25. Upsetting Medieval Islam’s Balance of Power Between Sunnis and Shiites Set the Stage for a Weird and Scary Cult
Hassan al Sabbah, also known as “The Old Man of the Mountain” – a title passed on to his successor – abandoned his relatively innocent proselytizing to found the Order of Assassins. It was a politico-religious cult that was far from innocent. Despised as heretics by most Muslims, relatively few, and geographically dispersed, the Assassins cult punched far above its weight. It wielded considerable power and influence throughout the Middle East by terrorizing the region for generations.
For much of the medieval era, there had been a rough balance of power between Muslim Sunnis and Shiites. The less numerous Shiites were championed by the smaller but rising Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt, while the more numerous Sunnis were led by the waning Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq. That balance was upset when the Seljuk Turks, who had recently adopted Sunni Islam, fell upon the Fatimids with all the zeal of the recently converted and broke their power between 1056-1060. In the ensuing power vacuum, things took a turn for the weird and terrifying.