9. A Cult That Turned Intimidation Into an Art Form
Murder was not the Assassins’ only go-to tactic. It was always an option, but they often resorted to intimidation instead. One example is that of the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar, who had rebuffed ambassadors from the cult. He changed his mind after he woke up one morning to find a note pinned to the ground near his bed by a dagger. It informed him that if the Assassins wished him ill, the dagger stuck into the hard ground could have easily been stuck into his soft breast instead. As a result, peace reigned between Seljuks and Assassins for decades. The Old Man of the Mountain was paid protection money, face-savingly described as a “pension”, and was permitted to collect tolls from travelers who passed near his fortresses.
Another whom the Assassins intimidated was Sultan Saladin, leader of the revived Islamic resistance against the Crusades. After he recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin went after the Assassins, who had murdered his predecessor, and sought to end the cult once and for all. However, while encamped near their holdfasts in the mountains of northern Syria, he awoke in his tent one morning to discover that the Assassins had bypassed all his bodyguards and layers of protection. They left a menacing letter pinned to his pillow by a poisoned dagger, that advised 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, grudging live-and-let-live relationships were developed between the Assassins and the region’s powers.