Hasan-i Sabbah
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Hasan-i Sabbah (circa 1034 - 1124), or "The Old Man of the Mountain", was the charismatic leader of the Hashshashin, an Islamic mystery cult, known to us as the Assassins.
Not much is known about Sabbah, but legends abound as to the tactics used to inculcate members into his quasi-religious political organization. A future assassin was subjected to rites very similar to those of other mystery cults in which the subject was made to believe that he was in imminent danger of death. But the twist of the assassins was that they drugged the person to simulate a "dying" to later have them awaken in a garden flowing with wine and served a sumptuous feast by virgins. The supplicant was then convinced he was in Heaven and that Sabbah was a minion of the divinity and that all of his orders should be followed, even to death.
William S. Burroughs is one of a number of fiction writers who have incorporated Sabbah--himself or his ideas--in their work.
Hassan-i-Sabah was an Ismaili missionary, who founded a community in the late 11th century in the hills of Northern Iran. The place was called Alamut, and his community and its branches throughout Iran and Syria came to be called Hashshashin or Assassins.
Hassan was known as the Old Man of the Mountain, and was extremely strict and disciplined. He was ruthless in his application of sharia, to the extent that he had his two sons executed: one for drinking wine and the other on a murder charge which later proved false.
