alexander sucht immer noch Infos?
Hmm, irgendwie habe ich den Thread wohl übersehen.
Hier diverse Infos, lang kurz, englisch, deutsch, wie gehabt... :rofl:
Lexikon des Mittelalters:
"
Assassinen,
in der westl. Literatur gebräuchl. Bezeichnung für eine von der isma<ilitischen Si<a (Islam) abgespaltene Sekte. Ihr Gründer, Hasan b. as-Sabbah (geb. um 1050), brach mit den Fatimiden und war somit nicht nur mit den Sunniten, sondern auch mit den Hauptrichtungen der Si<a verfeindet. 1090 sicherte er sich Alamut im Elburs-Gebirge als relig. und polit. Zentrum. Von dieser Hochburg aus erweiterte die Sekte ihren Einfluß, vergrößerte ihren Landbesitz in Persien und sandte Missionare nach Indien. Um 1140 etablierte sie sich im Ansariyya-Gebirge in Syrien. Ihren größten Einfluß erlangten die A. unter ihrem Großmeister Rasidaddin Sinan (gen. »Der Alte vom Berge«, 1163-93). Die Stärke der A. lag im Besitz verteidigungsfähiger Stützpunkte und im bedingungslosen Gehorsam ihrer Anhänger. Ihre Schwäche bestand in den verhältnismäßig geringen Mitteln und ihrer begrenzten Anziehungskraft auf die islam. Gesellschaft. Ihr Dogma beruhte auf direkter Übertragung göttl. Autorität. Einzelheiten religiöser Vorstellungen und Praktiken sind unbekannt, da den Anhängern in Zeiten der Gefahr die Verheimlichung ihres Glaubens gestattet wurde. Wieweit der Genuß von Haschisch, der sich möglicherweise in der Bezeichnung A. (von hassasun 'Haschischraucher') ausdrückt, bei den A. tatsächl. eine Rolle spielte, ist ungeklärt.
Die Kriegführung der A. war weitgehend auf den Kampf um feste Plätze ausgerichtet. Durch handstreichartige Überfälle brachten sie Stützpunkte in ihre Gewalt, in denen sie sich dann mit viel Geschick behaupteten. Ob sie selber Burgen errichtet haben, ist nicht ganz sicher. Erfolge verzeichneten sie auch im Kleinkrieg, dank dem sie ztw. ganze Landstriche beherrschten.
Ihre Politik war durch wechselndes Paktieren mit Kreuzfahrerstaaten, Ritterorden und dem Ayyubiden Saladin gekennzeichnet. Ein wichtiges Instrument der A. war der organisierte Mord an polit. und religiösen Gegnern, ausgeführt durch fanatisierte Elitegruppen (fida>iyyun; vgl. frz. assassin, it. assassino, 'Mörder'). So hätten zwei assassin. Mordanschläge auf Saladin bei Gelingen zu unabsehbaren hist. Konsequenzen führen können,
Als größte Leistung der A. muß zweifellos ihr Überleben in einer feindl. Umwelt gewertet werden. Ihre Machtstellung wurde in Persien durch die Mongolen, die 1256 Alamut eroberten, im Westen 1270 durch Baibars gebrochen. Reste der Gemeinde haben sich als friedl. Bauern und Hirten in Syrien bis heute erhalten."
"
ASSASSINS: ISMAILI
Assassin is a name that was applied originally by the
Crusader circles in the Near East and other medieval
Europeans to the Nizari Ismailis of Syria. From the
opening decade of the twelfth century, the Crusaders
had numerous encounters with the Syrian Nizaris,
who reached the peak of their power under the leadership
of Rashid al-Din Sinan (d. 1193 CE), their most
famous dai and the original ‘‘Old Man of the Mountain’’
of the Crusaders. It was, indeed, in Sinan’s time
(1163–1193) that the Crusaders and their European
observers became particularly impressed by the highly
exaggerated reports and rumors about the daring
behavior of the Nizari fidais, who were devotees who
selectively targeted and removed their community’s
prominent enemies in specific localities. As a result,
the Nizari Ismailis became famous in Europe as the
Assassins, the followers of the mysterious ‘‘Old Man
of the Mountain.’’
