UNDERSTANDING OBL THROUGH THE LENSES OF THE PAST
By Habib Siddiqui
Al-Jazeerah.info, GA
April 25 2006
For more than four years, America has been searching for Osama bin
Laden (OBL), offering tens of millions of dollars in exchange for
leads as to his whereabouts. But no one has claimed the reward and
probably will never do.
OBL and his organization Al-Qaeda remind me of the Hashishyyin
(Assassins) or ‘hashish smokers’ of the Middle Ages and their
charismatic leader. The grand master of the latter group was Hasan-e
Sabbah, an Iranian who was born around 1048 CE in the city of Rayy
(not too far from today’s Tehran). He studied at Nishapur and in the
Dar-ul-Hikmat in Cairo. He was a very cultured and gifted man who
loved poetry. Legends of dubious origin claim that he was a companion
of the young poet Omar Khayyam (1028-87 CE).
In those days, the Isma’ili Shi’ite doctrine, to which Hasan Ibn
al-Sabbah belonged, was a dominant power in many parts of Muslim Asia
and Egypt. Iran was ruled by a Shi’ite dynasty of the Buwayhids who
were strong enough to bully the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. Soon,
however, when Sabbah was in his youth, the situation reversed
dramatically. The Seljuks, upholders of Sunni orthodoxy, took control
of the vast territories to which Shi’ism had once ruled unrivalled.
With the changing political landscape, the Sabah family would pack up
and move around 1071 to settle in Egypt, the last bastion of Shi’ism,
ruled by the Fatimid Isma’ili (Batini) Shi’ites.
There, however, the young Ibn al-Sabbah discovered the painful fact of
impotency and vassal statehood of the Fatimid regime. The aged monarch
al-Muntasir was nothing more than a Seljuk puppet who dared not to
leave the palace without the permission of his Armenian vizier Badr
al-Jamali. In Cairo, Ibn al-Sabbah befriended many radical Isma’ili
Shi’ites who wanted to reform the Fatimid regime from its vassal
status and take revenge on the Seljuks.
With the active cooperation of the Fatimid Prince Nizar, in 1990 a
movement took shape with the idea of reviving the Shi’ite glory. Ibn
al-Sabbah, in essence, became its chief architect. With the intention
of establishing a base, he and some of his trusted comrades returned
to Iran and captured the hill fortress of Alamut, near Qazvin in
northern Iran. After capturing this center, situated in a practically
inaccessible region of the Elbruz Mountains near the Caspian Sea,
he set about establishing a highly disciplined politico-religious
organization, not hitherto seen in the history of the Near and
Middle East. All members underwent intensive training from religious
indoctrination to military training. They were ranked according to
their loyalty, reliability, knowledge and courage. Assassination of
people affiliated with the ruling Seljuk and Abbasid Empire became
their primary tactic to sow terror among their foes.
Their first assassination victim was Nizam-ul-Mulk (Order of the
Realm), the grand vizier of the Seljuk Empire. [He was responsible for
everything good and glorious with the Seljuk history, and conversely,
the downfall of the Isma’ili Shi’ite power. He was essentially the
pillar of the empire.] On October 14, 1092 he was killed with a stroke
of a sword. [His murder was a death-blow to the Seljuk Empire which
disintegrated soon.]
Soon after the murder, Ibn al-Sabbah’s comrades went underground.
Al-Afdal, the new vizier in Egypt, who had succeeded his father Badr
al-Jamali, mercilessly crushed the associates of Prince Nizar. The
latter himself was also killed.
Realizing that their goal to reviving a Fatimid empire would take time,
Ibn al-Sabbah’s surviving Nizari comrades revised their strategy,
and returned to the hill fortress of Alamut. From this center Ibn
al-Sabbah commanded a network of strongholds all over Iran and Iraq
wherefrom his zealous followers carried out deadly assaults against
the Abbasids and the Seljuks. Most of these activities were almost
suicidal in the sense that the perpetrators, called the Fidayeen,
carried the risk of being apprehended and executed. The ‘suicide’
squads comprised of 1 to 3 people, who disguised themselves mostly
as local merchants or ascetics. They liked publicity. As such,
their favorite venues were often mosques (especially on Fridays and
religious festivities), generally in the afternoons.
Marco Polo and other travelers related (a claim not confirmed by any
known Isma’ili source) that before setting out with their suicidal
attacks, the sect would take hashish, and hence the name Hashishyyin
(which was distorted into ‘assassin’) to induce visions of paradise.
I believe the calmness with which the sect carried out their deadly
attacks earned them that ill repute.
In the early 12th century, soon after the Crusaders had established
their control over Jerusalem, the activities of the Hashishyyin
extended to Syria and today’s Lebanon. Syria was then divided into
many city states. Ibn al-Sabbah sent a Batini preacher, an enigmatic
‘physician-astrologer’ in Aleppo who managed to win the unwavering
trust of its King Ridwan. The latter allowed Ibn al-Sabbah’s
adherents to converge on the city, to set up cells and preach their
doctrine. After the death of this mysterious envoy in 1103, the sect
immediately sent Abu Tahir, an Iranian goldsmith. His influence on
Ridwan was overwhelming, which greatly benefited the sect putting
it into prominence in public life. It was precisely because of such
power-wielding that the sect was hated by most Aleppans.
