Samarkand

CHAPTER 15

Seven years had past, seven years of plenty both for Khayyam and the empire, the last years of peace.

On a table under an awning of vine stood a long-necked carafe for the best Shiraz white wine with just the right hint of muskiness and all around a hundred bowls burst into a riotous feast. Such was the ritual of a June evening on Omar’s terrace. He recommended starting with the lightest, first of all the wine and fruit, then the cooked dishes such as rice with vine-leaves and stuffed quince.

A soft wind from the Yellow Mountains blew through the orchards in flower. Jahan picked up a lute and plucked one string and then another. The drawn-out slow music accompanied the wind. Omar raised his goblet and inhaled deeply. Jahan was watching him. She chose from the table the largest, reddest and softest jujube and offered it to her man, which, in the language of fruit, signified ‘a kiss, straight away’. He leant over to her and their lips brushed against each other, separated, touched again, parted and joined. Their fingers intertwined, a serving girl arrived, and without undue haste they separated and both picked up their goblets. Jahan smiled and murmured:

‘If I had seven lives, I would spend one coming here to stretch out every evening on this terrace; I would lounge on this divan drinking this wine and dangling my fingers in this bowl, for in monotony lurks happiness.’

Omar retorted:

‘One life-time, three or seven, I would pass them all just like this one, stretched out on this terrace with my hand in your hair.’

Together, and different. Lovers for nine years, married for four years and their dreams still did not live under the same roof. Jahan devoured time, Omar sipped it. She wanted to rule the world and had the ear of the Sultana who had the ear of the Sultan. By day she intrigued in the royal harem, intercepting incoming and outgoing messages, alcove rumours, promises of jewels and the stench of poison — all of which excited, agitated and inflamed her. In the evening she would give herself up to the happiness of being loved. For Omar, life was different. It was the pleasure of science and the science of pleasure. He would arise late, take the traditional ‘morning glass’ on an empty stomach, then settle down at his work table to write, calculate, draw lines and figures, write more, and transcribe a poem in his secret book.

At night, he would go off to the observatory built on a hillock near his house. He only had to cross a garden in order to be in the midst of the instruments which he cherished and caressed, oiled and polished with his own hand. Often he was accompanied by some astronomer who was passing through. The first three years of his stay had been devoted to the Isfahan observatory. He had supervised its construction and the manufacture of the equipment. Most importantly he had instituted the new calendar, ceremonially inaugurated on the first day of Favardin 458, 21 March 1079. What Persian could forget that year, when due to Khayyam’s calculation the sacrosanct festival of Nowruz had been displaced, and the new year which ought to have fallen in the middle of the sign of Pisces had been held off until the first day of Aries, and that since that reform the Persian months have conformed to the signs of the zodiac with Favardin thus becoming the month of Aries and Esfand that of Pisces? In June 1081 the inhabitants of Isfahan and the whole Empire were living out the third year of the new era. This officially carried the name of the Sultan, but in the street, and even in certain documents, it was enough to mention ‘such and such year in the era of Omar Khayyam’. What other man has known such honour in his lifetime? While Khayyam, at the age of thirty-three, was a renowned and respected personage, he was doubtless feared by those who did not know of his profound aversion to violence and domination.

What was it that kept him close to Jahan in spite of everything? A detail, but a gigantic detail: neither of them wanted children. Jahan had decided, once and for all, not to burden herself with offspring. Khayyam had made his the maxim of Abu al-Ala, a Syrian poet he venerated: ‘My suffering is the fault of my progenitor, let no one else’s suffering be my fault.’

Let us not be mistaken about this attitude, Khayyam had none of the makings of a misanthropist. Was it not he who had written: ‘When unhappiness overwhelms you, when you end up wishing for an eternal night to fall on the world, think of the greenery which springs up after the rain, think of the awakening of a child.’ If he refused to father children, it was because existence seemed to him to be too heavy to bear. ‘Happy is he who has never come into the world,’ he never ceased proclaiming.

It was clear that the reasons both of them had for refusing to give life to a child were not one and the same. She acted out of an excess of ambition, he out of an excess of detachment. However, for a man and a woman to be closely drawn together by an attitude condemned by all the men and women of Persia, and to give free reign to rumours that one or the other was sterile without even deigning to respond was what, at that time, forged an imperative complicity.

However, it was a complicity which had its limits. With Omar, Jahan generally came to learn the valuable opinion of a man who coveted nought, but she rarely took the trouble of informing him of her activities. She knew that he disapproved of them. What good would it do to feed endless quarrels? Of course, Khayyam was never far from the court. Even though he avoided becoming embroiled in it, despised and fled from all the intrigues, particularly those which had always worked against the palace doctors and astrologers, he nevertheless had some inescapable obligations, such as being present sometimes at the Friday banquet, examining a sick Emir and above all providing Malikshah with his taqvim, his monthly horoscope, the Sultan being, just like everyone else, constrained to consult it to know what he should do or should not do every day. ‘On the 5th, a star is lying in wait for you, do not leave the palace. On the 7th, neither be bled nor take any sort of potion. On the 10th, wind your turban the other way. On the 13th, do not approach any of your wives …’ The Sultan never thought to transgress these directives, and nor did Nizam, who received his taqvim from Omar’s hand before the end of the month, read it greedily and followed it to the letter. Gradually, other personages acquired this privilege, the chamberlain, the Grand Qadi of Isfahan, the treasurers, certain Emirs of the army and some rich merchants, which ended up meaning considerable work for Omar and took up the ten last nights of every month. People were so partial to predictions! The luckiest consulted Omar. The others found themselves a less prestigious astrologer, unless they went to a man of religion for every decision. Closing his eyes, and opening the Quran at random, he would place his finger on a verse which he would read aloud to them so that they could find therein the answer to their worries. Some poor women, in a great hurry to make a decision, would go out into a public square and would interpret the first phrase they heard as a directive from Providence.

‘Terken Khatoun asked me today if her taqvim for the month of Tir is ready,’ Jahan said that evening.

Omar looked out into the distance:

‘I am going to prepare it for her during the night. The sky is clear and none of the stars are hidden. It is time for me to go to the observatory.’

He readied himself to stand up, without hurry, when a servant came to announce:

‘There is a dervish at the door. He is asking for hospitality for the night.’

‘Let him come in,’ said Omar. ‘Give him the small room under the stairway and tell him to join us for the meal.’

Jahan covered her face ready for the entrance of the stranger, but the servant came back alone.

‘He prefers to stay and pray in his room. Here is the message he gave me.’

Omar read it and blushed. He arose like an automaton. Jahan was worried:

‘Who is this man?’

‘I shall return.’

He tore the message into a thousand pieces, strode towards the little room and shut the door behind him. There was a moment of waiting and then of incredulity, an accolade followed by a reproach:

‘What have you come to Isfahan for? All Nizam al-Mulk’s agents are after you.’

‘I have come to convert you.’

Omar stared at him. He wanted to make sure that Hassan still had all his wits about him, but Hassan laughed, the same muffled laugh that Khayyam had recognized in the caravansaray in Kashan.

‘You can be reassured that you are the last person I would think of converting, but I need shelter. What better protector could there be than Omar Khayyam, companion to the Sultan, friend to the Grand Vizir?’

‘Their hatred for you is greater than their friendship for me. You are welcome under my roof, but do not think for a moment that my relations with them could save you if your presence were suspected.’

‘Tomorrow I shall be far away.’

Omar appeared distrusting:

‘Have you come back for revenge?’

Hassan reacted as if his dignity had just been held up to ridicule.

‘I do not seek to avenge my miserable person, I desire to destroy Turkish power.’

Omar looked at his friend: he had exchanged his black turban for another, white but covered in sand, and his clothing was of coarse and threadbare wool.

‘You appear so sure of yourself! I can only see before me an outlaw, a hunted man, hiding from house to house, whose whole equipment consists of this bundle and this turban while yet thinking yourself the equal of an empire which extends over all the orient from Damascus to Herat!’

‘You are speaking of what is. I speak of what will be. The New Order will soon position itself against the Seljuk Empire. It will be intricately organized, powerful and fearsome and will cause Sultan and vizirs to quake. Not so long ago, when you and I were born, Isfahan belonged to a Persian Shiite dynasty which imposed its law on the Caliph of Baghdad. Today the Persians are no more than the servants of the Turks, and your friend Nizam al-Mulk is the vilest servant of these intruders. How can you establish that what was true yesterday is unthinkable for tomorrow?’

‘Times have changed, Hassan. The Turks are in power and the Persians have been vanquished. Some, like Nizam, seek a compromise with the victors, and others, like me, take refuge in books.’

‘And yet others fight. They are only a handful today, but tomorrow they will be thousands, a great decisive and invincible army. I am the apostle of the New Prediction. I will travel the country without respite. I will use persuasion as well as force and, with the aid of the Almighty, I shall fight against corrupt power. I am telling you, Omar, since you saved my life one day: the world will soon witness events whose import will be understood by few men, but you will understand. You will know what is happening, what is shaking this earth and how the tumult will end.’

‘I do not wish to cast any doubt upon your convictions or your enthusiasm, but I remember having seen you fight at the court of Malikshah with Nizam al-Mulk over the favours of the Turkish Sultan.’

‘You are mistaken to suggest that I am such an ignoble person.’

‘I am not suggesting anything. I am simply mentioning some unpalatable facts.’

‘They are due to your ignorance of my past. I cannot take offence at you for judging things by their appearance, but you will see me differently when I have told you my real history. I come from a traditional Shiite family. I was always taught that the Ismailis were simply heretics until I met a missionary, who, through a long discussion with me, shook my faith. When I decided not to speak to him any more for fear of giving in to him, I fell so seriously ill that I thought it was my last hour. I saw a sign, a sign from the Almighty, and I made an oath that if I survived I would convert to the faith of the Ismailis. I recovered overnight. None of my family could believe my sudden recovery.’

‘Naturally I kept my word and took the oath and at the end of two years I was assigned a mission to get close to Nizam al-Mulk, to infiltrate his diwan in order to protect our Ismaili brothers in difficulty. Thus I left Rayy for Isfahan and stopped en route at a caravansaray in Kashan. Finding myself alone in my small room, I was in the middle of wondering how I get close to the Grand Vizir when the door opened and who should enter but Khayyam, the great Khayyam whom heaven sent to me there to facilitate my mission.’

Omar was dumbstruck.

‘To think that Nizam al-Mulk asked me whether you were an Ismaili and I replied that I did not think so!’

‘You did not lie. You did not know. Now you do.’

He broke off.

‘You have not offered me anything to eat?’

Omar opened the door, called the servant, ordered her to bring some dishes and then continued his questioning:

‘And you have been wandering about for seven years dressed as a Sufi?’

‘I have wandered about much. When I left Isfahan I was pursued by agents of Nizam who were after my life. I shook them off at Qom where some friends hid me and then I continued my journey to Rayy where I met an Ismaili who suggested that I go to Egypt, to the missionary school where he had studied. I made a detour through Azerbaijan before going on to Damascus. I was planning to travel to Cairo on the land route, but there was fighting between the Turks and the Maghrebis around Jerusalem and I had to turn back and take the coastal route through Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and Acre where I found a place on a boat. Upon my arrival in Alexandria I was received as a high-ranking Emir. A reception committee was waiting for me, headed by Abu Daud, the paramount chief of the missionaries.’

The servant had come in and placed some bowls on the carpet. Hassan started a prayer which he broke off when she left the room.

‘I spent two years in Cairo. There were several dozens of us at the missionary school, but only a handful of us were destined to be active outside Fatimid territory.’

He avoided giving out too many details. It is known however, from various sources, that courses were held in two different places: the principles of the faith were revealed by the ulema in the university of Al-Azhar, and missionary propaganda was taught within the Caliphal palace. It was the chief missionary himself, a high ranking official of the Fatimid court, who revealed to the students the methods of persuasion, the art of developing a line of argument and of addressing reason instead of aiming for the heart. It was also he who made them memorise the secret code they had to use in their communications. At the end of every session, the students came to kneel before the chief missionary who passed over their heads a document bearing the signature of the Imam. Then another, shorter, session would be held for the women.

‘In Egypt I received all the instruction I needed.’

‘Did you not tell me, one day, that you already knew everything at the age of seventeen?’ Khayyam said mockingly.

‘By the age of seventeen I had accumulated information, then I learnt how to believe. In Cairo I learnt how to convert.’

‘What do you say to those whom you are trying to convert?’

‘I tell them that faith is nothing without a master to teach it. When we proclaim: “There is no God but God,” we immediately add “And Mohammed is his Messenger.” Why? Because it would make no sense to state that there is only one God if we do not quote the source, that is to say the name of the man who brought us this truth. But this man, this Messenger, this Prophet, has been dead a long time and how can we know that he existed and that he spoke as was reported. I, who like you have read Plato and Aristotle, need proof.’

‘What sort of proof? Can one find proof for those things?’

‘For you Sunnites there is effectively no proof. You think that Mohammed died without appointing an heir, that he just left the Muslims to their own devices to be governed by the strongest and wiliest. That is absurd. We think that the Messenger of God named a successor as a depository for his secrets: the Imam Ali, his son-in-law, his cousin and almost his brother. In his turn, Ali designated a successor. The line of legitimate Imams was thus perpetuated, and through them, the proof of the message of Mohammed and of the existence of a single God was passed down.’

