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In the English language our first popular exposure to the notion of "assassination" was from Shakespeare's Macbeth. For those who have no stomach for Shakespeare, to be quite honest, the trailer to the Michael Fassbender/Marion Cotillard film adaptation of the play is one of the best performances of it, all things considered. It hits the high points, anyway.
[ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3EnDtbg8w]All hail Macbeth![/ame]
The word itself comes from the Islamic world. About 500 years before Shakespeare's time, during the crusades, an Islamic organization of professional murderers rose to notoriety. They possessed a fortress in present day Iran called 'Alamut', conquered by the organization's leader, Hasan-i Sabbah, in 1090 AD.
The original word was 'hashishin', literally: "takers of hashish." They performed their political killings in public places, and this could be considered the original form of suicide-terrorism. Since their assassinations were done in public the killers themselves were sure to be killed in the process by guards, soldiers, etc. The idea among witnesses was that they would have to be drugged to go along with this, so it was assumed that they were high on hashish.
According to legend Hasan-i Sabbah was the most educated man of the medieval world, the rumor was spread that he had locked himself in his library for 35 years, only emerging to survey his lands from the rooftops of the fortress at Alamut and eat/drink. The assassins themselves were educated as well, so that they could infiltrate the courts of the rulers they aimed to kill by posing as scribes, clerks, diplomats, etc.
The order's first successor, Rashid al-Din Sinan, moved the order's focus to Syria. They tried twice (unsuccessfully) to murder Saladin (the Muslim sultan depicted in the film "Kingdom of Heaven" that recaptured Jerusalem from Christian crusader rule). They succeeded in killing one Christian king of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat (Italy) in 1192, along with various mid-level Muslim governors and princes in areas that fall in modern Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Each leader of the order was known by the title "Old Man of the Mountain."
Alamut was taken by the fourth Mongol Khan (third successor of Genghis) in 1256, and to ensure that no one re-established the order, the famous library of Hasan-i Sabbah was burned by the Mongols.
The influence of this history is pretty obvious in modern art involving assassins. For instance, Batman's supposed training in an organization of assassins in the far east. The "Assassin's Creed" series of video games are based on a fictional adaptation of the story of the Islamic assassin order, a novel from the 1930s written by Vladimir Bartol, also titled Alamut.
[ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3EnDtbg8w]All hail Macbeth![/ame]
The word itself comes from the Islamic world. About 500 years before Shakespeare's time, during the crusades, an Islamic organization of professional murderers rose to notoriety. They possessed a fortress in present day Iran called 'Alamut', conquered by the organization's leader, Hasan-i Sabbah, in 1090 AD.
The original word was 'hashishin', literally: "takers of hashish." They performed their political killings in public places, and this could be considered the original form of suicide-terrorism. Since their assassinations were done in public the killers themselves were sure to be killed in the process by guards, soldiers, etc. The idea among witnesses was that they would have to be drugged to go along with this, so it was assumed that they were high on hashish.
According to legend Hasan-i Sabbah was the most educated man of the medieval world, the rumor was spread that he had locked himself in his library for 35 years, only emerging to survey his lands from the rooftops of the fortress at Alamut and eat/drink. The assassins themselves were educated as well, so that they could infiltrate the courts of the rulers they aimed to kill by posing as scribes, clerks, diplomats, etc.
The order's first successor, Rashid al-Din Sinan, moved the order's focus to Syria. They tried twice (unsuccessfully) to murder Saladin (the Muslim sultan depicted in the film "Kingdom of Heaven" that recaptured Jerusalem from Christian crusader rule). They succeeded in killing one Christian king of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat (Italy) in 1192, along with various mid-level Muslim governors and princes in areas that fall in modern Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Each leader of the order was known by the title "Old Man of the Mountain."
Alamut was taken by the fourth Mongol Khan (third successor of Genghis) in 1256, and to ensure that no one re-established the order, the famous library of Hasan-i Sabbah was burned by the Mongols.
The influence of this history is pretty obvious in modern art involving assassins. For instance, Batman's supposed training in an organization of assassins in the far east. The "Assassin's Creed" series of video games are based on a fictional adaptation of the story of the Islamic assassin order, a novel from the 1930s written by Vladimir Bartol, also titled Alamut.
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