The Assassins by Bernard Lewis Read Free Book Online

central to the Ismaili system - of doctrine and of organization, of loyalty and of action. After the creation of the world by the action of the universal mind on the universal soul, human history falls into a series of cycles, each begun by a `speaking' imam, or prophet, followed by a succession of `silent' imams. There were cycles of hidden and of manifest imams, corresponding to the periods of clandestinity and of success of the faith. The imams, in the current cycle the descendants of Ali and Fatima through Ismail, were divinely inspired and infallible - in a sense indeed themselves divine, since the Imam was the microcosm, the personification of the metaphysical soul of the universe. As such, he was the fountainhead of knowledge and authority - of the esoteric truths that were hidden from the uninformed, and of commands that required total and unquestioning obedience.

For the initiate, there was the drama and excitement of secret knowledge and secret action. The former was made known through the Taiwil al-Batin, esoteric interpretation, a characteristic doctrine of the sect which gave rise to the term Batini, by which it was sometimes known. Besides their literal and obvious meaning, the prescriptions of the Qur'an and the traditions had a second meaning, an allegoric and esoteric interpretation which was revealed by the Imam and taught to the initiates. Some branches of the sect go even further, and adopt an antinomian doctrine that is recurrent in extremist Muslim heresy and mysticism. The ultimate religious obligation is knowledge - gnosis - of the true Imam; the literal meaning of the law is abrogated for the faithful, and survives, if at all, as a punishment for the profane. A common theme of Ismaili religious writings is the search for the Truth - at first vain, then culminating in a moment of blinding illumination. The organization and activities of the sect, and the custodianship and propagation of its teachings, were in the hands of a hierarchy of dais, ranked under a chief da'i, who was the immediate helper of the Imam.
For the first century and a half after the death of Ismail, the Ismaili Imams remained hidden, and little is known about the activities or even the teachings of the dais. A new phase began in the second half of the ninth century, when the growing and manifest weakness of the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad seemed to portend the break-up of the Islamic Empire and the disruption of Islamic society. In the provinces, local dynasties appeared - usually military, sometimes tribal in origin; for the most part they were short-lived, and in some areas extortionate and oppressive. Even in the capital, the Caliphs were losing their power, and becoming helpless puppets in the hands of their own soldiery. The foundations of confidence and assent in the Islamic universal polity were crumbling, and men began to look elsewhere for comfort and reassurance. In these uncertain times, the message of the Shia - that the Islamic community had taken the wrong path, and must be brought back to the right one - was heard with new attention. Both branches of the Shia, the Twelvers and the Ismailis, profited from these opportunities, and at first it seemed as if the Twelvers were about to triumph. Twelver Shiite dynasties appeared in several places, and in 946 a Shiite dynasty from Persia, the Buyids, inflicted the ultimate humiliation on Sunni Islam by capturing Baghdad and bringing the Caliph himself under Shiite control. By this time, however, the Twelver Shiites had no Imam, for the twelfth and last had disappeared some seventy years previously. The Buyids, confronted with a crucial choice, decided not to recognize any other Alid claimant, but to retain the Abbasids as titular Caliphs, under their own domination and patronage. By so doing, they still further discredited the already tarnished Sunni Caliphate; at the same time, they finally eliminated moderate Shi'ism as a serious alternative to it.

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