‘I cannot see, in what you say, how you differ from other Shiites.’

‘The difference between my faith and that of my parents is great. They always taught me that we must submit patiently to the power of our enemies while waiting for the hidden Imam to return and establish the rule of justice on earth and reward the true believers. My own conviction is that we must act immediately to prepare by any means for the advent of our Imam in this country. I am the Precursor, he who will smooth the way in preparation for the Mahdi. You surely are aware that the Prophet spoke of me?’

‘Of you, Hassan son of Ali Sabbah, native of Qom?’

‘Did he not say: ‘A man will come from Qom. He will call upon the people to follow the straight path. Men will gather around him, like spearheads. Tempestuous winds will not be able to scatter them, nor will they tire of war or become weakened but they will rely upon God.”’

‘I do not know that quote even though I have read the certified collections of tradition.’

‘You have read the collections which you want. The Shiites have other collections.’

‘And they speak of you?’

‘Soon you will have no doubt about it.’

CHAPTER 16

The man with the bulging eyes went back to his life of wandering. A tireless missionary, he criss-crossed the Muslim East — Balkh, Merv, Kashgar and Samarkand — always preaching, arguing, converting and organizing. He never left a town or a village until he had designated a representative whom he left surrounded by a circle of followers, Shiites who were tired of waiting and submitting, Persian or Arab Sunnites exasperated by Turkish domination, young men in a state of agitation, or believers in search of rigour. Hassan’s army was growing every day. Its members were called ‘Batinites’, the people of the secret, and they were treated as heretics or atheists. The ulema pronounced anathema after anathema upon them: ‘Woe betide him who joins them, woe betide him who eats at their table, woe betide him who joins them through marriage, it is as legitimate to spill their blood as to water one’s garden.’

The pitch mounted and violence did not remain long restricted to words. In the town of Savah, the preacher of a mosque denounced certain people, who, at the time of prayer, were assembling away from the other Muslims. He invited the police to deal ruthlessly with them and eighteen heretics were arrested. A few days later, the man who had denounced them was found stabbed. Nizam al-Mulk ordered the punishment to set an example: an Ismaili carpenter was accused of murder. He was tortured and crucified. Then his body was dragged through the alleys of the bazaar.

A chronicler considered that: ‘That preacher was the Ismailis’ first victim and that carpenter was their first martyr.’ He added that their first great victory was won near the city of Kain, south of Nishapur. A caravan was arriving from Kirman, consisting of more than six hundred merchants and pilgrims as well as an important cargo of antimony. A half-day from Kain, masked and armed men barred their way. The senior man of the caravan thought that they were bandits and wanted to negotiate a ransom as he was used to doing. That, however, was not what they were after. The travellers were led toward a fortified village where they were held for several days, preached to and invited to convert. Some accepted and others were released but most of them were ultimately massacred.

However, the kidnapping of a caravan was soon going to seem a very minor affair in the huge, but underhand, test of strength which was building up. Killings and counter-killings followed each other. No town, province or route was spared and the peace of the Seljuk empire started to crumble.

That was when the memorable crisis in Samarkand broke out. A chronicler attested categorically that ‘the qadi Abu Taher was at the basis of the events’. However, things were not quite so simple.

It is true that one November afternoon Khayyam’s former protector arrived unexpectedly in Isfahan with wives and luggage, reeling off curses and oaths. Once through the gate of Tirah, he had taken himself to his friend, who lodged him, happy at last to have an occasion to show him his gratitude. Customary expressions of emotion were quickly disposed of. Abu Taher, on the edge of tears, asked:

‘I must speak to Nizam al-Mulk as soon as possible.’

Khayyam had never seen the qadi in such a state. He tried to reassure him:

‘We are going to see the Vizir tonight. Is it so serious?’

‘I have had to flee Samarkand.’

He could not go on. His voice was stifled and his tears flowed. He had aged since their last meeting. His skin was withered, his beard was white and only his bushy eyebrows retained their black hue. Omar uttered some words of consolation. The qadi pulled himself together, straightened his turban and then declared:

‘Do you remember the man who was nicknamed “Scar-Face?”’

‘How could I forget that he debated my own death in front of my eyes?’

‘You remember how he lost his temper at the slightest suspicion of a smell of heresy? Well, three years ago he joined the Ismailis and today he is proclaiming their errors with the same zeal with which he used to defend the True Faith. Hundreds and thousands of citizens are following him. He is master of the street and imposes his law on the merchants in the bazaar. On several occasions I have been to see the Khan. You knew Nasr Khan and his sudden outbursts of anger which subsided just as quickly, his fits of violence or prodigality, may God save his soul. I mention his name in every prayer. Today power is in the hands of his nephew, Ahmed, a smooth-chinned young man who is irresolute and unpredictable. I never know how to approach him. On many occasions I have complained to him about the machinations of the heretics. I have explained to him the dangers of the situation but he was distracted and bored and only half listened to me. Seeing that he had not taken any decision to act, I gathered the commanders of the militia as well as several officials whose loyalty I had acquired and requested them to place the Ismailis’ meetings under surveillance. Three trusty men took it in turn to follow Scar-Face, my aim being to present to the Khan a detailed report in order to open his eyes to their activities, until my men informed me that the chief of the heretics had arrived in Samarkand.’

‘Hassan Sabbah?’

‘In person. My men had positioned themselves at both ends of Abdack Street, in the district of Ghatfar, where an Ismaili meeting was being held. When Sabbah came out, disguised as a Sufi, they jumped him, placed a sack over his head and brought him to me.

‘Immediately I led him to the palace to announce news of his capture to the sovereign. Then, for the first time, he appeared interested and asked to see the man. Except that when Sabbah was brought before him, he ordered his cords to be untied and for them to be left alone together. In vain I tried to warn him against this dangerous heretic, recalling the misdeeds of which he was guilty, but to no avail. He wanted, he claimed, to convince the man to return to the straight path. Their conversation went on and on. From time to time one of his courtiers would half-open the door, but the two men were still talking. At first dawn they were both seen suddenly prostrating themselves in prayer, murmuring the same words. The counsellors jostled with each other to try and observe them.’

After taking a mouthful of orgeat syrup, Abu Taher uttered a formula of gratitude before carrying on:

‘Going by the evidence, it was certain that the master of Samarkand, the sovereign of Transoxania and heir to the dynasty of the Black Khans had gone over to the heresy. Naturally he avoided proclaiming this fact and continued to affect attachment to the True Faith, but nothing was the same any more. The Prince’s counsellors were replaced by Ismailis. The chiefs of the militia, who had effected Sabbah’s capture, died brutally one after another. My own guard was replaced by Scar-Face’s men. What choice did I have left except to leave with the first pilgrim caravan and to come and make the situation known to those who carry the sword of Islam, Nizam al-Mulk and Malikshah.’

That evening Khayyam took Abu Taher to the Vizir. He introduced him and then left them to talk in private. As Nizam listened reverently to his visitor his face took on a worried expression. When the qadi stopped speaking, he spoke up:

‘Do you know who is really responsible for Samarkand’s misfortunes, and for all of ours too? It is the man who brought you here!’

‘Omar Khayyam?’

‘Who else? It was khawaja Omar who interceded for Hassan Sabbah on the day I could have obtained his death. He prevented us from killing him. Can he now prevent him from killing us?’

The qadi did not know what to say. Nizam sighed. A short embarrassed silence ensued.

‘What do you suggest doing?’

It was Nizam who was asking the question. Abu Taher already had his idea formulated and he spoke it in the tones of a solemn proclamation:

‘It is time for the Seljuk flag to fly over Samarkand.’

The Vizir’s face lit up and then darkened again.

‘Your words are worth their weight in gold. I have been telling the Sultan for years that the empire should extend to Transoxania and that cities as prestigious and prosperous as Samarkand and Bukhara cannot remain outside the realm of our authority, but it was wasted effort. Malikshah would not listen.’

‘The Khan’s army, mind you, is greatly weakened. Its emirs are no longer paid and its forts are falling into ruin.’

‘We are aware of that.’

‘Is Malikshah afraid of undergoing the same fate as his father Alp Arslan if, as his father did, he crosses the river?’

‘Not at all.’

The qadi asked no more questions, but awaited further elucidation.

‘The Sultan is afraid neither of the river nor of the enemy army,’ stated Nizam. ‘He is afraid of a woman!’

‘Terken Khatun?’

‘She has sworn that, if Malikshah crosses the river, she will ban him from her couch and transform her harem into Gehenna. Let us not forget that Samarkand is her city. Nasr Khan was her brother and Ahmed Khan is her nephew. It is to her family that Transoxania belongs. If the kingdom built up by her ancestors were to collapse she would lose the position she occupies amongst the palace women and the chances of her son one day succeeding Malikshah would be compromised.’

‘But her son is only two years old!’

‘Precisely. The younger he is, the more his mother must fight to keep his trump cards.’

‘If I have understood correctly,’ concluded the qadi, ‘the Sultan will never agree to take Samarkand.’

‘I have not said that, but we must make him change his mind and it will not be easy to find more persuasive arms than those of Khatun.’

The qadi blushed. He smiled politely, without letting himself be deflected from his mission.

‘Would it not suffice for me to repeat to the Sultan what I have just told you and to inform him of the plot hatched by Hassan Sabbah?’

‘No,’ Nizam replied drily.

For a moment he was too absorbed to argue. He was formulating a plan. His visitor waited for him to make up his mind.

‘Now,’ the Vizir pronounced with authority, ‘you will go tomorrow morning and present yourself at the door of the Sultan’s harem and ask to see the chief of the eunuchs. You will tell him that you have come from Samarkand and that you wish to convey news of her family to Terken Khatun. As you are the qadi of her city and an old servant of her dynasty, she will have to receive you.’

The qadi had only to nod his head for Nizam to continue:

‘Once in the tentwork room, you will tell her about the misery Samarkand is in because of the heretics, but you will omit to mention Ahmed’s conversion. On the contrary, you will make sure to tell her that Hassan Sabbah covets her throne, that her life is in danger and that only providence can still save her. You will add that you have been to see me but that I was hardly inclined to listen to you, nay I even dissuaded you from speaking about it to the Sultan.’

The next day the plan worked without the slightest hitch. While Terken Khatun took it upon herself to convince the Sultan of the need to save the Khan of Samarkand, Nizam al-Mulk, who was pretending to be against this, threw himself into making preparations for the expedition. By this make-believe war Nizam was not just trying to annexe Transoxania, and even less was he trying to save Samarkand, but above all to re-establish his prestige which had been slighted by Ismaili subversion. For that, he needed a clear and stunning victory. For years his spies had been swearing to him, every day, that Hassan had been pinned down, and that he was on the point of being apprehended, but the rebel was not up for capture and his troops vanished at the first contact. Nizam was thus seeking a chance to confront him face to face, army to army. Samarkand was just the perfect place.

In the spring of 1089 an army of two hundred thousand men was on the march, with elephants and instruments of siege. The intrigues and lies which instigated its march are insignificant for it was to accomplish what every army must. It began by taking possession of Bukhara without the least resistance and then it headed on towards Samarkand. Arriving at the gates of the city, Malikshah announced to Ahmed Khan in a pitiful message that he had come at last to deliver him from the yoke of the heretics. ‘I have asked nothing of my august brother,’ the Khan replied coldly. Malikshah was astonished whereas Nizam was not at all disturbed. ‘The Khan is no longer a free agent. We must act as if he did not exist.’ In any case, the army could not retrace its steps. The emirs wanted their share of the booty and would not return empty-handed.

In the first days, the treachery of a tower guard permitted the assailants to sweep into the city. They took up position to the west, near the Monastery Gate. The defenders fell back to the souks in the south, around the Kish Gate. According to their faith, one section of the population decided to provide for the Sultan’s troops, feeding them and giving them encouragement and another section embraced the cause of Ahmed Khan. Fighting raged for two weeks, but there was never a second’s doubt of the outcome. The Khan, who had taken refuge with a friend in the district of the domes, was quickly taken prisoner along with all the Ismaili chiefs. Only Hassan managed to escape through a subterranean canal at night.

Nizam had won, it is true, but by dint of playing the Sultan off against the Sultana he had poisoned irreparably his relations with the court. Even if Malikshah did not regret having conquered the most prestigious cities of Transoxania so easily, his self-respect suffered at having allowed himself to be abused. He went so far as to refuse to organize the traditional victory banquet for his troops. ‘It’s out of avarice,’ Nizam whispered spitefully to all and sundry.

As for Hassan Sabbah, he learnt a valuable lesson from his defeat. Rather than try and convert princes, he would forge a fearsome instrument of war which would bear no resemblance to anything which mankind had known until then: the order of the Assassins.

CHAPTER 17

Alamut. A fortress on a rock six thousand feet high in a countryside of bare mountains, forgotten lakes, sheer cliffs and narrow passes. The greatest army could only reach it in single file and the most powerful catapults could not graze its walls.

The Shahrud River, nicknamed the ‘mad river’, dominated the mountains, swelling up in springtime with the melted snow of the Elburz mountains and snatching up trees and stones as it sped down its course. Woe to him who dared approach it! Woe to the army which dared pitch camp on its banks!

