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Title: The Assassins
ISBN: 0465004989
Author:
Bernard Lewis
Publicate Date: 2002-11
Publish: 2002-11
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.47
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.69
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1: Bernard Lewis: Middle East specialist
the assassins is one the best testament for bernard lewis. in this books, the author shows his love for Middle East and Islam culture. writing specifically on a sect, Lewis dissectates the middle age Middle east with a precision rarely seens. the complexity of the region already shows after the birth of Islam and lewis manages to keep the reading simple and entertaining. his research is proven to match the quality of his writing. Lewis has written numerous "current events" books on middle east. this is one goes to the origin (sort of) of the problem.
to read if intrested by the region or Islam.
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2: A politically small yet powerful Islamic sect
You come across a book every once in a while that you know is a solid, scholarly account of a period in history. As such you don't question the author's intent or doubt that his reasoning is flawed. In fact virtually everything you read is dead on, at least from what little you know of that time period. Bernard Lewis does this in his account of a small religious sect in the Middle East called the Ismailis, or commonly known as the Assassins.
Right from the beginning we are given a quick explanation on how the sect's converts and followers were duped into believing wholeheartedly that their leader, The Old Man Of The Mountain, was a prophet and that he could grant them a life in paradise if they did his bidding. Then, just as effortlessly, he moves on to give the background history that leads up to how they got to where they were and how they began to gain their power.
This was, of course, the use of assassinating their political rivals and striking fear into those that would oppose them or dare to come against them. They were not a large land owning sect, they didn't have the political clout to push their weight around. In fact they played a rather minor role in the overall picture. But what they did have was the ability to strike fear into everyone, no matter where they were or how powerful they were. Whether you were the Sultan, the Caliph, the Vizier, a Western king, earl or baron, or perhaps even the Mongol emperor that invaded with such a huge amount of force that nobody could withstand, it didn't matter. They all feared the Assassins and attempted in numerous ways to rid themselves of such a dangerous sect.
Ultimately Lewis does a fantastic job in illustrating this wonderful time period for the history and stories that are so lush and full of life. Just as to kill someone became associated with this small religious sect that utilized this method, and thus how we today come to call assassinate or assassination, so to does Lewis's work reflect on the Ismailis. Lewis' work has staying power, being written in the sixties, and should be thought of as one of the leading sources of this time period and group.
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3: A missed oportunity
As a previous reviewer pointed out, post 9/11 the sales of this book have probably gone through the roof not least because Lewis has been (not so subltely) making comparisons between the Assassins and Al-Qaeda but also because every Al-Qaeda opponent on the planet has been jumping on the bandwagon.
Sadly, this book aside from the obvious that it was first published years before the events of 9/11 is a missed opportunity to study a little known Islamic group and instead, relies upon shock and scandal and instead of reading like a scholarly study of a subject reads more like something you would find in a tabloid.
The book begins with some history of the word Assassin and how it came into the English language then onto some early books that have been published on the subject in the West. The book then moves onto some brief studies of the subject by British scholars in India and the briefest of analysis of the current descendants of the Assassins who reside in that country. The book then covers nothing more than the sensationalist stories of "The old man of the mountains" Who dispatched deadly assassins to murder political opponents and scholars alike. Whose movement struck fear into its enemies and was finally defeated by a similarly ruthless movement, the Mongols of Genghis and Hulagu Khans.
The book just fails miserably in studying just who exactly the Assassins were. There is simply not enough on the background of the movement. The Assassins where the spiritual descendants of the Egyptian Fatimid (who later better known as the Ismaili) movement who followed and esoteric version of Islam which did indeed produce some great scholars in medicine and science. They were part of a wider movement in Islam (Such as the Ikhwan as-Safa) who while small in number, had a wide influence on Islam both Shia and Sunni from all aspects from science to Sufism.
