Hashassins: what kind of pot were they smoking?

[ivan astikov]

I'm not bragging, but I've smoked a shed-load of different types of pot, and never once did I get the urge to steal one of my mum's headscarves and go out and strangle one of my enemies with it. Usually, I just wanted to eat lots of junk food and listen to Tangerine Dream.

So, what gives? Were they on some of these super-violent, psychosis-creating techno-skunk strains that are supposed to exist?

[Baldwin]

I don't know whether they were smoking the hashish, or eating it. Also, there's disagreement about whether the name of the Shia sect in question (Hashishin or whatever variant spelling you want to use) means "users of hashish" or "followers of Hassan".

I only smoked hashish once, but it sure didn't make me feel like either killing somebody, or carrying out a complex set of instructions. Heck, maybe they didn't use it themselves, but sold it.

[Baldwin]

Usually, I just wanted to eat lots of junk food and listen to Tangerine Dream.

I just learned that the radio show Hearts of Space is still on. Man, I used to listen to that a quarter-century ago.

[Angua]

So, what gives? Were they on some of these super-violent, psychosis-creating techno-skunk strains that are supposed to exist?

They weren't. The whole thing is a myth.

The term hashishin was used as a derogatory term by the enemies of the Shia sect in question, who used it to add weight to accusations of heresy. I'm a bit zombied at the moment, but this is what I wrote on the subject on NADS a while back:

The myth, according to the Europeans, for those who don't know, goes as follows: The Assassins were a mystical sect of Muslims (or heretical Muslims or heretical Catholics depending on who's writing), who had an undying and fanatically devoted loyalty to their Master, the "Old Man of the Mountain". The way in which the Old Man earnt his followers' undying loyalty and willingness to go to their deaths was to drug them using hashish till they were unconscious, before conducting them into a secret place where they wake up in a beautiful garden, with rivers of milk, honey and wine flowing and surrounded by houris. They get to experience this for a while, but before they really get into the swing of anything, they're drugged again, removed from the garden, and wake up in front of the Master, to be told that they've just experienced paradise, and that they only way to regain admittance to that paradise is to become a shaheed or martyr for the cause. Thus, young men are indoctrinated to kill on their Master's orders, and not to fear death in the carrying out of their orders.

A few points (some historical and some political)

1: The Ismailis of the Fatimid and later Alamut era were indeed termed hashishin, but this was not because of drug use. Rather the term was used as a general derogatory insult towards people whom the authors, in this case Sunni polemicists, thought were of a low moral or religious character (see for example Rosenthal, The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society, Leiden, Brill, 1971 pp 5-18 for further details). The word "assassin" is indeed a Western adaptation of the term.

2: Its known from contemporaneaous Muslim sources, (and ones that are not sympathetic to the Ismailis, eg the Mongols who eventually invaded Alamut and burnt down the library) that firstly Hasan bin Sabah, aka The Old Man of the Mountain was not an ostentatious man, and was in fact rather austere. In fact, it is documented that no one in the valley of Alamut (Ismailis, Muslims and non-Muslims alike) dared to drink wine whilst Sabah was ruler of Alamut as they feared his disapproval on such things.

3: Funny how the above myth bears so much resemblance to modern day Islamist terrorist "motivation", i.e. to gain paradise and be rewarded with 72 virgins. Indeed, Bernard Lewis, in his book on the subject of the Ismailis of Alamut, The Assassins calls the Ismailis the "first terrorists".

A good book, that I can't recommend highly enough is Farhad Daftary's "Legends of the Assassins".

[Zuul]

Very informative, Angua. Thanks!

[AllWalker]

Dude 1: Man, I could so go for a pizza right now.
Dude 2: Oh bro, we're out of pizza! But maybe you could go to this address and kill this guy, then steal his food.
Dude 1: Awesome! Let me get my coat... hey, let's stop off at the duck pond on the way!
Dude 2: Awwwesome.
Evil Master (from behind the curtains): ... dammit.

[Tamerlane]

Just to add to Angua's post, as far as anyone can tell the term was strictly confined to hostile Sunni sources in Syria and exclusively in the form of hashishi ( or the plural hashishiyyin ). Hashish originally meant dry fodder ( like what you would feed your horse ), only later becoming the popular word for hemp. However the term developed for a hashish user was hashshash, which is never found associated with the Ismailis in contemporary documents. There is zero evidence in any contemporary source, either Sunni or Ismaili, alluding to the use of hashish by the sect. Instead it just seems to have been a generalized term of opprobrium used by Syrian Sunnis.

The source for this adoption rests with Silvestre de Sacy, an early 19th century scholar who first teased out the etymology and seems to have conflated it with Marco Polo's fanciful tales to come up the idea ( based on no real evidence at all ) that the leaders ( not the rank and file ) used it to give a foretaste of the paradise to come. This was then taken and run with by later writers to concoct the idea that the individual fida'i were drug-fueled assassins.

[Angua]

Thanks Tamerlane! I didn't know that it was de Sacy who was responsible for the conflation, but that makes some sense from what I know.