Every evening a thick, woolly mist rose from the river and the lakes, stopping half-way up the cliffs. To those who were there, the castle of Alamut was at such times an isle in an ocean of clouds. Seen from below, it was the abode of the jinns.

In the local dialect, Alamut means ‘the eagle’s lesson’. It was told that a prince who wanted to build a fortress to control these mountains released a trained bird of prey. The bird, after flying around in the sky, came to land on this rock. The master understood that no other site would be better.

Hassan Sabbah had imitated the eagle. He had searched the length and breadth of Persia for somewhere to gather, teach and organize his faithful. He had learnt from his misadventure in Samarkand that it would be unrealistic to try and seize a large city, for confrontation with the Seljuks would be immediate and would inevitably turn out to the empire’s advantage. He thus needed something else, a mountain redoubt which was inaccessible and impregnable, a sanctuary from which he could develop his activity in all directions.

Just as the flags captured in Transoxania were being unfurled in the streets of Isfahan, Hassan was in the vicinity of Alamut. The site had been a revelation for him. From the moment he first saw it from in the distance, he understood that it was here, and nowhere else, that his task would be accomplished and that his kingdom would arise. Alamut was at that time one fortified village among so many others, where a few soldiers lived with their families along with some artisans, farmers and a governor, named by Nizam al-Mulk, who was a courageous nobleman called Mahdi the Alawite, whose only concerns were his irrigation water and his harvest of nuts, raisins and pomegranates. The turmoil taking place in the empire did not disturb his slumber.

Hassan started by sending out some companions, local men, to join the garrison, preach and convert. Some months later they were ready to announce to the master that the ground was prepared and that he could come. Hassan turned up disguised as a Sufi dervish as was his practice. He strolled around, inspecting and checking everything. The governor received the holy man and asked him what would please him.

‘I need this fortress,’ said Hassan.

The governor smiled, thinking that the dervish certainly did not lack humour. His guest, however, was not smiling.

‘I have come to take possession of this place. I have won over all the men of the garrison.’

The outcome of this exchange was, admittedly, as extraordinary as it was incredible. Orientalists, who have consulted the chronicles of the time, particularly the accounts set down by the Ismailis, needed to read and re-read them in order to reassure themselves that they were not the victims of a hoax.

Indeed, let us take another look at the scene.

It was the end of the eleventh century, or to be exact 6 September, 1090. Hassan Sabbah, the brilliant founder of the Order of the Assassins, was about to take over the fortress which was to be, for 166 years, the seat of the most fearsome sect in all history. Now, there he was, seated cross-legged in front of the governor, to whom he was saying, without raising his voice:

‘I have come to take possession of Alamut.’

‘This fortress has been given to me in the Sultan’s name,’ the governor replied. ‘I have paid to obtain it.’

‘How much?’

‘Three thousand gold dinars!’

Hassan Sabbah took a piece of paper and wrote: ‘Pay the sum of three thousand gold dinars to Mahdi the Alawite for the fortress of Alamut. May God meet our needs, for He is the best of protectors.’ The governor was unsettled and did not think that the signature of a man dressed in homespun might be honoured for such a sum. However, when he arrived in the city of Damghan, he was able to cash his gold without any delay.

CHAPTER 18

When news of the taking of Alamut reached Isfahan it aroused little concern. The city was much more interested in the conflict which was currently raging between Nizam and the palace. Terkan Khatun had not pardoned the Vizir for the operation he had conducted against her family’s preserve. She urged Malikshah to rid himself of his overpowerful Vizir with no further ado. For the Sultan to have had a tutor upon his father’s death she pronounced absolutely normal as he was then only seventeen years old; today he was thirty-five, an accomplished man, and he could not leave the management of affairs indefinitely in the hands of his ata; it was time for people to know who the real master of the empire was! Had the Samarkand business not proved that Nizam was trying to impose his will, that he was tricking his master and treating him as a minor before the whole world?

Malikshah was still hesitant about taking this step when something happened to push him into it. Nizam had named his own grandson governor of the city of Merv. This conceited adolescent held too much store by his grandfather’s omnipotence, and had gone so far as to insult an old Turkish emir in public. The emir then came in tears to complain to Malikshah, who beside himself with rage had the following letter written to Nizam there and then: ‘If you are my aide, you must obey me and forbid your relatives to malign my men; if you deem yourself my equal, my associate in power, I will make the necessary decisions.’

Nizam sent back his response to the message, which had been conveyed by a delegation of the empire’s high dignitaries: Tell the Sultan, if he was not aware of it until now, that I am indeed his associate and that without me he would never have been able to build up his power! Has he forgotten that it was I who took charge of his affairs upon his father’s death, that it was I who eliminated the other aspirants and crushed all rebels? That it is thanks to me that he is obeyed and respected to the ends of the earth? Yes, go and tell him that the fate of his head is tied to that of my inkwell!’

The emissaries were dumbfounded. How could a man as wise as Nizam al-Mulk address the Sultan with words which would cause his downfall, and without doubt his death? Could his arrogance have gone over into madness?

That day, only one man knew with precision how to explain such determination and that was Khayyam. For weeks Nizam had been complaining to him of dreadful pains which had been keeping him awake at night and preventing him from concentrating on his work by day. After examining him, probing his body with his fingers and questioning him, Omar diagnosed a phlegmonic tumour which would not leave him long to live.

It was a truly unpleasant night when Khayyam had to announce to his friend his true condition.

‘How much time do I have left to live?’

‘A few months.’

‘Will I go on suffering?’

‘I could prescribe you opium to reduce the suffering, but you will feel constantly dizzy and unable to work any more.’

‘Will I not be able to write?’

‘Nor hold a long conversation.’

‘Then I prefer to suffer.’

Between one retort and the next there were long moments of silence and suffering contained with dignity.

‘Are you afraid of the hereafter, Khayyam?’

‘Why should one be afraid? After death there is either nothing or forgiveness.’

‘And the evil that I have wrought?’

‘However great your faults, God’s mercy is greater.’

Nizam seemed somewhat reassured.

‘I have also done good. I have built mosques and schools and have fought against heresy.’

As Khayyam did not contradict him, he went on:

‘Will I be remembered in a hundred years’ time, in a thousand years’?’

‘There is no knowing.’

Nizam stared at him hard with distrust, and then continued:

‘Was it not you who said one day: “Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.” Do you think that will be the fate of Nizam al-Mulk?’

He gasped for breath. Omar had still not said anything.

‘Your friend Hassan Sabbah has gone throughout the country broadcasting that I am no more than a vile servant of the Turks. Do you think that is what they will say about me tomorrow, that they will make me into the scourge of the Aryans? Will they have forgotten that I was the only person to have stood up to sultans for thirty years and to have imposed my will upon them? What else could I do after their armies’ victory? But you are not saying anything.’

He had a vacant look about him.

‘Seventy-four years. Seventy-four years which have passed before my eyes. So much deceit, so many regrets and so many things I would have experienced differently!’

His eyes were half-closed, his lips contorted:

‘Woe betide you, Khayyam! You are to blame for Hassan Sabbah being able to perpetrate his misdeeds.’

Omar had wanted to reply: ‘How much you and Hassan have in common! If you are seduced by a cause such as building an empire or preparing for the reign of the Imam, you do not think twice about killing in order to make your scheme triumph. In my opinion, any cause which involves killing no longer attracts me. It becomes unattractive to me, it becomes sordid and debased, no matter how beautiful it may have been. No cause can be just when it allies itself to death.’ He wanted to shout it out, but he got the better of himself and remained silent. He had decided to allow his friend to slide peacefully toward his fate.

In spite of this trying night, Nizam ended up by resigning himself to his fate. He became used to the idea of not existing any more. However, from one day to the next he turned aside from affairs of state and determined that he ought to devote what time remained to him to completing a book, Siyasset-Nameh, the Treatise of Government. This was a remarkable work, the Muslim world’s equivalent of Machiavelli’s The Prince, which was to appear in the West four centuries later with one crucial difference. The Prince is the work of a man disappointed by politics and thwarted from having any power while the Siyasset-Nameh is the fruit of the irreplaceable experience of an empire builder.

Thus, at the very moment when Hassan Sabbah had just conquered the unassailable sanctuary of which he had long dreamt, the empire’s strongman was concerned only with his own place in History. He preferred words of truth over pleasantries and was prepared to defy the Sultan to the very end. It could be said that he wanted a spectacular death, a death that befitted him.

He was to obtain it.

When Malikshah received the delegation which had come from meeting Nizam, he could not believe what he was told.

‘Did he really say that he was my associate, my equal?’

When the emissaries dolefully confirmed this, the Sultan let his anger come pouring out. He spoke of having his tutor impaled, dismembered alive or crucified on the battlements of the citadel. Then he rushed off to announce to Terken Khatun that he had finally decided to discharge Nizam al-Mulk from all his duties and that he wished to see his death. It only remained to work out how he could be executed without provoking any reaction from the numerous regiments who were still loyal to him. However, Terken and Jahan had their own idea: since Hassan also wanted to see Nizam’s death, why not facilitate the matter for him, while leaving Malikshah free from suspicion?’

An army corps was thus sent out to Alamut, under the command of a man loyal to the Sultan. The ostensible objective was to lay siege to the Ismailis’ fortress but in reality it was a smoke-screen so that negotiations could take place without rousing suspicions and the course of events was planned down to the very details. The Sultan would lure Nizam to Nahavand, a city equidistant from Isfahan and Alamut. Once there, the Assassins would take over.

Texts from the time report that Hassan Sabbah gathered his men together and addressed them as follows: ‘Which man amongst you will rid this country of the evil Nizam al-Mulk?’ A man named Arrani placed his hand on his chest as a sign of acceptance, the master of Alamut charged him with the mission and added: ‘The murder of this demon is the gateway to happiness.’

During this period Nizam stayed shut up in his residence. Those who had previously visited his diwan had deserted him upon learning of his disgrace, and only Khayyam and officers of the nizamiya guard frequented his residence. He spent most of his time at his desk. He scribbled away furiously and sometimes asked Omar to read it over.

As he read through the text, Omar gave off a smile or a grimace here and there. In the evening of his life, Nizam could not resist shooting off a few arrows and settling some accounts — for example, with Terken Khatun. The forty-third chapter was titled ‘On women who live behind the tent-work’. ‘In ancient times,’ Nizam wrote, ‘the spouse of a king had great influence over him and there resulted therefrom nothing but discord and troubles. I shall say no more about it, for anyone can observe such things in other epochs.’ He added: ‘For an undertaking to succeed, it must be carried out the opposite way to what women say.’

The following six chapters were devoted to the Ismailis and ended as follows: ‘I have spoken of this sect so that people can be on their guard … My words will be remembered when these infidels manage to annihilate people close to the Sultan as well as statesmen, when their drums sound everywhere and their designs are unveiled. In the midst of the resultant tumult the Prince will surely know that everything I have said is the truth. May the Almighty preserve our master and the empire from an evil fate!’

The day when a messenger arrived from the Sultan to see him and invite him to join him on a trip to Baghdad, the Vizir had not a moment’s doubt of what was in store for him. He called Khayyam to take his leave of him.

‘In your condition, you should not cover such distances,’ Khayyam told him.

‘In my condition nothing matters anymore, and it is not the journey which will kill me.’

Omar was lost for words. Nizam kissed him and dismissed him amicably, before going to bow before the man who had condemned him. With supreme elegance, recklessness and perversity, the Sultan and the Vizir were both playing with death.

When they were en route for the place of trial, Malikshah questioned his ‘father’:

‘How long do you think you will yet live?’

Nizam replied without a hint of hesitation:

‘A long time, a very long time.’

The Sultan was distraught:

‘You can still get away with being arrogant with me, but with God! How can you be so sure. You ought to call upon His will to be done for He is the arbiter of life!’

‘I replied thus because I had a dream last night. I saw our Prophet, God bless and preserve him. I asked him when I was going to die and I received a reassuring response.’

Malikshah grew impatient:

‘What reply?’

‘The Prophet told me: “You are a pillar of Islam. You behave properly toward those around you, your existence is of value to the believers and I thus am giving you the privilege of choosing when you will die.” I replied: “God forbid. What man could choose such a day! One would always want more, and even if I determined the most distant date possible, I would live on obsessed by its approach. On the eve of that day, whether it were in a month or a hundred year’s time, I would shake with fear. I do not wish to choose the date. The only favour I ask, beloved Prophet, is not to outlive my master, Sultan Malikshah. I have seen him grow up and have heard him call me “father”, and I would not wish to undergo the humiliation and the suffering of seeing him dead.” “Granted!” the Prophet said to me. “You will die forty days before the Sultan.”’

Malikshah’s face was pale and he was trembling so much that he almost gave himself away. Nizam smiled:

‘You see, I am not showing any arrogance. I am now sure that I will live a long time.’

Was the Sultan tempted, at that moment, to forgo having his Vizir killed? He would have been well advised to do so. Even if the dream was only a parable, Nizam in fact took formidable precautions. On the eve of his departure, the officers of his guard, assembled at his side, had sworn one after another with their hands placed on the Book that, should he be killed, not a single one of his enemies would live on!