The term assassin, which appeared in European
languages in a variety of forms (e.g., assassini, assissini,
and heyssisini), was evidently based on variants
of the Arabic word hashishi (pl. hashishiyya,
hashishin). The latter was applied by other Muslims
to Nizaris in the pejorative senses of ‘‘low-class
rabble’’ or ‘‘people of lax morality,’’ without any
derivative explanation reflecting any special connection
between the Nizaris and hashish, a product of
hemp. This term of abuse was picked up locally in
Syria by the Crusaders and European travelers and
adopted as the designation of the Nizari Ismailis.
Subsequently, after the etymology of the term had
been forgotten, it came to be used in Europe as a
noun meaning ‘‘murderer.’’ Thus, a misnomer rooted
in abuse eventually resulted in a new word, assassin,
in European languages.
Medieval Europeans—and especially the Crusaders—
who remained ignorant of Islam as a religion
and of its internal divisions were also responsible for
fabricating and disseminating (in the Latin Orient as
well as in Europe) a number of interconnected legends
about the secret practices of the Nizaris, the so-called
‘‘assassin legends.’’ In particular, the legends sought
to provide a rational explanation for the seemingly
irrational self-sacrificing behavior of the Nizari fidais;
as such, they revolved around the recruitment and
training of the youthful devotees. The legends developed
in stages from the time of Sinan and throughout
the thirteenth century. Soon, the seemingly blind obedience
of the fidais to their leader was attributed, by
their occidental observers, to the influence of an
intoxicating drug like hashish. There is no evidence
that suggests that hashish or any other drug was used
in any systematic fashion to motivate the fidais; contemporary
non-Ismaili Muslim sources that are generally
hostile toward the Ismailis remain silent on this
subject. In all probability, it was the abusive name
hashishi that gave rise to the imaginative tales
disseminated by the Crusaders.
The assassin legends culminated in a synthesized
version that was popularized by Marco Polo, who
combined the hashish legend with a number of other
legends and also added his own contribution in the
form of a secret ‘‘garden of paradise,’’ where the fidais
supposedly received part of their training. By the
fourteenth century, the assassin legends had acquired
wide currency in Europe and the Latin Orient, and
they were accepted as reliable descriptions of the secret
practices of the Nizari Ismailis, who were generally
portrayed in European sources as a sinister
order of drugged assassins. Subsequently, Westerners
retained the name assassins as a general reference to
the Nizari Ismailis, although the term had now become
a new common noun in European languages
meaning ‘‘murderer.’’ It was A.I. Silvestre de Sacy
(1758–1838) who succeeded in solving the mystery of
the name and its etymology, although he and the other
orientalists continued to endorse various aspects of
the assassin legends. Modern scholarship in Ismaili
studies, which is based on authentic Ismaili sources,
has now begun to deconstruct the Assassin legends
that surround the Nizari Ismailis and their fidais—
legends rooted in hostility and imaginative ignorance.
"
aus: Josef W. Meri (Hrsg.): Medieval Islamic civilization. An Encyclopedia. N.Y. 2006.
"
HASHĪSHIYYA , a name given in mediaeval times to the followers in Syria of the Nizārī
branch of the Ismāīlī sect. The name was carried from Syria to Europe by the Crusaders, and occurs
in a variety of forms in the Western literature of the Crusades, as well as in Greek and Hebrew texts.
In the form 'assassin' it eventually found its way into French and English usage, with corresponding
forms in Italian, Spanish and other languages. At first the word seems to have been used in the sense
of devotee or zealot, thus corresponding to fidāī [q.v.]. As early as the 12th century Provençal poets compare
themselves to Assassins in their self1sacrificing devotion to their ladies.
But soon it was the murderous tactics of the Nizārīs, rather than their selfless devotion, that fascinated
European visitors to the East, and gave the word a new meaning. From being the name of a
mysterious sect in Syria, assassin becomes a common noun meaning murderer. It is already used by
Dante ('lo perfido assassin ...', Inferno, xix, 49150), and is explained by his commentator Francesco da
Buti, in the second half of the 14th century, as 'one who kills another for money'.
