16. The Assassins Even Managed to Scare Off the Middle East’s Most Famous Figure
The most famous Order of Assassins’ target to be intimidated instead of murdered was Saladin, leader of the revived Islamic resistance against the Crusades. After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin marched on the Assassins, who had murdered his predecessor, and sought to end the cult once and for all.
However, while encamped with his army near the Assassins’ holdfasts in the mountains of northern Syria, Saladin awoke in his tent one morning to discover that the cultists had bypassed all his bodyguards and layers of protection. They left a menacing letter pinned to his pillow by a poisoned dagger, advising the sultan that they could kill him whenever and wherever they wanted. Saladin turned his army around, abandoned the campaign, and sent officials to negotiate an understanding with the current Old Man of the Mountain. Via such means, a grudging live-and-let-live relationship developed between the Assassins and the region’s powers.