CHAPTER 19

In the Seljuk empire, at a time when it was the most powerful empire in the world, a woman dared to take power with her bare hands. Seated behind her tenting, she arrayed armies from one end of Asia to the other, named kings and vizirs, governors and qadis, dictated letters to the Caliph and sent emissaries off to the master of Alamut. To emirs who grumbled upon hearing her give orders to the troops, she responded: ‘Here it is the men who make war, but it is the women who tell them against whom to fight.’

In the Sultan’s harem, she was nicknamed ‘the Chinese woman’. She had been born in Samarkand, to a family originally from Kashgar, and, like her elder brother Nasr Khan, her face showed no intermingling of blood — neither the Semitic features of the Arabs, nor the Aryan features of the Persians.

She was Malikshah’s oldest wife by far. When she married him he was only nine years old and she was eleven. She waited patiently for him to mature. She had felt the first down of his beard, surprised the first spring of desire in his body and seen his limbs grow out, and his muscles swell up as he turned into the majestic windbag whom she soon learnt to tame. She had never ceased being the favourite wife — adulated, wooed, honoured and above all listened to and obeyed. At the end of a day, or upon his return from a lion hunt, a tournament, a bloody clash, a stormy assembly of the emirs or worse — a tedious work session with Nizam, Malikshah would find peace in the arms of Terken. He would peel off her diaphanous silk covering, snuggle up to her bare skin, play about, bellow and tell her about his exploits and what was tiring him. The Chinese woman would throw her arms around the excited lion, cocoon him, give him a hero’s welcome in the folds of her body and hold on to him long and tight, only letting go so that she could pull him back again; he stretched himself out with all his weight, conquering, breathless, panting, submissive and bewitched. She knew how to take him to the very limits of pleasure.

Then, gently his thin fingers would start to trace her eyebrows, her eyelashes, her lips, her earlobes and the lines of her moist neck; the lion was subdued, he was purring, growing sluggish, smiling. Terken’s words would then flow into the hollows of his soul. She would speak of him, of herself and their children. She would tell him anecdotes, recite poems for him, whisper parables laden with teachings. He was never bored for a second in her arms and he resolved to stay with her every evening. In his own rough, childish and animal way he loved her and was to love her until his last breath. She knew that he could refuse her nothing and it was she who planned his conquests of the moment, his mistresses or provinces. In the whole empire she had no rival other than Nizam, and in this year of 1092 she was on the verge of felling him.

Was the Chinese woman exultant at this? How could she be? The moment she was alone, or with Jahan her confidante, he would cry the tears of a mother and Sultana. She could curse her unjust fate and no one thought to blame her for it. Her eldest son had been chosen by Malikshah as his heir and was with him on all his trips and at all his ceremonies. His father was so proud of him that he displayed him everywhere, showing him his provinces one by one, telling him of the day when he would succeed him. ‘No Sultan ever left such a large empire to his son!’ he would tell him. At that time Terken was indeed overjoyed and no unhappiness soured her smile.

Then the heir died from a sudden, shattering and merciless fever. In vain the doctors prescribed bleedings and poultices but within two nights he passed away. It was said to be the work of the evil eye or even an undetectable poison. Terken managed to control her tears and pull herself together. When the period of mourning was over, she had her second son designated as heir to the throne. Malikshah took to him very quickly and showered him with surprising titles for a nine-year-old, but it was an era of pomp and ceremony: ‘King of kings, Pillar of the State, Protector of the Prince of the Believers’ …

The curse of the evil eye did not tarry in doing away with the new heir. He died as suddenly as his brother of a fever which was just as suspect.

The Chinese woman had a last son whom she asked the Sultan to designate as heir. The affair was trickier this time, since the child was only a year-and-a-half old and Malikshah was the father of three other boys who were all older. Two of them were born to a slave girl, but the eldest, named Barkiyaruk, was the son of the Sultan’s own cousin. What pretext could he use to brush them aside? Who better than this prince, who was doubly Seljuk, to be elevated to the rank of heir to the throne? Such was the view of Nizam, who wanted to interject some order into the Turkish squabbles, who had always been eager to institute some form of hereditary dynasty and who had insisted, with the best arguments in the world, that Malikshah’s eldest son should be designated heir, but with no success.

Malikshah dared not go against Terken, and as he could not nominate his son by her, he nominated no one preferring to risk dying without an heir, like his father and all his clan.

Terken was not satisfied and would not be until her lineage was duly assured — that is to say that more than anything in the world she desired to see Nizam, the obstacle to her ambitions, fall into disgrace. In order to obtain his death warrant, she was ready to use intrigue or issue threats, and day after day she followed the negotiations with the Assassins. She had accompanied the Sultan and his vizir on their journey to Baghdad. She was keen to be there for the execution.

It was Nizam’s last meal. The supper was an iftar, the banquet which marks the break of the fast of the tenth day of Ramadan. Dignitaries, courtiers and emirs of the army were all unusually abstemious out of respect for the holy month. The table was laid inside a huge yurt. Slaves carried torches to enable people to choose their food. Sixty ravenous hands stretched toward the huge silver platters, the best piece of camel or lamb and the choicest legs of partridge, skimming off flesh and sauce. They divided the food, ripped it apart and devoured it. If someone found himself in possession of a particularly toothsome item, he would offer it to a neighbour he wished to honour.

Nizam was eating little. That evening he was suffering more than usual. His chest was on fire and his insides felt as if they were being churned by the hand of an invisible giant. He was making an effort to hold himself upright. Malikshah was at his side, munching everything his neighbours passed to him. From time to time he was seen to look at his vizir out of the corner of his eye, thinking that he must be afraid. Suddenly he stretched his hand toward a plate of black figs, selected the plumpest and offered it to Nizam who accepted it politely and bit into it. What savour could figs have when one was three times condemned, by God, the Sultan and the Assassins?

By the time the iftar was over, it was already night. Malikshah jumped up, in a hurry to go and join his Chinese woman and tell her about the vizir’s grimaces. Nizam leant on his elbows and hoisted himself up with some effort. His harem’s tents were not far off and his old female cousin would have prepared a concoction of myrobalan to provide him some ease. He only had to take a hundred steps to be there. Around him was the inevitable confusion of royal camps with its soldiers, servants and wandering tradesmen. Now and then he could hear the stifled laugh of a courtesan. How long the path seemed, and he was dragging himself along it alone. Usually he was surrounded by a group of courtiers, but who now wished to be seen with an outlaw? Even the beggars had fled — what could they hope to obtain from a disgraced old man?

However someone was approaching him, a decent-looking man clothed in a patched coat. He muttered some pious words and Nizam felt for his purse and retrieved three pieces of gold. This unknown man who would still approach him ought to be rewarded.

There was a flash, the flash of a sword and everything happened very quickly. Hardly had Nizam seen the hand move before the dagger pierced his clothing and skin and the point worked its way between his ribs. He had not even shouted out, but just made a dazed movement and gasped a last breath. As he was dying, he may have seen again, in slow motion, the blade, the arm stretching out and withdrawing and the nervous mouth which spat out: This present comes to you from Alamut!’

Then cries went up. The Assassin had run off but had been tracked from tent to tent and found. Hurriedly they slit his throat and dragged him barefoot to be thrown on to a fire.

In the years and decades to come, innumerable messengers from Alamut would meet the same death, the only difference being that they would not attempt to flee. ‘It is not enough to kill our enemies,’ Hassan taught them. ‘We are not murderers but executioners. We must act in public as an example. By killing one man we terrorize a hundred thousand. However, it is not enough to execute and terrorize, we must also know how to die, for if, by killing, we discourage our enemies from undertaking any action against us, by dying in the most courageous fashion, we force the masses to admire us, and from their midst men will come to join us. Dying is more important than killing. We kill to defend ourselves, but we die to convert, and to conquer. Conquering is the aim we are seeking; defending ourselves is only a means thereto.’

Assassinations generally took place on Friday in the mosque, at the moment of solemn prayer and in front of the assembled people. The victim, be he vizir, prince or religious dignitary, would arrive surrounded by an imposing guard. The crowd would be impressed, submissive and admiring. The emissary from Alamut would be there somewhere in the most unexpected of disguises — as a member of the guard, for example. At the moment when everyone’s gaze was on the victim, he would strike. The victim would die and the executioner would not move, but would yell out a formula he had learnt and with a smile of defiance would wait to be set upon by the furious guards and then ripped limb from limb by the frightened crowd. The message had been delivered; the successor to the person who had been assassinated would make himself more conciliatory toward Alamut, and there would be a score, or two score conversions amongst those present.

So unreal were these scenes that it was often said that Hassan’s men were drugged. How otherwise could it be explained that they went to their deaths with a smile? Some credence was given to the assertion that they were acting under the influence of hashish and it was Marco Polo who popularized this idea in the West. Their enemies in the Muslim world would contemptuously call them hash-ishiyun, ‘hashish-smokers’; some Orientalists thought that this was the origin of the word ‘assassin’, which in many European languages has become synonymous with murderer. The myth of the ‘Assassins’ was more terrifying yet.

The truth is different. According to texts which have come down to us from Alamut, Hassan liked to call his disciples Assassiyun, meaning people who are faithful to the Assass, the ‘foundation’ of the faith. This is the word, misunderstood by foreign travellers, which seemed similar to hashish.

Hassan Sabbah indeed had a passion for plants and he had a miraculous knowledge of their curative, sedative or stimulative characteristics. He himself grew all sorts of herbs and looked after his adepts when they were ill, knowing what potions to prescribe for them to revive their constitution. Thus we know of one of his recipes which was intended to stimulate his disciples’ minds and render them more adept at their studies. It was a mixture of honey, pounded nuts and coriander and was considered a very agreeable medicine. However, we must go by the evidence, in spite of the tenacity and allure of tradition: the Assassins had no drug other than straightforward faith, which was constantly reinforced by the intense instruction, the most efficient organization and the strictest apportionment of tasks.

At the top of the hierarchy sat Hassan, the Grand Master, the Supreme Preacher, the possessor of all the secrets. He was surrounded by a handful of missionaries, the da’is amongst whom there were three commissioners; one for eastern Persia, Khorassan and Kuhistan and Transoxania; one for western Persia and Iraq and one Syria. Immediately under them were the companions, the rafiks, the cadres of the movement. After receiving adequate instruction, they were entitled to command a fortress and to lead the organization at the city or province level. The brightest would one day be missionaries.

Lower down the hierarchy were the lassek, literally those who were attached to the organization. They were the rank and file believers, with no particular predisposition to studies or violent action. They included many shepherds from the Alamut region and a number of women and old men.

Then came the mujibs, the ‘answerers’, who were in fact the novices. They received some preliminary teaching and then, according to their capability, they were directed toward deeper studies in order to become companions, toward the body of the believers or toward the category which symbolized in the eyes of the Muslims of the time the real power of Hassan Sabbah, the class of the fida’is, ‘those who sacrifice themselves’. The Grand Master chose them from among the disciples who had huge reserves of faith, skill and endurance, but little aptitude for study. He never sent to his death a man who could become a missionary.

The training of a fida’i was a delicate task to which Hassan devoted himself with a passion. The fida’i would learn how to keep his dagger hidden, how to unsheathe it with stealth and plunge it into the victim’s heart, or into his neck if he was wearing a coat of mail; how to handle homing pigeons, and memorize codes to be used for rapid and secret communication with Alamut; sometimes the fida’i would have to learn a dialect or regional accent, or how to infiltrate a foreign environment and be part of it for weeks or months, lulling all distrust while awaiting the most propitious moment to strike; he would learn how to stalk his prey like a hunter, making a careful study of his behaviour, his clothing, his habits and at what time he went out and returned; sometimes, when the victim was an exceptionally well-protected personage, he would have to find a means to be employed by him, to get near to him and form a bond with some of his circle. It was told that in order to execute one of their victims, two fida’is lived for two months in a Christian convent, passing themselves off as monks. Such a remarkable talent for disguise and dissimulation could in no way have gone hand in hand with the use of hashish! Most importantly, the disciple had to acquire the necessary faith to confront death and a faith in a paradise which the martyr would earn at the very moment when his life was taken from him by the raging crowd.

No one could stand up to Hassan Sabbah. He had succeeded in building up the most feared killing machine in history. Nonetheless, another arose, at the bloody turn-of-the-century — that of the Nizamiya, which out of loyalty to the assassinated Vizir, went on to sow death with different methods which were perhaps more insidious, certainly less spectacular but whose effects were to be no less devastating.

CHAPTER 20

While the crowd was attacking the remains of the Assassin, five officers gathered around the still warm body of Nizam. They were in tears and stretched out their right hands as they mouthed in unison: ‘Rest in peace, master. None of your enemies will live!’

But where would they begin? The list of outlaws was long, but Nazam’s orders were clear. The five men almost had no need to consult each other. They muttered a name and stretched out their hands anew. Then they kneeled down and together raised up the body which had been emaciated by illness but was now weighed down by death, and carried it in a cortege to his quarters. The women had already assembled to wail and the sight of the cadaver renewed their ululations, arousing the ire of one of the officers: ‘Do not cry while he is still unavenged!’ The women were afraid and broke off their crying to look at the man who was already making his way off. Then they started up their noisy lamentations again.

The Sultan arrived. He had been with Terken when the first cries reached him. A eunuch who had been sent out for the news came back trembling. ‘It’s Nizam al-Mulk, master! A killer jumped on him. He has given you the rest of his life!’ The Sultan and Sultana exchanged a glance and then Malikshah arose. He put on his long cloak of karakul, patted his face in front of his spouse’s mirror and then ran off to see the deceased, feigning surprise and a state of the gravest affliction.

