The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven.

• Author: Daftary, Farhad
• Position: Book Review

The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven. By JAMES WASSERMAN. Rochester, Vt.: INNER TRADITIONS, 2001. Pp. 318. $16.95 (paper).

An important chapter in Ismaili history was initiated in 1090 by Hasan-i Sabbah's seizure of the stronghold of Alamut in northern Persia. This event marked the foundation of what was to become the Niziiri Ismaili state with its scattered territories and networks of mountain fortresses in the midst of the Saljuq sultanate in Persia. Hasan-i Sabbah and his successors at Alamlit did not succeed in uprooting the Sunni Saljuq Turks whose alien rule was detested in Persia; and the Saljuqs, despite their superior military power, failed to dislodge the Niztiri Ismaili [Shi.sup.[subset]]is from their fortresses. In this ambience of stalemate, the Niziiris elaborated their teachings, and their state survived precariously in Persia until 1256 when it was destroyed by the Mongols.

Meanwhile, by the middle of the twelfth century, the Nizitri Ismailis had established a branch of their state in Syria with its own network of fortresses. There, the Nizaris had extended encounters with the Crusaders and their military orders, notably the Templars and Hospitallers. These encounters were particularly noteworthy in the time of Riishid al-Din Siniin, who led the Syrian Nizaris for some three decades to the peak of their fame until his death in 1193. Sinan also had intricate dealings with Saladin who finally dislodged the Crusaders from Jerusalem in 1187. Ismaili-Crusader relations, with intermittent diplomatic exchanges, continued into the thirteenth century until the Syrian Nizaris were subdued by the Mamluks in the early 1270s.

A new era in Muslim-Christian relations had indeed commenced with the Crusading movement in the Holy Land, where the Crusaders acquired permanent bases for some two centuries. The Knights Templar, together with the Hospitallers, acted rather independently of the Crusaders as military religious brotherhoods of Christian warriors accountable only to the pope. The Templars' primary duty was to guard the pilgrim routes to Jerusalem, in addition to providing military assistance to the Crusaders in the Frankish states of the Outremer. The Templars themselves acquired numerous castles in Syria in the vicinity of the Ismaili strongholds; and, from the middle of the twelfth century, they evidently received an annual tribute from the Ismailis as a kind of protection payment. It is a fact, however, that the...