The Nizari Ismaili, as the Assassins were known religiously were followers of a strand of Islam Sunnis refer to as a 'ghulat' or 'extremist' sect. This should not be seen in the context of violently extreme but rather extreme in their distance from the beliefs of Sunni Islam (Much in the same way as Zaidi Shia are referred to by Sunnis as 'moderate Shia') Why has Lewis not examined this aspect? Why has Lewis not studied the strands of Islam, the origins of the Nizari and their religious and political development? When the Nizari strongholds were finally breached by the Mongols the Shia scholar Nasruddin Tusi remarked at the vast libraries found there (It is also mentioned that many of their books were subsequently burned) Lewis rather treats us to pictures of Nizari mountain castles and stories of mass drunken orgies in defiance of Islam.
Why was there no examination of Nizari influence on other Shia groups? The Alevis of Turkey share almost the exact same beliefs as the Nizaris, ethnically they are from the same geographical area, history notes that the Nizaris made converts amongst the Turkomans and that Turkoman tribes were brought in bondage and then freed in Anatolia by Timur Khan. Was this too sensitive a subject to examine for a man who propagates Turkey as the beacon of democracy in the Middle East?
Lewis may even look to ibn Al-Athir (all be it briefly) for historical information on the Nizaris but keep in mind, he was a Sunni civil servant and had no love for the Nizaris and also keep in mind that his history book ran into volumes. Just how much of it do you think was taken up by a group that for Sunnis formed but a blip in history?
And lets examine the Nizari practice of assassination. First of all they were not "The first Islamic terror group" as some have written. Secondly they did not "Invent the art of assassination" The Greeks and Persians practiced it. Jewish groups in the Jewish revolts practiced it. The Caliph Ali, Hassan and Hussain were assassinated. Was this the be all and end all of their beliefs or rather was this the reaction of a minority group against a large opponent (both Abbasid and Crusader) who would easily and happily crush them given the chance? Was it just random assassinations or rather just to silence opponents (Such as the threat against the Sunni scholar Fakr al-Din Razi)? This is in sharp contrast to Al-Qaidi whose methods are to "Liberate the Muslim world" etc....
An entirely missed opportunity with far more faults that could be brought out but frankly too numerous to mention.
Read the books of Schimmel, Nasr, Corbin and Chodkiewicz. All of whom have examined the beliefs and practices of the Ismaili Muslims. If you want a bit of shock, horror, first terrorists in......., lets get these wackos..... then this may be the book for you.
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4: An Excellent Work
The new preface drew insightful conclusions of history to our current experience with the sucide bombers of radical islam. It set the tone to study the "Assassins" as a sect of radial Islam and try to make sense of what is happening today and possibly why. I feel it is a must read for anyone trying to build a foundation to understand radical Islam.
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5: Interesting overview of a misunderstood sect of Islam
The Assassins are part of the legend of the Crusades. The legend of their intoxicants, and the pleasures that initiates were allowed to sample before being sent on missions, are almost part of our historical lore, and of course the sect has lent its name to a word in the English language. This scholarly account by historian Bernard Lewis is detailed, and relentless at least in terms of sentimentality, brushing away legends and folklore and sticking to what's known of this splinter group of Islam and their culture, activities, motives, and fate.
It turns out that, as far as anyone knows, the Assassins are merely a splinter of the group called Ismailis (which still exists in Muslim countries, as a partially suppressed heresy). They existed for about three centuries, between the mid 11th century and the late 14th, in what is now northern Iran, and southern Syria. They never controlled a major city, and as a political entity, they appear to have survived largely through personal intimidation. While they were only so-so when it came to defeating armies, they were very effective at eliminating their leadership. In that era in which personal leadership, through monarchs and their surrogates, was the order of business for most governments in the area, this was particularly effective.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. If I do have a complaint, it's that the sum of knowledge about the Assassins, at least when Lewis wrote this, was rather thin, and so of course you don't get that much on them. The book itself runs to just about 150 pages in length, with an appendix which is another 50 pages tacked onto the end. The paucity of information isn't Lewis's fault, though, it's due to the secretiveness of the sect itself. Aside from that, the book is very well-done, interesting, and informative.
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