The women stepped aside to allow him to approach the body of his ata. He leant over, uttered a prayer and some appropriate phrases before returning to Terken for some discrete celebrations.

How curiously Malikshah behaved. One would have thought that he would have profited from his tutor’s disappearance to take complete control over the affairs of his empire, but not so. He was so happy at finally being rid of the man who checked his passions, that he frolicked — and there can be no other word for it. Every meeting was cancelled as a matter of course, as was every reception for an ambassador and the Sultan’s days were given over to polo and hunting while his nights were spent in bouts of drinking.

Yet more serious was the fact that upon his arrival in Baghdad he had sent a message to the Caliph, saying: ‘I intend to make this city my winter capital. The Prince of Believers must decamp post haste and find another residence.’ The successor of the Prophet, whose ancestors had been living in Baghdad for three and a half centuries, requested a month’s grace in order to put his affairs in order.

Terken was worried by this frivolity which was little worthy of a thirty-seven-year-old sovereign who was master of half of the world, but her Malikshah was what he was so she let him fool around and took the opportunity this gave her to establish her own authority. It was to her that emirs and dignitaries had recourse and it was her trusted men who replaced Nizam’s acolytes. Between trips and drunken binges the Sultan gave his agreement.

On 18 November 1092 Malikshah was in the north of Baghdad hunting wild ass in a woody and swampy area. Only one of his previous twelve arrows had missed its target. His companions were singing his praises and none of them dreamed of matching his feats. The trip had made him hungry — a feeling he expressed in oaths. The slaves set to it. There were a dozen of them brought along to dismember, skewer and gut the wild beasts which were to be roasted in a clearing. The meatiest leg was for the sovereign who took hold of it and ripped it to pieces hungrily while treating himself liberally to some fermented liquor. From time to time he munched on fruit preserved in vinegar which was his favourite dish and huge vessels of which were carried everywhere Malikshah went by his cook so that he would never have to do without.

Suddenly he was beset with violent stomach cramps. Malikshah screamed in pain and his companions trembled. He threw down his goblet and spat out what he had in his mouth. He was bent double, he threw up everything he had eaten, became delirious and then fainted. Around him dozens of courtiers, soldiers and servants trembled as they watched him with disbelief. No one would ever know whose hand slipped the poison into his liquor, or was it in the vinegar, or the game? Nonetheless everyone made their calculations: thirty-five days had passed since Nizam’s death. He had said ‘less than forty’ and his avengers were on time.

Terken Khatun was in the royal camp, an hour away from the scene of the drama. The Sultan was carried in to her inanimate but still alive. She hurriedly sent away all onlookers, keeping by her only Jahan and two or three other trusted courtiers as well as the court doctor who was holding Malikshah’s hand.

‘Might the master recover?’ the Chinese woman inquired.

‘His pulse is weakening. God has blown on the candle and it is flickering before going out. Our only hope is prayer.’

‘If such is the will of the Almighty, then listen to what I am going to say.’

This was not the tone of a widow-to-be, but of the mistress of an empire.

‘No one outside this yurt must know that the Sultan is no longer with us. Merely say that he is recovering slowly, that he needs to rest and that no one may see him.’

What a fleeting and bloody epic was that of Terken Khatun. Even before Malikshah’s heart had ceased beating, she demanded her handful of faithful courtiers to swear loyalty to Sultan Mahmoud, whose age was four years and a few months. Then she sent a messenger to the Caliph to announce the death of her spouse and to ask him to confirm her son’s succession; in exchange the Prince of Believers would no longer have cause for concern in his capital and his name would be glorified in the sermons of mosques throughout the empire.

When the Sultan’s court set off again for Isfahan, Malikshah had been dead for some days but the Chinese woman continued to keep the news from the troops. The cadaver was laid out on a large chariot pulled by six horses and covered by a tent. However, the charade could not last indefinitely for a corpse which has not been embalmed can not linger amongst the living without its decomposition betraying its presence. Terken chose to be rid of it and thus Malikshah, ‘the revered Sultan, the great Shahinshah, the King of the Orient and the Occident, the Pillar of Islam and of the Muslims, the Pride of the World and of the Religion, the Father of Conquests, the Steadfast Support of the Caliph of God’, was hastily interred by night at the side of the road in a place which no one has ever been able to find. ‘Never,’ said the chroniclers, ‘has there been told of such a powerful sovereign dying without anyone to pray or weep over his corpse.’

News of the Sultan’s disappearance finally got out, but Terken had no trouble justifying her actions: her first concern had been to hide the news from the enemy since the army and the court were far from the capital. In fact the Chinese woman had won the time she needed to place her son on the throne and to take up the reins of power herself.

The chronicles of the time make no mistake. When speaking of the imperial troops, they henceforth say ‘the armies of Terken Khatun’. When speaking of Isfahan, they point out that it is Terken’s capital city. As for the name of the child-Sultan, it would be as good as forgotten, and he would only be remembered as the ‘son of the Chinese woman’.

The officers of the Nizamiya were nevertheless opposed to the Sultana. Terken Khatun was second on their list of outlaws, just after Malikshah, to whose eldest son, Barkiyaruk aged eleven, they gave their support. They surrounded him, advised him and led him off to battle. The first skirmishes left them with the advantage and the Sultana had to fall back on Isfahan which was soon under siege. Terken, however, was not a woman to admit defeat and to defend herself she was willing to use tricks which would long be famous.

For example, to several provincial governors she wrote letters worded as follows: ‘I am a widow with the care of a minor who needs a father to guide his steps and to steer the empire in his name. Who better than you could fill this role? Come as quickly as possible at the head of your troops, lift the siege and you will enter Isfahan triumphant, I shall marry you and you will wield complete power.’ The argument carried weight and emirs rushed from Azerbaijan as from Syria, and even though they did not manage to break the siege on the capital they did provide long months of respite for the Sultana.

Terken also re-established contact with Hassan Sabbah. ‘Did I not promise you Nizam al-Mulk’s head? I offered it to you. Today I am offering you Isfahan, the capital of the empire. I know that you have many men in this city. Why do they live in the shadows? Tell them to show themselves and they will obtain gold and arms and will be able to preach in the open.’ In fact, after so many years of persecution, hundreds of Ismailis revealed themselves. The number of conversions increased and in certain quarters they formed armed militias on behalf of the Sultana.

However, Terken’s last ruse was probably the most ingenious and the most audacious: emirs from her entourage presented themselves one day at the enemy camp, announcing to Barkiyaruk that they had decided to abandon the Sultana, that their troops were on the verge of revolt and that, if he would agree to accompany them and infiltrate the city with them, they could give the signal for an uprising: Terken and her son would be massacred, and Barkiyaruk would be able to establish himself firmly on the throne. The year was 1094, the pretender was thirteen years old and the proposition took him in — to win control of the city in person when his emirs had been besieging it for over a year! He jumped at the chance. The following night, he slipped out of his camp unbeknown to his men, presented himself with Terken’s emissaries at the gate of Kahab, which opened for him as if by magic. He walked in decisively, surrounded by an escort which was a little too jolly for his taste, but whose mood he ascribed to the unmitigated success of his exploit. If the men laughed too loud, he ordered them to calm down and they responded respectfully before bursting out laughing even more.

Alas — when he started to suspect their cheerfulness, it was too late. They pinned him down, bound his hands and feet, gagged and blindfolded him and led him amid much scoffing to the gate of the harem. The chief eunuch, woken from his sleep, ran off to warn Terken of their arrival. It was up to her to decide the fate of her own son’s rival — whether she should have him strangled or just blinded. The eunuch had disappeared in the long dark corridor when suddenly shouts, cries and sobs broke out. Intrigued and worried, the officers, who could not hold back from penetrating the forbidden zone, came upon a talkative old servant: Terken Khatun had just been discovered dead in her bed with the instrument of the crime at her side — a large soft cushion with which she had been smothered. A eunuch with sturdy arms had disappeared and a servant-girl remembered that he had been introduced into the harem some years earlier upon Nizam al-Mulk’s recommendation.

CHAPTER 21

What a strange dilemma for Terken’s followers: their Sultana was dead, but their principal adversary was at their mercy; their capital was surrounded but the very person laying the siege was now their prisoner. What should they do with him? Jahan had taken over Terken’s place as guardian of the child-Sultan, and it was to her that the discussion was brought so that she might settle it. Until then she had shown herself to be extremely resourceful, but her mistress’s death had shaken the ground under her feet. To whom could she turn, whom could she consult if not Omar!

Omar arrived to find her seated on Terken’s divan at the foot of the drawn curtain with her head lowered and her tresses spread carelessly over her shoulders. The Sultan was next to her, dressed all in silk with a turban on his little head. He was sitting on his cushion; his face was red and spotty, and his eyes half-closed. He looked bored.

Omar went up to Jahan. He took her hand tenderly, stroked her face with his palm and whispered:

‘I have just been told about Terken Khatun. You have done well to call me to your side.’

When he caressed her hair, Jahan pushed him away.

‘If I have summoned you, it is not so that you can console me, but to consult you on a serious matter.’

Omar took a step backwards, crossed his arms and listened.

‘Barkiyaruk had been caught in a trap and is a prisoner in the palace. The men are divided over the fate that should be meted out to him. Some demand his death, notably those who set the trap. They want to be certain of never having to answer to him for their actions. Others prefer to come to an understanding with him, place him on the throne and win his favours hoping that he will forget his misadventure. Still others have suggested keeping him hostage in order to negotiate with the besiegers. Which path do you advise me to follow?’

‘You snatched me away from my books to ask me that?’

Jahan stood up. She was furious.

‘Does the matter not appear sufficiently serious? My life depends on it. The fate of thousands of people, this city and this empire may depend on your decision. Yet you, Omar Khayyam, you do not wish to be disturbed for such a trifle!’

He went towards the door, and just as he was about to open it he came back over to Jahan.

‘I am consulted after the crime has been committed. What do you want me to tell your friends now? If I counsel them to release the youth, how could I guarantee that he will not wish to slit their throats tomorrow? If I counsel them to keep him as a hostage, or to kill him, I become their accomplice. Leave me out of these quarrels, Jahan, and you too should leave yourself out.’

He looked at her with compassion.

‘One son of a Turkish Sultan replaces another son, a Vizir dismisses a Vizir. By God, Jahan, how can you spend the best years of your life in this cage of wild animals? Let them rip each other’s throats out, kill and die. Will the sun be any less bright or wine any less smooth?’

‘Lower your voice, Omar. You are frightening the child. And we can be overheard in the adjoining rooms.’

Omar persevered:

‘Did you not call me to ask my opinion? Well I shall not beat around the bush: leave this room, abandon this palace, do not look back, do not say goodbye, do not even collect your belongings. Come, give me your hand and let us go home. You will compose your poems and I shall observe my stars. Every evening you will come and curl up naked next to me. Wine with the aroma of musk will make us sing and the world will cease to exist for us. We shall cross it without seeing or hearing it. Neither its mud nor its blood will cleave to the soles of our feet.’

Jahan’s eyes were misty.

‘If I could return to that age of innocence, do you think that I would hesitate? However, it is too late, I have gone too far. If Nizam al-Mulk’s men take Isfahan tomorrow they will not spare me. I am on their list of outlaws.’

‘I was Nizam’s best friend and I shall protect you. They will not come into my house to make off with my wife.’

‘Open your eyes, Omar. You do not know these men. They think only of vengeance. Yesterday they rebuked you for having saved Hassan Sabbah’s head. Tomorrow they will reproach you for having hidden Jahan and they will kill you at the same time as me.’

‘So we will stay together at home, and if my fate is to die with you, I will resign myself to it.’

She straightened herself up.

‘I will not resign myself! I am here in this palace, surrounded by troops who are faithful to me, in a city which is now mine and I shall fight to the end. If I die, it will be as a Sultana.’

‘And how do Sultana’s die? Poisoned, smothered, strangled! Or in childbirth! Pomp will not help you to escape human misery.’

They looked at each in silence for a long while. Jahan drew close to Omar and placed on his lips a kiss which she wanted to be impassioned and sank into his arms, but he pushed her aside, not able to bear farewells. He begged her one last time:

‘If you still attach the least value to our love, come with me, Jahan. The table is laid on the terrace, a light wind from the Yellow Mountains will blow over us and within two hours we will be drunk and we will go to lie down. I shall tell the servants not to wake us until Isfahan changes master.’

CHAPTER 22

That evening the wind from Isfahan carried a sharp perfume of apricot. But how lifeless were the streets! Khayyam took refuge in his observatory. Usually he only had to enter it, look at the sky, and feel in his fingers the graduated disks of the astrolobe in order for the worries of the world to vanish. Not this time. The stars were taciturn, there was no music, not a sound, no secrets. Omar did not rush them for they had to have good reason for remaining silent. He decided to go home and walked slowly holding a reed which sometimes hit against a tuft of grass or an unruly branch.

He was now stretched out in his bedroom with the lights out; his arms desperately held an imaginary Jahan, his eyes were red from tears and wine. On the floor to his left were a carafe and a silver goblet which he seized from time to time with a weary hand in order to take long pensive drafts of disillusion. His lips held a dialogue with him, with Jahan, with Nizam but above all with God. Who else could hold together this universe which was crumbling?