Ibn al-Khashab, the Shi’ite Qadi (judge) of Aleppo, became their
greatest critic and demanded an end to their meddling in official
matters. He also hated them for their sympathy for the Crusaders. [It
seems that the sect took the age-old doctrine of ‘the enemy of my enemy
is my friend’ to its heart. Since the Seljuks were their enemies,
the Crusaders became their friends. Ridwan was despicably appeasing
to the Crusaders at the behest of his Hashishyyin advisors.
To Ibn al-Khashab, such support amounted to treason.]
When Ridwan died in 1113, the Aleppans had enough of the Batini sect,
and killed nearly 200 members, including Abu Tahir. Other sect members
managed to flee and took shelter among the Crusaders or dispersed
in countryside.
Drawing lessons from their failure, the sect altered its tactics.
Under Ibn al-Sabbah’s new envoy to Syria – an Iranian propagandist by
the name of Bahram – the sect decided to halt all external spectacular
actions and become a secret organization. They lived in the greatest
secrecy and seclusion, changing dress and appearance so cleverly that
no one suspected their identity.
One of the sect members killed Qadi Ibn al-Khashab in the summer of
1125 when he was leaving the great mosque of Aleppo after Zuhr (midday)
prayer. It is worth noting that the Qadi not only had saved the city
from the Christian Crusaders but also prepared the way for leaders
like Salahuddin Ayyubi (R) to emerge later against the invaders.[1]
He had been the most intransigent opponents of the sect.
The next year, the sect killed Imam Abu Sa’ad al-Harawi, the splendor
of Islam, the qadi of qadis of Baghdad. As one of the leading Imams of
the Muslim world, he led the first manifestation of popular outrage
against the Crusaders in August of 1099. The Hashishyyin had stabbed
him to death in the great mosque of Hamadan and fled immediately,
leaving no clue behind.
On 26 November 1126 al-Borsoki, the powerful master of Aleppo and
Mosul, was killed by the Hashishyyin. He had gone to the great mosque
in Mosul to say his Friday prayers. The assassins, dressed up as
ascetics, were waiting in a corner without arousing any suspicion.
Suddenly they leapt upon him and struck him in the throat with knife
thrusts. His murderers were soon arrested and put to death. A few
months later, they killed al-Borsoki’s son, who had succeeded him.
The situation turned so bad that the city became insecure and
eventually fell to the Crusaders.
The situation in Damascus was no better. The Atabeg Thugtigin was
weak, aging and sick. He could not control the Hashishyyin, who had
their own armed militia. Even the city administration was in their
hands and the vizier their client. The latter was in close contact
with the Crusaders.
Hasan-e Sabbah died in Alamut retreat in 1142. Unfortunately, his
death did not stop the sect’s criminal activities. They assassinated
any notable authority who opposed their doctrine. The terror they
inflicted was so overwhelming that no one dared to criticize them
publicly, neither Amir, nor vizier, not Sultan, not even Imams.
>>From Masyaf, Rashid ad-Din as-Sinan, the Syrian grand master of
the Hashishyyin, more commonly known as the shaykh al-jabal, ruled
virtually independently of the sect’s headquarters at Alamut. His
commandos terrorized the entire territory.
The terrorism of the Hashishyyin sect continued until 1256 when
the Mongols under Hulagu Khan captured their fortresses in Iran
one by another, including their headquarters in Alamut. The Syrian
fortresses were gradually subjugated by the Mamluk Sultan Baybars
I and put under Mamluk governors. From then on, the sect ceased to
exist as a terrorist group and languished as a minor Shi’ite heresy.[2]
—-
The Muslim world is in a dire state of its existence because of
a plethora of reasons – some foreign and some home-grown. It is,
therefore, not difficult to understand the broad appeal of OBL who
reminds Muslims of the neo-Crusaders who are waging war against
Islam. “His most important ally is American foreign policy,” says
Michael Scheuer, former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s
bin Laden unit.[3]
As long as the West continues to prove him right through its illegal
interventions in Muslim countries, its criminal blockading of the
Muslim world through alliances, its vicious attack on the Prophet
of Islam, its threats of attacking Iran and its double-standards
in matters of democracy, freedom, equality and human rights, OBL’s
appeal would resonate loud and clear. His crowd becomes Spartacus –
each clamoring: “I am Spartacus.”
As Richard Rodriguez, one of the best essayists in America, once
said, “A historical figure ascends to myth when his life matches
some common pride or grievance or sorrow. Then history is subsumed
into myth. Spartacus, Joaquin, Che, Gandhi, Osama. America’s search
for Osama bin Laden in these mountain passes and crowded bazaars may
be necessary militarily and for reasons of vengeance and justice and
national pride, but it may also be beside the point. Dead or alive,
Osama bin Laden already is mythic. The grievances of millions of people
in the Middle East are joined to his name, and his name surely will
outlast his death.”[4]
How can an Empire that has no clothes fight someone like OBL when his
life is sung, and matches some common pride, grievance and sorrow of
hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim world?
NOTES
———————————— ——————————————–
[1] Amin Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab eyes, pp. 98-105, al-Saqi
Books. [Most of the information on Hasan-e Sabbah’s sect in this
essay is based on this book, which is gratefully acknowledged here.]
[2] The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 1 (1989).
[3] Ben Laden Says West is Waging War Against Islam, NY Times, April
24, 2006.
[4] Villains or Heroes: Essay by Richard Rodriguez, PBS TV, January
14, 2003.
Dr. Habib Siddiqui, ([email protected]).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress