim community. The ideological rivalry
between the two opposing branches of Islam, the unadventurous Sunni and the dramatic Shi’a, had never
been so meticulously manifested as in the mutual belligerence of the Fatimid and Abbasid empires
towards each others’ interpretations of Islamic theology, cosmology and, perhaps most importantly,
Islamic political philosophy. In this context, domestic disintegration of the Isma’ili state, the Fatimid
disastrous military defeat in 1171 by the victorious Abbasid forces and the subsequent systematic
reconstruction of the religious identity of the conquered population from Shi’a Isma’ilism to Sunnism
was unanimously, and gladly, regarded by Sunni polemicists and theologians of Abbasid Baghdad as the
concluding chapter in the history of Isma’ili ‘heretical’ religious adventurism. While such hopes faded
with the immediate phoenix-like rise of Nizaris from the ashes of the Fatimid state, and despite the
multi-layered complexity of the multi-dimensional Fatimid-Abbasid relations, the nature of their
dramatic military and doctrinal conflicts was in fact reflective of the elemental historical and theological
dispute between Shi’i and Sunni schools of thought, originated in the first tumultuous century of Islamic
history.
Correspondingly, the post-Fatimid champions of the banner of Isma’ilism, the legendary mediaeval
Nizari Isma’ilis of Persia and Syria (i.e. Assassins, also Hashshāshīn), one of the most enduring
components of the myths of the mediaeval world, emerged within a relatively similar pattern as a Shi’i
sect against the totality of an extremely hostile Sunni Muslim world which observed Isma’ilis as
heretics, as Jewish magicians in disguise, with strictly atheistic philosophies, plotters to destroy Islam
itself, incest being their common practice. While the Syrian Nizaris later found themselves also locked
in an inevitable conflict with Crusaders, especially the military order of Knights Templar, the historical
genealogy of the origins of the mediaeval Nizari Isma’ilis is simply a chronological account of the
evolution of a multi-faceted struggle between pre-Nizari Isma’ilism (765-1090) and Sunnism, itself
being an extension of the greater conflict between the two divisions of Islam, the Shi’i and Sunni schools
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of thought. Yet, while reviewing the chain of events that contributed to the creation of Nizari Isma’ilism
is essential for comprehending the origins of the early Nizari intellectual heritage(s), it fails to shed any
light on the mysterious corridors of Nizari thought and secret history, almost surrealistically shrouded in
obscurity and shadows of fantastic myths. Such a task requires a systematic investigation of the
intellectual traditions of the Assassin Order in its historical context, and according to the original texts
produced by Nizari Lords and scholars. Surprisingly, while the eastern folklore sources depicted
Assassins as ‘unclean shades of heresy and death and doom’,
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the ‘black myths’ of Assassins (e.g. the
paradise gardens of Assassin fortresses, the hashish-addicted bloodthirsty devilish killers, etc) dominated
western scholarship as well, hence overlapping the blurred borders of factual and fictional history. Yet
beyond the fantastic horizons of fictitious tales of western orientalists and mediaeval Islamic and
Christian scholarship lays the historical Nizaris, the most astonishing sect in all Islam, whose doctrines
are still shrouded in mystery.
This paper attempts to investigate, outline and discuss the Nizari doctrines from the establishment of the
Nizari state in 1090 until its last phase of existence prior to its demise and downfall in 1256, a period
referred to as the Alamut era, named after the fortified Nizari seat in Alamut, Persia. In order to provide
a cohesive account of Nizari religio-philosophical doctrinal evolution, the paper first provides an
indispensable historical account of the eventful origins of Nizari Isma’ilism. It then discusses the general
framework of the Fatimid philosophic tradition and theological thought to establish a theoretical basis
for assessing the pattern of doctrinal evolution of a post-Fatimid era of early Nizari Isma’ilis. In this
context, the paper divides the intellectual history of the Alamut-era Nizaris into two parts: first, from the
establishment of the Nizari state under the strict supervision of the first ‘Lord of Alamut’, the legendary
Hassan-i Sabbah and his successors until the beginning the reign of Ismaili-Imam Hassan II (1090-
1164); and second, from the age of the fundamental doctrinal revolution of Hassan II until the
succession of Hassan III (1164-1210). Each of these sections begins with a brief historical account of
Nizaris’ policies and conditions in each stage, followed by a comparative analysis of their religious and
philosophical doctrines. Through this structure, the paper aims at presenting an inclusive account of the
intellectual life of Nizari Isma’ilis through their most celebrated revolutionary phase of existence.