It was not until dawn that an exhausted Omar, his head clouded, finally gave himself over to sleep. How many hours did he sleep? The sound of footsteps woke him up. The sun was already high, and, pouring through a slit in the tenting, forced him to shield his eyes. He was able to make out in the doorway the man whose noisy arrival had disturbed him. He was big and wore a moustache. His hand was tapping the sheath of his sword with a maternal gesture. His head was bound in a bright green turban and on his shoulders was the short velvet cape of the officers of the Nizamiya.

‘Who are you?’ Khayyam asked with a yawn. ‘Who gave you rights over my sleep?’

‘Has the master never seen me with Nizam al-Mulk? I was his bodyguard, his shadow. They call me Vartan the Armenian.’

Omar remembered now and it hardly reassured him. He felt as if a cord were being knotted from his neck to his gut. However, if he was afraid, he did not want to show it.

‘His bodyguard and shadow you say. So it was up to you to protect him from the assassin?’

‘He had ordered me to stay away. Everyone knows that he wanted to die like that. I could have killed one murderer and another would have sprung up. Who am I to intercede between my master and his fate?’

‘And what do you want?’

‘Last night, our troops slipped into Isfahan. The garrison rallied to us. Sultan Barkiyaruk has been rescued and this city belongs to him from now on.’

Khayyam sat bolt upright.

‘Jahan!’

It was a shout and an anguished question. Vartan said nothing. His worried air jarred with his martial bearing. Omar thought he could read in his eyes a monstrous admission. The officer muttered:

‘I really wanted to try and save her. I would have been so proud to present myself to the illustrious Khayyam, bringing to him his spouse, unharmed! But I arrived too late. All the people of the palace had been massacred by the soldiers.’

Omar went toward the officer and punched him as hard as he could without even succeeding in shaking him.

‘And you have come here to tell me that!’

The officer kept his hand on the sheath of his sword but had not drawn it. He spoke calmly.

‘I came for something else completely. The officers of the Nizamiya have decided that you must die. When you wound the lion, they say, it is wise to finish him off. I took on myself the task of putting you to death.’

Khayyam suddenly became calmer. He would keep his bearing up to the end. How many sages had devoted their whole life to reach this peak of the human condition! He did not plead for his life, but on the contrary, he felt his fear wane by the second and he thought above all of Jahan. He had no doubt that she too had kept her bearing.

‘I would never have pardoned those who killed my wife. My whole life I would have been their enemy, and my whole life I would have dreamed of seeing them impaled! You are absolutely right to rid yourselves of me!’

‘It is not my opinion, master. It was up to five officers to decide your fate. My companions all wanted your death and I was the only one to oppose it.’

‘You were wrong. Your companions seem to be wiser.’

‘I often saw you with Nizam al-Mulk. You were sitting down conversing like father and son. He never stopped loving you in spite of your wife’s schemes. If he were here with us, he would not have condemned you. He would also have forgiven her, for your sake.’

Khayyam took a close, hard look at his visitor, as if he had just now discovered his presence.

‘If you were against my death, why did they choose you to come and execute me?’

‘It was I who offered myself. The others would have killed you, but I planned to leave you alive — otherwise why would I have stayed talking with you?’

‘And how will you explain this to your companions?’

‘I will not explain anything. I shall go away. I shall follow you.’

‘You announce it so calmly, as if it were a long-standing decision.’

‘It is the very truth. I do not act impulsively. I was the most faithful servant of Nizam al-Mulk — I believed in him. If God had allowed it, I would have died to protect him. However, long ago I decided that, if the master should disappear, I would serve neither his sons nor his successors and I would forever give up the profession of the sword. The circumstances of his death have forced me to use it one last time. I was involved in the murder of Malikshah and I do not regret it: he had betrayed his tutor, his father, the man who raised him up to the summit; he thus deserved to die. I had to kill, but that has not made me a killer. I would never have shed the blood of a woman, and when my companions outlawed Khayyam, I understood that the time had come for me to leave, to change my life and to became a hermit or a wandering poet. If you want, master, collect some belongings and we shall leave this city as soon as possible.’

‘To go where?’

‘We shall take whatever path you wish. I shall follow you everywhere, as a disciple, and my sword will protect you. We will be able to return when the tumult has died down.’

While the officer was readying the mounts, Omar hurriedly gathered up his manuscript, his writing case, his flask and a purse bulging with gold. They rode right through the oasis of Isfahan to the suburb of Marbine toward the West without being troubled by the numerous soldiers. One word from Vartan was enough for the gates to be opened and the guards to stand aside respectfully. The servility shown to Vartan did not fail to intrigue Omar, who nevertheless avoided questioning his companion. For the moment he had no choice other than to trust in him.

They had been gone less than an hour before a seething crowd came to pillage Khayyam’s house and set it on fire. By the end of the afternoon the observatory had been laid waste. At the same moment, the lifeless body of Jahan was interred at the foot of the mulberry tree which bordered the palace garden.

There would be no tombstone to show posterity her place of burial.

A parable from the Samarkand Manuscript:

‘Three friends were taking a walk on the high plateaus of Persia. A panther sprang out at them with all the fierceness in the world.

‘The panther looked at the three men for a long while and then ran toward them.

‘The first was the oldest, the richest and the most powerful. He cried out: “I am the master of these districts. I shall never allow a beast to ravage the lands which belong to me.” He had with him two hunting dogs and set them on to the panther. They managed to bite it but the panther only became stronger, overwhelmed them, jumped on their master and ripped out his intestines.

‘Thus was the fate of Nizam al-Mulk.

‘The second man wondered: “I am a man of knowledge, everyone honours and respects me. Why should my fate be decided by dogs and a panther?” He turned tail and fled without waiting for the outcome of the fight. Since then he has wandered from cave to cave, from hut to hut, convinced that the wild beast was always at his heels.

‘Thus was the fate of Omar Khayyam.

‘The third was a man of belief. He walked toward the panther with his hands open, with a dominating demeanour and an eloquent words. “You are welcome to these lands,” he said to the panther. “My companions were richer than I and you despoiled them. They were prouder than I and you have laid them low.” The beast listened, seduced and subdued. The man had the advantage over the panther, and managed to train it. Since then no panther has dared to approach him and men keep away.’

The Manuscript concludes: ‘When the time of upheavals arrived, no one could stop its course, no one could flee it but some managed to use it. Hassan Sabbah, more than anyone, knew how to tame the ferocity of the world. He sowed fear all around him in order to make a tiny piece of calm for himself in his redoubt of Alamut.’

No sooner had he gained control of the fortress than Hassan Sabbah undertook actions to assure that he was sealed off from any contact with the outside world. His first priority was to render impossible any enemy penetration. With the help of some clever building he thus improved the already exceptional quality of the site by blocking off the slightest passageway between two hills.

However these fortifications were not enough for Hassan. Even if an assault was impossible, the besiegers would still hope to starve him out or cut off his water. It is thus that most sieges end. And it was on this point that Alamut was particularly vulnerable, having only meagre stocks of drinking water. The Grand Master found the answer. Instead of drawing his water from the neighbouring rivers, he had an impressive network of cisterns and canals dug in the mountain to collect rainwater and the melting snows. The visitor to the ruins of the castle today can still admire, in the large room where Hassan lived, a ‘magic basin’ which filled itself up with as much water as was taken out from it, and which, by a stroke of ingenuity, never overflowed.

For provisions, the Grand Master had storage shafts fitted out for oil, vinegar and honey, he also stockpiled barley, sheep fat and dried fruit in sufficient quantities to get them through an almost total blockade — which, at that time, was far beyond the capacity of any besiegers, particularly in a region which had a harsh winter.

Hassan thus had an infallible shield. He had, one could say, the ultimate defensive weapon. With his devoted killers, he also possessed the ultimate offensive weapon. How can precautions be taken against a man intent on dying? All protection is based upon dissuasion, and we know that important personages are surrounded by an imposing guard whose role is to make any potential attacker fear inevitable death. But what if the attacker is not afraid of dying, and has been convinced that martyrdom is a short-cut to paradise? What if he has imprinted in his mind the words of the Preacher: ‘You are not made for this world, but for the next. Can a fish be afraid if someone threatens to throw it into the sea?’ If, moreover, the assassin had succeeded in infiltrating the victim’s entourage? Nothing could be done to stop him. ‘I am less powerful than the Sultan but I can harm you more than he can,’ Hassan wrote one day to a provincial governor.

Thus, having forged the most perfect tools of war imaginable, Hassan Sabbah installed himself in his fortress and never left it again; his biographers even say that during the last thirty years of his life he only went out of his house twice, and both times it was to go up on the roof! Morning and evening he was there, sitting cross-legged on a mat which his body had worn out but which he never wished to change or have repaired. He taught, he wrote, he set his killers on to his enemies, and, five times a day he prayed on the same mat along with whoever was visiting him at the time.

For the benefit of those who have never had the opportunity to visit the ruins of Alamut, it is worth pointing out that this site would not have acquired such historical importance if its only advantage had been its inaccessibility and if the plateau at the mountain’s summit had not been large enough to support a town, or at least a very large village. At the time of the Assassins it was reached by a narrow tunnel to the east which emerged into the lower fortress with its tangle of alleys and little mud houses in the shadow of the walls; the upper fortress was reached by crossing the maydan, the large square, the only meeting area for the whole community. This was shaped like a bottle lying on its side, with its wide base in the east and its neck toward the west. The bottleneck itself was a heavily guarded corridor at the end of which lay Hassan’s house whose single window looked out on to a precipice. It was a fortress within a fortress.

By means of the spectacular murders which he ordered, and the legends which grew up around him, his sect and his castle, the Grand Master of the Assassins terrorized the Orient and the Occident over a long period. In every Muslim town high officials fell and even the crusaders had two or three eminent victims to lament. However it is all too often forgotten that it was primarily at Alamut that terror reigned.

What reign is worse than that of militant virtue? The Supreme Preacher wanted to regulate every second of his adherents’ lives. He proscribed all musical instruments; if he discovered the smallest flute he would break it in public and throw it into the flames; the transgressor was put in irons and given a good whipping before being expelled from the community. The use of alcoholic drinks was even more severely punished. Hassan’s own son, found intoxicated one evening by his father, was condemned to death on the spot; in spite of his mother’s pleadings he was decapitated at dawn the next day as an example. No one ever dared to swallow a mouthful of wine.

The justice of Alamut was, to say the least, speedy. It was said that a crime had been committed one day within the fortress and that a witness had accused Hassan’s second son. Without attempting to verify the fact, Hassan had his last son’s head cut off. A few days later, the real culprit confessed; he in turn was decapitated.

Biographers of the Grand Master mention the slaughter of his son in order to illustrate his strictness and impartiality; they point out that the community of Alamut became a haven of virtue and morality through the blessing of such exemplary discipline, and this can very easily be believed; however, we know from various sources that the day after these executions Hassan’s only wife as well as his daughters rose up against his authority, and that he ordered them thrown out of Alamut and recommended that his successors do the same in the future in order to avoid the womenfolk having any influence over their correct judgement.

To loose himself from the world, create a void around his person, surround himself with walls of stone and fear — such seems to have been Hassan Sabbah’s demented dream.

However this void started to stifle him. The most powerful kings have jesters or jovial companions to lighten the oppressive atmosphere which surrounds them. The man with the bulging eyes was incurably alone, walled up in his fortress, shut up in his house, closed to himself. He had no one to talk to, only docile subjects, dumb servants and awestruck disciples.

Of all the people he had known, there was only one to whom he could still talk, if not as friend to friend then at least as man to man and that was Khayyam. He had thus written him a letter in which despair disguised itself behind a thick façade of pride:

‘Instead of living as a fugitive, why do you not come to Alamut? Like you, I have been persecuted but now it is I who persecute. Here you will be protected, looked after and respected. No emir on earth will be able to harm a hair of your head. I have founded a huge library where you will find the rarest works and will be able to read and write at leisure. In this place you will find peace.’

CHAPTER 23

Since he had left Isfahan, Khayyam had been leading effectively the existence of a fugitive and a pariah. When he betook himself to Baghdad, the Caliph forbad him to speak in public or to receive his numerous admirers who presented themselves at his door. When he visited Mecca, his detractors sniggered: ‘A pilgrimage of servility!’ When, on his return, he passed through Basra, the sons of the qadi of the city came to ask him, in the politest of terms, to cut short his stay.

His fate then was unsettling in the extreme. No one contested his genius or his erudition; wherever he went large groups of intellectuals gathered around him. He was questioned on astrology, algebra, medicine and even religious problems and he was listened to warmly. However, without fail, a few days or weeks after his arrival, a clique would emerge and would disseminate all sorts of lies. He would be called an infidel or a heretic, and his friendship with Hassan Sabbah would be recalled. Sometimes the accusations of being an alchemist, raised against him of old in Samarkand, were dredged up. Ardent opponents were sent to break up his discussions and those who dared shelter him were threatened with reprisals. Usually, he put up no opposition. As soon as he felt the atmosphere become uncomfortable he would feign illness in order not to appear in public again, and he would then not linger, but would go away to somewhere new where his stay would be just as short and precarious.

