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Alamūt, the fortress and seat of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlī state of Persia, is situated in an area known in mediaeval times as Daylamān (in the region of Daylam), later called Rūdbār, some thirty-five kilometres northeast of Qazwīn and near the village of Gāzurkhān. The fortress was erected on the summit of a high rock outcrop in the foothills of the massive Hawdigān range in the central Alburz (or Elburz) Mountains. The fortress dominates a fertile valley and access to it was possible only through a narrow, steep, and winding path on the northern face of the Alamūt rock. According to legend (cf. …

ʿAbdallāh b. Maymūn (d. second half of the second/eighth century) was a companion of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), and numerous ḥadīths of this Imām are reported on his authority, in the canonical collections of Imāmī ḥadīths (Ivanow, Alleged founder, 11–60). ʿAbdallāh’s father, Maymūn al-Qaddāḥ al-Makkī, a mawlā of the Banū Makhzūm and a resident of Mecca, was a disciple of the Imām Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. c.114/732) and transmitted a few ḥadīths from him. ʿAbdallāh and his father may also have taken care of these ʿAlid Imāms’ properties in Mecca. In Imāmī Shīʿī sources, ʿAbdallāh b.…

Ahl al-Kisāʾ (the people of the cloak) generally refers to the group comprising the prophet Muḥammad, his daughter Fāṭima, his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, and his grandsons al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. This pentad has also been designated aṣḥāb al-kisāʾ and āl al-ʿabāʾ. The source of this expression is a ḥadīth known as ḥadīth al-kisāʾ (also as ḥadīth al-ʿabāʾ), recorded in both Sunnī and Shīʿī collections of traditions. According to this ḥadīth, one day in the house belonging to either ʿAlī or the prophet’s wife Umm Sal-ama, the Prophet was wearing a cloak (kisāʾ or ʿabāʾ) of blac…

Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ was a prominent Ismāʿīlī dāʿī (missionary) and founder of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlī daʿwa (mission) and state in Iran. The events of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ’s life and career as the first lord of Alamūt are recorded in an anonymous chronicle entitled Sargudhasht-i Sayyidnā (“The biography of Sayyidnā”; Ḥasan was referred to as Sayyidnā, “our lord,” by contemporary Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs). This chronicle, in fact, began a Nizārī historiographical tradition, according to which the events of the reigns of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (r. 483–518/1090–1124) an…

Amīnjī b. Jalāl b. Ḥasan (d. 13 Shawwāl 1010/6 April 1602) was an eminent Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlī Bohra jurist and author from India. The son of the twenty-fifth dāʿī muṭlaq of the Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs, Shams al-Dīn Jalāl b. Ḥasan (d. 975/1567), Amīn al-Dīn Amīnjī lived and died in Aḥmadābād, Gujarat. During Amīnjī's lifetime the Dāʾūdī-Sulaymānī schism occurred in the Ṭayyibī community. Amīnjī sided with the Dāʾūdī cause, which was upheld by the vast majority of Indian Ṭayyibī Bohras. Thus Amīnjī recognised the claim of Dāʾūd Burhān al-Dīn b. Quṭb Shāh (d. 1021/1612) to the position of dāʿī muṭlaq,…

The ʿAlids are descendants of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the first Shīʿī imām and the fourth caliph. ʿAlī is reported by most sources on ʿAlid (ʿAlawī) genealogy to have had eighteen sons (fourteen, according to al-Ṭabarī, and eleven according to al-Masʿūdī), and some seventeen daughters (Table 1). Only five of ʿAlī's sons left issue: al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn (by Fāṭima, the daughter of the prophet Muḥammad); Muḥammad, known as Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (by Khawla, from the Banū Ḥanīfa); al-ʿAbbās (by Umm al-Banīn, from the Banū Kilāb); and ʿUmar (from…

Assassins is a name originally applied by the Crusaders and other mediaeval Europeans to the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs of the Alamūt period, whose state extended across Persia and Syria, with its seat at Alamūt. The Crusaders had extensive military and diplomatic encounters with the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs of Syria from the opening decade of the sixth/twelfth century. However, it was in the time of Rāshid al-Dīn Sinān that occidental chroniclers of the Crusades and a number of European travellers and emissaries…

Assassins, a name originally applied by the Crusaders and other medieval Europeans to the Nizārī Ismailis of Syria. The Nizārī Ismailis were a minority Shiʿi Muslim community, who under the initial leadership of the dāʿī Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518/1124), in around 483/1090 founded a state in Persia. This state was centred at the stronghold of Alamūt (q.v.) in the Caspian region, with a subsidiary in Syria. The Persian part of this state was destroyed by the Mongols in 654/1256. The Syrian Nizārīs had numerous military and diplomatic encounters with the Crusaders from the openi…

ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad, the twenty-sixth Nizārī Ismaili imam and the seventh lord of Alamūt (r. 618–653/1221–1255). The only son of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan (r. 607–618/1210–1221), he was born in 609/1212 in Rūdbār. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad’s mother was one of the sisters of Kaykāwūs b. Shāhanshāh, ¶ the hereditary Sunni ruler of Kūtum in Gīlān (Juwaynī, 3/247–248, tr. Boyle, 2/702–703; Rashīd al-Dīn, ed. Dānishpazhūh, 176, ed. Rawshan, 173; Kāshānī, Zubda, 216; idem, Tārīkh, 57–58; Rabino, 288–289). On the death of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan in Ramaḍān 618/November 1221, his son and he…

Bāb, a high rank in the daʿwa organisation and religious hierarchy ( ḥudūd al-dīn) of the Ismailis. The hierarchical organisation of the Ismaili daʿwa and the functions of its different ranks were always important but secret and obscure aspects of the Ismaili movement. Ismaili works generally maintain silence on the subject because of the esoteric and often secretive nature of the Ismaili daʿwa. The enmity of many Sunni emirs, rulers and religious scholars generally obliged the Ismailis to conduct their daʿwa activities in utmost secrecy (except within the dominions of the …

Al-ʿĀḍid, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Yūsuf (Muḥarram 546–Muḥarram 567/May 1151–September 1171), the fourteenth and last Fāṭimid caliph, whose dynasty was uprooted by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī, the last Fāṭimid vizier and founder of the Ayyūbid dynasty. Ibn Khallikān (3/111) mentions the definitive date of his birth as Tuesday, 20 Muḥarram 546/9 May 1151; other sources have given different years such as 540/1145 or 544/1149 (Ibn Taghrībirdī, 5/334; Ibn ʿImād, 2/223). He was a grandson of the Fāṭimid…