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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XXIII. THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
141
i
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strange and mystical doctrines ; as in one direction to the glorification of 'Ali as a kind of incarnation of the Divinity, a character in which his lineal representatives were held in some manner to partake ; in another direction to the development of Pantheism, and release from all positive creed and precepts. Of these Aliites, eventually called Shiáhs, a chief sect, and parent of many heretical branches, were the Isniailites, who took their name, from the seventh Imam, whose return to earth they professed to expect at the end of the World. About A.D. 1090 a branch of the Ismaili stock was established by Hassan, son of Sabah, in the mountainous districts of Northern Persia ; and, before their suppression by the Mongols, 17o years later, the power of the quasi-spiritual dynasty which Hassan founded had spread over the Eastern Kohistan, at least as far as Káïn. Their headquarters were at Alamút (" Eagle's Nest "), about 32 miles north-east of Kazwin, and all over the territory which they held they established fortresses of great strength. De Sacy seems to have proved that they were called Hashíslzíya or Hashíshín, from their use of the preparation of hemp called Hashish; and thence, through their system of murder and terrorism, came the modern application of the word Assassin. The original aim of this system was perhaps that of a kind of Vehmgericht, to punish or terrify orthodox persecutors who were too strong to be faced with the sword. I have adopted in the text one of the readings of the G. Text Asciscin, as expressing the original word with the greatest accuracy that Italian spelling admits. In another author we find it as Chazisii (see Bollandists, May, vol. ii. p. xi.) ; Joinville calls them Assacis ; whilst Nangis and others corrupt the name into Harsacidae, and what not.
The explanation of the name MULEHET as it is in Ramusio, or Mu/cafe as it is in the G. Text (the last expressing in Rusticiano's Pisan tongue the strongly aspirated Mulhété), is given by the former : " This name of Mulehet is as much as to say in the Saracen tongue ` The Abode of Heretics,' " the fact being that it does represent the Arabic term Mulhid, pl. ll7uláhidah, " Impii, heretici," which is in the Persian histories (as of Rashíduddín and Wassáf) the title most commonly used to indicate this community, and which is still applied by orthodox Mahomedans to the Nosairis, Druses, and other sects of that kind, more or less kindred to the Ismaili. The writer of the Tabahat-i-Násiri calls the sectarians of Alamút llluláhidat-ul-maut, " Heretics of Death." * The curious reading of the G. Text which we have preserved " vaut á dire des Aram," should be read as we have rendered it. I conceive that Marco was here unconsciously using one Oriental term to explain another. For it seems possible to explain Aram only as standing for Hardin, in the sense of " wicked " or " reprobate."
In Pauthier's Text, instead of des aravi, we find " veult dire en franfois Diex Terrien," or Terrestrial God. This may have been substituted, in the correction of the original rough dictation, from a perception that the first expression was unintelligible. The new phrase does not indeed convey the meaning of Muláhidalz, but it expresses a main characteristic of the heretical doctrine. The correction was probably made by Polo himself ; it is certainly of very early date. For in the romance of Bauduin de Sebourc, which I believe dates early in the 14th century, the Caliph, on witnessing the extraordinary devotion of the followers of the Old Man (see note I, eh. xxiv.), exclaims :
" Par Mahon . . .
Vous estes Diex en terre, autre coze n'i a ! " (I. p. 36o.)
So also Fr. Jacopo d'Aqui in the Imago Mundi, says of the Assassins : " Dicitur its quod sunt in Paradiso magno Dei Terr eni "—expressions, no doubt, taken in both
cases from Polo's book.
Khanikoff, and before him J. R. Forster, have supposed that the name Mulehet represents Alanzzát. But the resemblance is much closer and more satisfactory to
* Elliot, II. 290.
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