Honoured and cursed, with no companion other than Vartan, he was constantly in search of a roof, a protector and a patron too; the generous pension which Nizam had allotted to him was no longer being paid out since his death and he was forced to visit princes and governors and prepare their monthly horoscopes. However, even though he was often in need, he managed to get himself paid without bowing his head.

It was told that a vizir, astonished to hear Omar demand a sum of five thousand golden dinars, remarked:

‘Do you know that I myself am not paid that much?’

‘That is quite normal,’ retorted Khayyam.

‘And how so?’

‘Because there is only a handful of intellectuals like me every century, while one could name five hundred vizirs like you every year.’

The chroniclers state that the man found this extremely amusing and went on to satisfy Khayyam’s demands, courteously recognising the correctness of such a haughty equation.

‘No Sultan is happier than I, no beggar sadder,’ Omar wrote during this period.

The years passed and we find him again in 1114 in the city of Merv, the old capital of Khorassan, still famous for its silks and its ten libraries, but deprived for some time now of any political role. To restore some lustre to its tarnished court, the local sovereign was trying to attract the celebrities of the time. He knew just how to seduce Khayyam — by offering to build him an observatory identical to that of Isfahan. At sixty-six years of age, Omar no longer dreamt of anything else and he accepted with adolescent enthusiasm and set right down to work on the project. Soon the building was rising up on a hilltop in the district of Bab Senjan in the middle of a garden of daffodils and white mulberries.

Omar was happy for two years and he worked feverishly. We are told that he carried out astonishing experiments in weather forecasting, his knowledge of the sky allowing him to note exactly the changes of climate over five successive days. He also developed his mathematical theories which were way ahead of his time. It was not until the nineteenth century that European researchers recognized him to be the brilliant precursor of non-Euclidean geometry. He also wrote rubaiyaat, stimulated, we must believe, by the outstanding quality of Merv’s vineyards.

For all that, there was evidently a negative side. Omar was obliged to be present at endless palace ceremonies and to pay homage solemnly to the sovereign at each feast, whenever a prince was circumcised, upon the sovereign’s return from the hunt or the country, and to be in frequent attendance at the diwan, ready to utter a witticism, a quotation or a fitting verse. These sessions exhausted Omar. As well as the impression of having put on the skin of a performing bear, he was always aware of losing precious time at the palace which he could have turned to better use at his work table, not to mention the risk of unpleasant encounters.

Like the one which took place that cold February day, when someone picked a memorable quarrel with him over a youthful quatrain which had fallen into jealous ears. That day the diwan was packed with beturbaned intellectuals and the monarch was overjoyed as he blissfully contemplated his court.

When Omar arrived, debate was already raging on a subject which fascinated the men of religion: ‘Could the universe have been created better?’ Those who replied ‘yes’ laid themselves open to accusation of impiety since they implied that God had not taken sufficient care over his work.

Those who replied ‘no’ were also open to accusation of impiety, as they were giving to understand that the Almighty was incapable of doing better.

They were in hot discussion, with much gesticulating. Khayyam was happy absent-mindedly to watch everyone’s expressions. However a speaker called him, heaped praise upon his erudition and asked for his opinion. Omar cleared his throat. He had not yet uttered a single syllable when the grand qadi of Merv, who had never appreciated Khayyam’s presence in his city, nor the considerations constantly shown to him, jumped up from his place and pointed an accusing finger at him.

‘I did not know that an atheist could express opinions on the questions of our faith!’

Omar gave a tired but worried smile.

‘Who gives you permission to treat me as an atheist? At least wait until you have heard me out!’

‘I have no need to hear you. Is it not to you that this verse has been attributed: “If You punish with evil the evil I have done, tell, what is the difference between You and me?” Is not the man who puts forward such words an atheist?’

Omar shrugged.

‘If I did not believe that God existed, I would not address Him!’

‘But you would address him in that tone?’ sniggered the qadi.

‘It is to sultans and qadis that one must speak with circumlocution — not to the Creator. God is great, he has nothing to do with our airs and graces. He made me a thinker and so I think, and I give over to him the undiluted fruits of my thought.’

To murmurs of approval from those present, the qadi withdrew, uttering dire threats. When he had stopped laughing, the sovereign was beset with worry, fearing the consequences in certain quarters. As his expression became gloomy his visitors hurried to take their leave.

As he returned home accompanied by Vartan, Omar inveighed against court life with its snares and time-wasting, promising himself that he would leave Merv as soon as possible; his disciple was not too concerned as it was the seventh time that his master had threatened to leave; as a rule, he was much calmer the next day having taken up his research again, and that was the appropriate time to console him.

That evening, back in his room, Omar wrote in his book a vexed quatrain which ended as follows:

Swap your turban for some wine

And without regrets, put on a woollen hat!

Then he slipped the manuscript into its usual hiding place, between the bed and the wall. When he woke up, he wanted to re-read his rubai since one word seemed to him out of place. He groped about and grasped the book. It was as he opened it that he discovered the letter from Hassan Sabbah which had been slipped between the two pages as he slept.

In an instant Omar recognized the writing and the nomenclature agreed upon between them forty years earlier: The friend from the caravansary at Kashan.’ As he read it he could not help bursting out laughing. Vartan, who was just waking up in his adjoining room came in to see what was amusing his master so much after his ill feelings of the night before.

‘We have just received a generous invitation. We can be lodged, protected and have all our expenses looked after until the end of our lives.’

‘By which great prince?’

‘The prince of Alamut.’

Vartan jumped. He felt guilty.

‘How could the letter have got here? I checked all the doors and windows before I went to lie down!’

‘Do not try to find out. Sultans and Caliphs themselves have given up protecting themselves. When Hassan decides to send you a message or a dagger’s blade, you can be certain of receiving it whether your doors are wide open or padlocked.’

The disciple held the letter to his moustache, sniffed it noisily and then read and re-read it.

‘That demon may well have a point,’ he concluded. ‘It is indeed at Alamut that your safety would be best assured. After all, Hassan is your oldest friend.’

‘For the moment, my oldest friend is the new wine of Merv!’

With childish glee, Omar set to tearing up the sheet of paper into a multitude of little pieces which he threw up in the air. As he watched them flutter down, he started to speak again:

‘What do we have in common, this man and I? I worship life and he worships death. I write: “If you cannot love, what use is the rising and the setting of the sun?” Hassan demands his men to give no heed to love, music, poetry, wine or the sun. He despises the most beautiful things in all creation, yet he dares pronounce the name of the Creator — and to promise people paradise! Believe you me, if his fortress were the gateway of paradise, I would renounce paradise! I shall never set foot in that den of pious shams.’

Vartan sat down and had a good scratch of his neck before saying, in the most exhausted of voices:

‘If that is your response then the time has come for me to reveal to you a secret which has been kept too long. Have you never wondered why the soldiers let us pass through so easily when we fled from Isfahan?’

‘It has always intrigued me, but since I have seen nothing but loyalty, devotion and filial affection from you for years, I have not wished to stir up the past.’

‘That day, the officers of the Nizamiya knew that I was going to save you and leave with you. That was part of a strategy which I had drawn up.’

Before carrying on, he served his master, and himself, a useful glass of grenadine wine.

‘You do know that the list of outlaws set up by Nizam al-Mulk contained the name of one man whom we had never managed to reach — Hassan Sabbah. Was he not the man principally responsible for the assassination? My plan was simple: to leave with you in the hope that you would take refuge in Alamut. I would have accompanied you, asking you not to reveal my identity and I would have found an occasion to rid the Muslims and the entire world of that demon. However, you have stubbornly refused to set foot in the dark fortress.’

‘Yet you stayed by my side all this time.’

‘At the beginning I thought I would just have to be patient and that when you had been chased out of fifteen cities in succession you would resign yourself to taking the road to Alamut. Then, as the years passed, I grew attached to you, my companions have been dispersed to the four corners of the empire and my determination has wavered. See now how Omar Khayyam has saved Hassan Sabbah’s life a second time.’

‘Do not bewail it — it may well be your life that I have saved.’

‘In truth he must be very well protected in his hideout.’

Vartan could not suppress all traces of bitterness, which amused Khayyam.

‘Having said that, if you had revealed your plan to me, doubtless I would have led you to Alamut.’

The disciple jumped out of his seat.

‘Is that the truth?’

‘No. Sit yourself down! I only said that to give you cause for regret! In spite of all the evil Hassan has managed to commit, if I were to see him drowning in the River Murghab I would offer him my hand in help.’

‘Well I would shove his head down under the water! However, your attitude gives me some comfort, and it is just because you are capable of such words and acts that I chose to stay in your company. And I do not regret that.’

Khayyam gave his disciple a long hug.

‘I am happy that my doubts about you have been dispelled. I am old now and need to know that I have a trusty man at my side — because of the manuscript. That it is the most precious thing I possess. In order to take on the world Hassan Sabbah has built Alamut, whereas I have only constructed this minuscule paper castle, but I choose to believe that it will outlive Alamut. Nothing frightens me more than to think that upon my death my manuscript could fall into careless or malevolent hands.’

In an almost offhand manner he held the secret book out to Vartan:

‘You may open it, since you will be its guardian.’

The disciple was moved.

‘Would anyone else have had this privilege before me?’

‘Two people. Jahan, after a quarrel in Samarkand, and Hassan when we were living in the same room upon our arrival in Isfahan.

‘You trusted him to that extent?’

‘To tell you the truth, I did not. However, I often wanted to write and he ended up noticing the manuscript. I preferred to show it to him myself since, anyhow, he could have read it behind my back. Moreover, I deemed him capable of keeping a secret.’

‘He really does know how to keep a secret — the better to use it against you.’

Henceforth the manuscript would spend its night in Vartan’s room. At the slightest noise the former officer would be bolt upright, brandishing his sword, his ears pricked up; he would check every room in the house and then go out to make a round of the garden. Upon his return he would not always be able to fall asleep again and so would light a lamp on his table, read a quatrain which he would memorize and then indefatigably go over it in his head to draw out its most profound meanings and to try and guess under what circumstances his master had been able to write it.

At the end of a string of disturbed nights, an idea took shape in his thoughts which received Omar’s hearty approval: to write the manuscript’s history in the margins of the Rubaiyaat and through this device the history of Khayyam himself, his childhood in Nishapur, his youth in Samarkand, his fame in Isfahan, his meetings with Abu Taher, Jahan, Hassan, Nizam and many others. Thus it was, under Khayyam’s supervision, and sometimes with him dictating the words, that the first pages of the chronicle were written. Vartan threw himself into it, writing each phrase down ten or fifteen times on a loose sheet before transcribing it, in a thin, angular and laborious hand — which, one day, was brutally interrupted in the middle of a phrase.

Omar had woken up early that morning. He called Vartan who did not reply. Another night spent writing, Khayyam said to himself in a fatherly way. He let him rest a while longer, poured himself a morning drink, just a drop at the bottom of the glass which he swallowed in one gulp followed by a whole glassful which he carried with him as he went for a walk in the garden. He walked around it, diverting himself by blowing on the dew which was still on the flowers, then he went off to gather some juicy white mulberries which he placed on his tongue and squashed against his palate with every sip of wine.

He was enjoying himself so much that a good hour had passed before he decided to go back in. It was time for Vartan to get up. He did not call him again, but went straight into his room to find him stretched out on the ground, his throat black with blood, his mouth and eyes open and set rigid as if in a last suffocated cry.

On his table between the lamp and the writing desk was the dagger with which the crime had been committed. It was planted in a curled up sheet of paper which Omar unrolled to read:

‘Your manuscript has gone on ahead of you to Alamut.’

CHAPTER 24

Omar Khayyam mourned his disciple with the same dignity, the same resignation and the same discreet agony as he had mourned other friends. ‘We were drinking the same wine, but they got drunk two or three rounds before me.’ Anyway, how could he deny that it was the loss of the manuscript which affected him most grievously? He was certainly able to reproduce it; he remembered its every letter but apparently he did not want to, for there is no trace of a rewritten version. It seems that Khayyam learnt a wise lesson from the theft of his manuscript; he would never more try to have control over either his future or that of his poems.

He soon left Merv, not for Alamut — not once did he envisage going there! — but for his home town. ‘It is time,’ he told himself, ‘to put an end to my peregrinations. Nishapur was the first port of call in my life. Is it not within the order of things that it should also be the last?’ It is there that he was going to live, surrounded by relatives, a younger sister, a considerate brother-in-law, nephews, and above all a niece who was to be the recipient of most of the tenderness of his autumn years. He was also surrounded by his books. He did not write any more, but untiringly re-read the works of his masters.

One day, as he was seated in his room as usual with Avicenna’s Book of Healing on his knees, open at the chapter entitled The One and the Multiple’, Omar felt a dull pain start up. He placed his golden tooth-pick, which he had been holding in his hand, between the leaves to mark the page, closed the book and summoned his family in order to dictate to them his last testament. Then he uttered a prayer which finished with the words: ‘My God, You know that I have sought to perceive You as much as I could. Forgive me if my knowledge of You has been my only path towards You!’

He opened his eyes no more. It was 4 December 1131. Omar Khayyam was in his eighty-fourth year, having been born on 18 June 1048 at daybreak. The fact that the date of birth of a person from that era is known with such precision is indeed extraordinary, but Khayyam showed an astrologer’s obsession with the subject. He had most probably questioned his mother to find out his ascendant, Gemini, and to determine the position of the sun, Mercury and Jupiter at the hour of his coming into the world. Thus he drew up his birth chart and took care to pass it on to the chronicler Beihaki.

