page_title: Order of Assassins
section_title: Downfall and Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Order of Assassins / Downfall and Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Siege of Alamut (1256). Tarikh-i Jahangushay-i Juvaini. فارسی: محاصرهٔ الموت (۱۲۵۶). تاریخ جهانگشای جوینی. Français&#160;: Siège d'Alamût (1256). Târîh-i djahângushâ'î Djuvaynî. Русский: Осада Аламута войсками Хулагу (1256). «Тарих-и-джехангуша» Джувейни.
context_page_description: The Assassins were a Nizari Isma'ili sect who lived in the mountains of Persia and in Syria between 1090 and 1275. During that time, they held a strict subterfuge policy throughout the Middle East through the covert murder of first Muslim and later Christian leaders that were considered enemies of their state. The modern term assassination is based on the tactics used by the Assassins. Nizari Isma'ilism formed in the late 11th century after a succession crisis within the Fatimid Caliphate between Nizar ibn al-Mustansir and his half-brother, caliph al-Musta'li. Contemporaneous historians include Arabs ibn al-Qalanisi and Ali ibn al-Athir and the Persian Ata-Malik Juvayni. The first two referred to the Assassins as batiniyya, an epithet widely accepted by Isma'ilis themselves.
context_section_description: The Assassins were eradicated by the Mongol Empire during the well-documented invasion of Khwarazm.  A decree was handed over to the Mongol commander Kitbuqa who began to assault several Assassin fortresses in 1253 before Hulagu's advance in 1256, seizing Alamut late that year.  Lambsar fell in 1257, Masyaf in 1260. The Assassins recaptured and held Alamut for a few months in 1275, but they were crushed and their political power was lost forever.  Rukn al-Din Khurshah was put to death shortly thereafter.
  In Syria, the Assassins joined with other Muslim groups to oppose the Mongols and courted the Mamluks and Baibars.  Baibars entered into a truce with the Hospitallers in 1266 and stipulated that the tribute paid by the Assassins be halted.  The tribute once paid to the Franks was to come instead to Cairo. As early as 1260, Baibars' biographer ibn Abd al-Zahir reported that he was granting Assassin lands in iqtâ' to his generals, and in 1265 began to tax the "gifts" the Assassins received from various princes that apparently included Louis IX of France, Rudolph I of Germany, Alphonso X of Castile, and the Rasulid sultan of Yemen al-Muzaffar Yusuf.  The Syrian branch of the Assassins was taken over by Baibars by 1270, recognizing the threat of an independent force with his sultanate. 
  Najm ad-Din was replaced by Baibars' son-in-law Sarim al-Din Mubarak, governor of al-'Ullaiqah in 1270.  Sarim was soon deposed and sent as a prisoner to Cairo, and Najm ad-Din was restored at chief da'i at Masyaf.  HIs son Shams ad-Din joined him in service, but owing a tribute to the sultan.  The next year, in the midst of the siege of Tripoli, two Assassins were sent by Bohemond VI of Antioch, then count of Tripoli, to murder his attacker Baibars.  Shams ad-Din was arrested in the plot, but released when his father argued his case.  The Isma'ili leaders eventually implicated and agreed to surrender their castles and live at Baibars' court.  Najm ad-Din died in Cairo in 1274.
  In 1271, Baibars' forces seized al-'Ullaiqah and ar-Rusafa, after taking Masyaf the year before.  Later in the year, Shams ad-Din surrendered and was deported to Egypt.  Qala'at al-Khawabi fell that year and the within two years Gerdkuh, and all of the Assassin fortresses were held by the sultan.  With the Assassins under his control, Baibars was able to use them to counter the forces arriving in the Ninth Crusade.  The sultan threatened Bohemond VI and future king Edward I of England was unsuccessfully attacked by Assassins.
  The last known victim of the Assassins was Philip of Montfort, lord of Tyre, long an enemy of Baibars.  Philip helped negotiate the truce following the capture of Damietta by Louis IX and had lost the castle at Toron to Baibars in 1266.  Despite his advanced age, Philip was murdered by Baibars' Assassins in 1270.
  The last of the Assassin strongholds was al-Kahf in 1273.  The Mamluks continued to use the services of the remaining Assassins and the 14th-century scholar ibn Battuta reported their fixed rate of pay per murder, with his children getting the fee if the Assassin did not survive the attack.  There are, nevertheless, no recorded instances of Assassin activity after the later 13th century.  They unremarkably settled near Salamiyah, with a still-large Isma'ili population that recognizes the Aga Khan as their Imam.
caption: View of Alamut besieged. The last Grand Master of the Assassins at Alamut Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah (1255–1256) was executed by Hulagu Khan after a devastating siege
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