***
1
Joseph Von Hammer-Purgstall, ‘Sur le paradis du Viuex de la Montagne’,
Fundgruben des Orients,
3 (1813), pp. 203-6.
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I. A Historical Discussion on the Origins of the Nizaris
Early Division in Islam
and Shi’a-Sunni Politics
Contrary to certain ideologically-motivated discourses present in Islamic historiography,
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the original
schism in Islam, producing the divergent religious syntheses of Shi’i and Sunni, was, in fact, the result
of a predominantly power-oriented debate over the question of the succession of Prophet Mohammad (d.
632 AD) rather than any initial ideological dispute. Following the death of the Prophet, apparently
departed without directly designating a legatee, the Islamic community sought a successor to assume the
Prophet’s function as leader of the nascent Islamic state; a state institutionally dependent upon a set of
foundations laid in the last decade of the Prophet’s rule, hence requiring the installation of a semi-
prophetic office to maintain its identity. As the result of such a quest, and similar to the pattern of the
Roman Empire’s politics of succession, the leaderless Muslim community was instantly plunged into a
series of secretive political alliances and civil mobilizations to fill the power void: on one side, the
prominent members of the most prosperous Arab tribes and Mohammad’s inner circle of the pious, all
hastily searching for a qualified candidate; on the other side, a relatively small faction of Medina’s
middle-class faithfuls, disinclined towards the traditional elites, already in favour of the Prophet’s cousin
and son-in-law, Ali b. Abi Talib, as Mohammad’s legatee and legitimate successor. The crux of the latter
camp’s emerging allegiance was based upon this belief that the Prophet had in fact designated Ali as his
successor in his last public pilgrimage to Mecca, a designation that had been instituted (or consented to)
by the divine command.
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The certainty of the indisputable legitimacy of the right of Ali to political
leadership of the Islamic state, held by the pro-Ali campaigners, known as
Shi’a Ali
(Companions of
Ali), gradually evolved as the central component of the entire Shi’i tradition, shared by all later branches
of Shi’ism including Isma’ilis.
With the failure of the enthusiastic yet ineffective pro-Ali activists to immediately install their desired
candidate as the successor, the Shi’a political perspective gained an additional yet decisive dimension
during the reign of the first three caliphs of Islam. The communal choice had fallen on Abu Bakr (d.
634), installing him in the newly constructed office of
khalifat rasul Allah
(simplified as
khalifa,
thus the
term ‘caliph’), the Successor to the Messenger of God. To the great frustration of the Shi’a, the position
was twice denied to Ali in subsequent succession bids, as the office passed to Ummar (d. 644) and later
to Uthman (d. 656). Eventually, when after more than two decades and much Shi’i melodramatic outcry
the Muslim community elected Ali as the fourth caliph, the Shi’a, now frustrated by witnessing the Arab
upper-class’s gradual infiltration of the tribal political system of the Islamic state, developed its
exclusive genealogical theory of succession: this characteristic Shi’i theory was formulated by adding a
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3
See for example: Muhammad T. Misbah,
An Early History of Islam,
tr. R. Alavi (Tehran: Badr Press, 1996)
For a modern elucidation of the Shi’i view on the origins of Shi’ism see, for example: Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i,
Shi’ite Islam,
ed. and tr. S. H. Nasr (London: SUNY Press, 1975), pp.39-50.
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