Another of his contemporaries, the writer Nizami Aruzi, recounted: ‘I met Omar Khayyam twenty years before his death in the city of Balkh. He had come to stay with one of the notables on the Slave-Traders’ Road, and, knowing of his fame, I shadowed him in order to hear every one of his words. That is how I heard him say: ‘My tomb will be in a place where the north wind scatters flowers every spring.’ His words at first seemed absurd to me; however I knew that a man like him would not speak in an unconsidered manner.’

The witness continued: ‘I passed through Nishapur four years after Khayyam’s death. As I venerated him as one should a master of science, I made a pilgrimage to his last home. A guide led me to the cemetery. Upon turning to the left after entering, I saw the tomb adjoining the wall of a garden. Pear and peach trees spread out their branches and had dropped so much blossom on to his sepulchre that it was hidden under a carpet of petals.’

A drop of water fell into the sea.

A speck of dust came floating down to earth.

What signifies your passage through this world?

A tiny gnat appears — and disappears.

Omar Khayyam was wrong. Far from being as transitory as he said, his existence, or at least that of his quatrains, had just begun. But, was it not for them that the poet, who dared not wish it for himself, wished immortality?

Those who had the terrifying privilege at Alamut of being allowed in to see Hassan Sabbah did not fail to notice the silhouette of a book in a hollow niche in the wall, behind a thick wire grate. No one knew what it was, nor dared to question the Supreme Preacher. It was assumed that he had his reasons for not depositing it in the great library where there were great works which contained the most unspeakable truths.

When Hassan died, at almost eighty years old, the lieutenant he had designated to succeed him did not dare install himself in the master’s den and even less did he dare open the mysterious grate. For a long time after the disappearance of the founder, the inhabitants of Alamut were terrified by the mere sight of the walls which had sheltered him; they avoided venturing toward this previously inhabited quarter lest they come across his shade. The order was still subjected to the rules which Hassan had decreed; the community member’s permanent lot was one of the strictest asceticism. There was no deviation, no pleasure, and only more violence against the outside world, more assassinations than ever, most probably to prove that the leader’s death had in no way weakened his adherents’ resolve.

And did these adherents accept this strictness good-naturedly? Less and less. Murmurs started to be heard. Not so much amongst the veterans who had won Alamut while Hassan was alive; they still lived with the memory of the persecutions they had undergone in their countries of origin and feared lest the slightest relaxation make them more vulnerable. However, these men were becoming less numerous every day and the fortress was more and more inhabited by their sons and grandsons. From the cradle, all of them had been accorded the most rigorous indoctrination which forced them to learn and respect Hassan’s onerous directives as if they were divine revelation. But most of them were becoming more resistant. Life was staking its claim on them again.

Some dared one day to ask why they were forced to spend their whole youth in that barracks-type convent from which all joy had been banished. They were so thoroughly repressed that henceforth they guarded against uttering the slightest discordant opinion. That is, in public, for meetings started to be held secretly indoors. The young conspirators were encouraged by all those women who had seen a son, brother or a husband depart on a secret mission from which he had not returned.

One man made himself the spokesman for this stifled and suppressed longing. No one else would allow himself to be put forward: he was the grandson of the man Hassan had designated as his successor and he himself was named to become the fourth Grand Master of the order upon the death of his father.

He had a distinct advantage over his predecessors. Having been born a little after the death of the founder, he had never had to live under his terror. He observed his home with curiosity, and naturally with a certain amount of apprehension, but without that morbid fascination which paralysed all the others.

He had even gone into the forbidden room once, at the age of seventeen, had walked around it, gone up to the magic basin and dipped his hand into the icy water then stopped in front of the niche which enclosed the manuscript. He almost opened it, but changed his mind, took a step back and then walked backwards out of the room. He did not want to go any further on his first visit.

When the heir wandered, in pensive mood, through the alleyways of Alamut, people gathered around while not getting too close and uttered curious formulae in blessing. He was also called Hassan, like Sabbah, but another name was already being whispered around him: ‘The Redeemer! The Long-Awaited!’ Only one thing was feared: that the old guard of the Assassins, who knew his feelings and who had already heard him rashly censure the prevailing atmosphere of severity, would prevent him from acceding to power. In fact his father did try to impose silence upon him, even accusing him of being an atheist and of betraying the teachings of the Founder. It was even said that he had two hundred and fifty of his partisans put to death and expelled two hundred and fifty others, forcing them to carry the corpses of their executed friends on their backs down to the foot of the mountain. However, due to a trace of paternal feeling, the Grand Master did not dare follow Hassan Sabbah’s tradition of infanticide.

When the father died, in 1162, the rebellious son succeeded him without the slightest hitch. For the first time in a long while real joy broke out in the grey alleyways of Alamut.

But was it really a question of a long-awaited Redeemer, the adherents asked themselves. Was it really this man who was to put an end to put an end to their suffering? He himself said nothing. He continued to walk around distractedly in the alleyways of Alamut or he spent long hours in the library under the protective eye of the copyist who was in charge of it, a man originally from Kirman.

One day he was seen walking decisively toward Hassan Sabbah’s former residence. He threw the door open, walked up to the niche and shook the grate with such violence that it came away from the wall letting a stream of sand and bits of stone pour on to the floor. He lifted out Khayyam’s manuscript, tapped the dust off it, and carried it away with him under his arms.

It was then said that he shut himself up to read, to read and to meditate, until the seventh day, when he gave the order that everyone in Alamut, men, women, and children, should assemble in the maydan, the only place large enough to hold them all.

It was 8 August 1164. The sun of Alamut was beating down on their heads and faces but no one thought of protecting himself. Toward the west there rose a wooden dais, decked out with a huge standard, one red, one green, one yellow and one white, at each of the four corners. It was in this direction that everyone’s gaze was directed.

Suddenly he appeared, dressed all in dazzling white, with his slight young wife behind him, her face unveiled, her eyes cast to the ground and her cheeks flushed with confusion. In the crowd it seemed that this apparition dispelled the last doubts; people were boldly murmuring: ‘It is He. It is the Redeemer!’

Solemnly he climbed the few steps to the platform, and gave his faithful a warm gesture of welcome, intended to silence the murmurings. Then he went on to pronounce one of the most astonishing speeches ever heard on our planet:

‘To all the inhabitants of the world, jinns, men and angels!’ he said. ‘The Mahdi offers you his blessing and pardons all your sins, both past and future.

‘He announces to you that the sacred Law is abolished for the hour of the Resurrection has sounded. God imposed on you his Law to make you earn Paradise and indeed you now deserve it. From today on, Paradise is yours. You are thus free of the yoke of the Law.

‘Everything that was forbidden is permitted, and everything that was obligatory is forbidden!

‘The five daily prayers are forbidden,’ the Redeemer continued. ‘Since we are now in Paradise and in permanent contact with the Creator, we no have any need to address Him at fixed times; those who persist in making the five prayers show thereby how little they believe in the Resurrection. Prayer has become an act of unbelief.’

On the other hand, wine, considered by the Quran to be the drink of Paradise, was from now authorized; not to drink it was considered to be a manifest sign of a lack of faith.

‘When this was proclaimed,’ a Persian historian of the time related, ‘the assembly started to rejoice on the harp and the flute and to drink wine conspicuously on the very steps of the dais.’

It was an excessive reaction, in proportion to the excesses practised by Hassan Sabbah in the name of Quranic Law. Soon the successors of the redeemer would set themselves to diminishing his messianic ardour, but Alamut would never again be this reservoir of martyrs desired by the Supreme Preacher. Life would henceforth be sweet and the long series of murders which had terrorized the cities of Islam would be interrupted. The Ismailis, as radical a sect as there ever was, would change into a community of exemplary tolerance.

In fact, after having announced the good news to the people of Alamut and its surroundings, the Redeemer sent emissaries off to the other Ismaili communities of Asia and Egypt. They were provided with documents signed by his hand, and asked everyone to celebrate the day of redemption whose date they gave according to three different calenders; that of the Hijra of the Prophet, that of Alexander the Greek and that of the ‘most eminent man of both worlds, Omar Khayyam of Nishapur’.

At Alamut the Redeemer gave orders that the Samarkand Manuscript be venerated as a great book of wisdom. Artists were commissioned to ornament it with pictures, to illuminate it and to make for it a casket of chased gold encrusted with precious stones. No one had the right to copy its contents but it was placed permanently on a low cedar table in the small inner room where the librarian worked. There, under his suspicious surveyance some privileged members would come to consult it.

Until then, people knew only a few of Khayyam’s quatrains, which had been composed in his impetuous youth; now many others were learnt, quoted and repeated — some with serious alterations. This period also saw one of the strangest phenomena: whenever a poet composed a quatrain which might cause trouble for him, he would attribute it to Omar; hundreds of false rubaiyaat came to be intermixed with those of Khayyam, to the extent that, in the absence of the manuscript, it was impossible to discern which were truly his.

Was it at the Redeemer’s request that the librarians of Alamut, from father to son, took up the chronicle of the manuscript at the point where Vartan left it? In any case, it is from this single source that we know Khayyam’s posthumous influence on the metamorphosis the Assassins underwent. The concise yet irreplaceable account of history was carried on in the same way for almost a century until a new brutal interruption — the Mongol invasions.

The first wave, led by Chengiz Khan, was, beyond a shadow of doubt, the most devastating scourge ever to cross the Orient. Important cities were razed and their population exterminated. Such was the case with Peking, Bukhara and Samarkand, whose inhabitants were treated like cattle with the young women handed around the officers of the victorious horde, the artisans reduced to slavery and the rest massacred with the sole exception of a minority who, regrouping around the grand qadi of the time, very quickly proclaimed their allegiance to Chengiz Khan.

In spite of this apocalypse, Samarkand appeared to be almost favoured, since it would one day be reborn from its rubble to become the capital of a world-wide empire — that of Tamerlane — in contrast to so many cities which were never to rise again, namely the three great metropolises of Khorassan where all this world’s intellectual activity had long been concentrated: Merv, Balkh and Nishapur — to which list must be added Rayy, the cradle of oriental medicine whose very name would be forgotten. The world would have to wait several centuries in order to see the rebirth, on a neighbouring site, of the city of Teheran.

It was the second wave of Mongol invasions which swept over Alamut. It was a little less bloody, but more far-reaching. How can we not share the terror of the people alive at the time, knowing that the Mongol troops were able, over a period of a few months, to lay waste to Baghdad, Damascus, Cracow in Poland and the Chinese province of Szechuan.

The Assassin’s fortress thus opted to surrender, the fortress which had resisted so many invaders over a hundred and sixty-six years! Prince Hulagu, grandson of Chengiz Khan, came in person to admire this masterpiece of military construction; legend says that he found provisions which had been conserved intact from the days of Hassan Sabbah.

After inspecting the place with his lieutenants, he ordered the soldiers to destroy everything, not to leave a stone untouched, not to spare even the library. However, before setting fire to it, he permitted a thirty-year-old historian, a certain Juvayni, to go inside. He had been in the process of writing a History of the Conqueror of the World at Hulagu’s request, which book is still today our most valuable source on the Mongol invasions. He thus was able to go into this mysterious place where tens of thousands of manuscripts were kept in rows, stacked up or rolled up; outside he was awaited by a Mongol officer and a soldier with a wheelbarrow. What the wheelbarrow could hold would be saved, the rest was to be victim to the flames. There was no question of reading the texts or cataloguing the titles.

A fervent Sunni, Juvayni told himself that his first task was to save the World of God from the fire. He started to pile up as quickly as he could any copies of the Quran, recognizable by their thick binding and stored in the same place. He had a good score of them and made three trips to carry them out to the wheelbarrow which was already almost full. Now, what to chose? Heading toward one of the walls, against which the volumes seemed to be better ordered than elsewhere, he came across innumerable works written by Hassan Sabbah during his thirty years of voluntary reclusion. He chose to save one of them, an autobiography of which he would quote some fragments in his own work. He also found a chronicle of Alamut which was recent and apparently well documented and which related in detail the history of the Redeemer. He hurried to take it away with him, since that episode was totally unknown outside the Ismaili community.

Did the historian know of the existence of the Samarkand Manuscript? It seemed not. Would he have looked for it if he had heard it spoken of, and having thumbed through it, would he have saved it? We do not know. What is told is that he stopped in front of a group of works devoted to the occult science and that he delved into them, forgetting the time. The Mongol officer who came to remind him with a few words had his body covered with thick red-framed armour and had as head protection a helmet which broadened out like long hair toward the neck. He was carrying a torch in his hand and to show just how much in a hurry he was, he placed it next to a pile of dusty scrolls. The historian gave in and gathered into his hands and up to his armpits as many as he could grab, and when the manuscript entitled Eternal Secrets of Stars and Numbers fell to the ground, he did not bend over to pick it up again.

Thus it was that the Assassins’ library burnt for seven days and seven nights, causing the loss of innumerable works, of which there was no copy remaining and which are supposed to have contained the best-guarded secrets in the universe.

For a long time it was believed that the Samarkand Manuscript had also been consumed in the inferno of Alamut.