During the 17th and 18th centuries the name assassin—and the sect that first bore it—received a
good deal of attention from European scholars, who produced a number of theories, mostly fantastic,
to explain its origin and significance. The mystery was finally solved by Silvestre de Sacy in his
Mémoire sur la dynastie des Assassins et sur l'origine de leur nom, read to the Institut in 1809 and published in
the Mémoires de l'Institut Royal, iv (1818), 1185 (= Mémoires d'histoire et de littérature orientales, Paris 1818,
3221403). Using Arabic manuscript sources, notably the chronicle of Abū āma, he examines and
rejects previous explanations, and shows that the word assassin is connected with the Arabic hashīsh [q.v.]. He suggests that the variant forms Assassini, Assissini, Heyssisini etc. in the Crusading sources
come from alternative Arabic forms hashīshī
...
In confirmation of this he was able to produce several Arabic texts in which the sectaries
are called hashīshī, but none in which they are called hashīsh. Since then, the form hashīshī has been
amply confirmed by new texts that have come to light—but there is still, as far as is known, no text in
which the sectaries are called hashīshā
. It would therefore seem that this part of S. de Sacy's
explanation must be abandoned, and all the European variants derived from the Arabic hashīshī.
This revision raises again the question of the meaning of the term. hashīsh is of course the Arabic
name of Indian hemp—cannabis sativa—and hashīsh is the common word for a hashish1taker. De
Sacy, while not accepting the opinion held by many later writers that the assassins were so called
because they were addicts, nevertheless explains the name as due to the secret use of hashish by the
leaders of the sect, to give their emissaries a foretaste of the delights of paradise that awaited them on
the completion of their missions. He links this interpretation with the story told by Marco Polo, and
found also in other eastern and western sources, of the secret 'gardens of paradise' into which the
drugged devotees were introduced (Marco Polo, edd. A. C. Moule and P. Pelliot, London 1938, i, 40
ff.; cf. Arnold of Lübeck, Chronicon Slavorum, iv, 16; J. von Hammer, Sur le paradis du Vieux de la
Montagne, in Fundgruben des Orients, iii (1813), 20116—citing an Arabic romance, in which the drug
used is called Ban ). This story is early; the oldest version of it, that of Arnold of Lübeck, must date
from the end of the 12th century. Their chief, he says, himself gives them daggers which are, so to
speak, consecrated to this task, and then “et tunc poculo eos quodam, quo in extasim vel amentiam
rapiantur, inebriat, et eis magicis suis quedam sompnia in fantastica, gaudiis et deliciis, immo nugis plena, ostendit, et hec eternaliter pro tali opere eos habere
contendit” (Monumenta Germaniae historica, xxi, Hanover 1869, 179). This story, which may well be the
earliest account of hashish dreams, is repeated with variants by later writers. It is, however, almost
certainly a popular tale, perhaps even a result rather than a cause of the name hashīshiyya . The use
and effects of hashish were known at the time, and were no secret; the use of the drug by the
Page 1 of 2 0A÷ô^÷ôIYYA [III:267b]sectaries, with or without secret gardens, is attested neither by Ismāīlī nor by serious Sunnī authors.
Even the name hashīshiyya is local to Syria (cf. Houtsma, Recueil, i, 195; Ibn Muyassar, Annales, 68) and
probably abusive. It was never used by contemporaries of the Persian or any other non1Syrian
Ismāīlīs; even in Syria it was not used by the Ismāīlīs; themselves (except in a polemic tract issued by
the Fāimid Caliph al1 Āmir against his Nizārī opponents—A. A. A. Fyzee, al- Hidāyatu 'l- āmirīya,
London1Bombay 1938, 27), and only occasionally even by non1 Ismāīlī writers. Thus Ma rīzī, in a
fairly lengthy discussion of the origins and use of hashish, mentions a Persian mulid (probably an
Ismāīlī) who came to Cairo at about the end of the 8th century A.H. and prepared and sold his own
mixture of hashish—but does not call the Ismāīlīs hashīshiyya , or mention any special connexion
between the sect and the drug ( ia , Būlā , ii, 12619). a
ī
ī would thus appear to have been a
local Syrian epithet for the Ismāīlīs, probably a term of contempt—a criticism of their behaviour
rather than a description of their practices"
aus der "Encyclopaedia of Islam", die ganzen Variationen mit den Sonderbuchstaben von ha
shī
sh habe ich mal weggelassen und überall diese korrupten Zeichen durch hashīsh ersetzt.
=)