THE GREAT RESURRECTION OF ALAMUT

In the year 1090, Hassan-i Sabbah instals himself at Alamut and proclaims its autonomy. Alamut (which means ‘Eagle's nest’ in Persian) was an extraordinary mountain fortress in Iran, not far south of the Caspian Sea. Hassan was an Iranian Ismaili missionary who had sworn allegiance to the prevailing Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. When Caliph Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah died, however, the Vizier chose as his successor, not the Caliph's older son, but the ‘weak and isolated’ younger one, whom he hoped would become his puppet (GR: 24). Hassan and his followers refused to accept the Vizier's coup, cut off ties with Cairo, fled eastward, and sought refuge at Alamut.

The community at Alamut, known as Nizari, was Ismaili in its beliefs. Though much shrunken now, and hardly noticed by the West, Ismailism in the period of Alamut was a major force in Islam, and the Ismailis were a political power. Mainstream Ismailism had been dominant in Fatimid Egypt itself. But the Nizaris were of a different order. Alamut was a fragmented, scattered community, living in bleak and barren lands (‘terres peu accessibles et ingrates’, GR: 26). It was not even a structured community, in that it obeyed a mission not an administration. But it was not a revolutionary, still less a terrorist community or ‘sinister order’ (Jambet 2007a: 7). If Islam itself is divided between ‘messianic hope and obsession with the law’ (Jambet 1992b: 123), Alamut was guided by a messianic project.