Quick Answer
The Mountain Fortress and the Secret Sect
In 1090 CE, a Persian scholar and religious leader named Hasan-i Sabbah captured the mountain fortress of Alamut in the Alborz Mountains of northern Persia. From this nearly impregnable stronghold — perched on a rock rising 600 feet above the valley floor — he established a new political and religious movement that would terrorise the rulers of the Middle East for the next 166 years. His followers were the Nizari Ismailis: a Shia Muslim sect that had broken from the main Ismaili line over a disputed succession to the Fatimid caliphate of Egypt.
The Nizari method was distinctive and feared. Unable to challenge the great Sunni powers — the Seljuk Turks, the Crusader states — in open military battle, they developed a strategy of targeted political assassination. Carefully trained agents (called “fedayeen,” those who sacrifice themselves, by the sect themselves) would infiltrate a court, a mosque, or a public gathering and kill a high-ranking target — a vizier, a general, a caliph, a Crusader lord — before being killed or captured. The killings were often public and deliberate: the point was not just to eliminate the individual but to demonstrate that no ruler was safe from the sect’s reach.
How the Name Spread to Europe
The name hashshashin — hashish users — was applied to the Nizari fighters by their enemies, not by themselves. The origin of the name is debated: it may have been a slur (drug users = madmen), or it may reflect some actual use of hashish in the sect’s rituals or training. Marco Polo, who traveled through Persia around 1273 and visited the ruins of Alamut (already destroyed by the Mongols in 1256), recorded the most famous version of the story: the sect’s leader (the “Old Man of the Mountain”) supposedly gave followers hashish-induced visions of paradise before sending them on missions, inspiring them to die willingly for the promise of such reward.
Whether this story is accurate, exaggerated, or pure legend, it was the version that Crusaders and European travelers brought back to Europe. The Arabic plural hashshashin became the singular assassinus in medieval Latin, assassino in Italian, assassin in French, and finally “assassin” in English. The word arrived in English in the 16th century, and Shakespeare used “assassination” (the abstract noun) in Macbeth in 1606 — one of the word’s earliest recorded English appearances.
The Legacy of a Word and a Method
The Nizari Ismailis as a political power were destroyed by the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. The fortress of Alamut fell in 1256; the Syrian branch of the sect surrendered to the Mamluk sultan Baybars in 1273. But the word “assassin” survived the sect that inspired it and became a permanent part of the political vocabulary of Europe.
In English, “assassin” describes the politically or ideologically motivated murder of a notable person — distinct from ordinary murder by its target (someone of public importance) and its method (typically planned and carried out for political effect). The word carries within its Arabic syllables the memory of a medieval sect that understood political violence as a precision instrument. Their name — applied to them by enemies who called them hashish-users and madmen — became the standard term for a practice as old as politics itself: the killing of leaders to change the course of history.
FAQ
Where does "assassin" come from?
"Assassin" comes from Arabic hashshashin (plural of hashshash, a hashish user), a name applied by their enemies to the Nizari Ismaili sect of medieval Islam. The sect's fighters carried out targeted political killings across the Middle East and were encountered by Crusaders, who brought the name to Europe. It entered Italian as assassino, French as assassin, and English in the 16th century.
Did the Assassins really use hashish?
This is debated. The hashish story was popularised by Marco Polo and other medieval European travellers, who reported that the sect's leader (called the "Old Man of the Mountain") gave his followers hashish to induce visions of paradise, motivating them to carry out suicidal missions. Modern scholars are skeptical: the story may be a slander by the sect's enemies, or a misunderstanding of the word's origin. The sect called their own fighters "fedayeen" (those who sacrifice themselves), not hashshashin.
Who were the Nizari Ismailis?
The Nizari Ismailis were a Shia Muslim sect that emerged in the 11th century under the leadership of Hasan-i Sabbah, who captured the mountain fortress of Alamut in northern Persia in 1090. Operating from a network of mountain strongholds across Persia and Syria, the sect used targeted killings of high-ranking political and religious leaders as a political strategy — eliminating enemies who could not be defeated militarily. They were active from 1090 until the Mongol destruction of Alamut in 1256.
Is "hash" (the drug) related to "assassin"?
Yes — both come from the same Arabic root. "Hash" (or hashish) is a shortened form of Arabic hashish (dried herb, grass) — the same word that appears in hashshashin (hashish users). English adopted "hashish" from Arabic in the 16th century, and "hash" as a short form came later. The word "hash" meaning a chopped mixture of meat and potatoes is a completely different word, from French hacher (to chop).
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