Who are the real ‘Order of Assassins’ depicted in the new must-watch TV series ‘Al-Hashasheen’?

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The drama has further embellished the legends surrounding ‘The Assassins’ and their legacy. (Getty Images)
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Updated 22 March 2024
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Who are the real ‘Order of Assassins’ depicted in the new must-watch TV series ‘Al-Hashasheen’?

  • Ramadan television series sheds light on iconic culture made famous by video game Assassin’s Creed
  • Modern Nizari Ismailis ‘hate’ the misrepresented reputation of their forebears, says Islamic scholar

LONDON: The sweeping period drama “Al-Hashasheen” — or “The Assassins” — is certain to be one of the big hits of the Ramadan TV season.

For many younger viewers, the story of the martial order founded by an enigmatic religious leader in 11th-century Iran will be familiar only through the distorting lens of the smash-hit video game franchise “Assassin’s Creed” — now available for the first time in a virtual-reality version compatible with Meta’s Quest headsets.

“Al-Hashasheen,” starring Karim Abdel Aziz, Fathy Abdel Wahab and Nicolas Mouawad, brings a somewhat more realistic version of the story to a wider audience as families across the region gather for traditional post-iftar TV viewing.




The drama has further embellished the legends surrounding ‘The Assassins’ and their legacy. (Supplied)

But neither the TV series nor the long-running video game franchise do justice to the true story of the Nizari Ismaili sect, the original “assassins,” according to an Iranian-British Islamic scholar.

Many of the myths and legends surrounding the Nizaris “are rooted in the imaginative ignorance of the Crusaders and their Western chroniclers who came to the Holy Land and conquered Jerusalem in 1099,” Farhad Daftary, a governor and director emeritus of the London-based Institute of Ismaili Studies, told Arab News.

The very word “assassin,” coined first by the Crusaders who encountered the Nizaris in Syria, derives from an etymological misunderstanding.

“At the time, the Nizaris, who were Shiite, had enemies among Sunni Muslims, who referred to them as hashshashin, which, if you take its literal meaning, means somebody who uses opium,” said Daftary.

“But it was not in that sense that the term was applied to the Nizari Ismailis of Syria. It was a term of abuse, meaning a people of low morality, people with no social standing. The term was picked up by the Crusaders and interpreted literally.”




Hashshashin, which evolved into "assassin" in the European languages of the Crusader armies, literally means somebody "who uses opium.”  (Supplied)

In the European languages of the Crusader armies, “hashshashin” evolved into “assassin,” a word that nevertheless was associated with one of the many myths about the group — that their leader used opium to drug young men into becoming killing machines.

To understand the true story of the assassins, said Daftary, it is necessary to know something of the political and religious landscape of the 11th century.

At its root was the historic split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, which dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 and centers on the issue of succession. The Shiites believe that the Prophet Muhammad appointed a successor — his cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib — while the Sunnis hold that he did not.

The situation grew even more complex after the death of the sixth Shiite Imam, Jafar Al-Sadiq, in 765, by which time Ali’s descendants had become so numerous that the Shiites could not agree among themselves who was the rightful leader.




Many of the legends surrounding the Nizaris are rooted in the imaginative ignorance of the Crusaders and their Western chroniclers, says Farhad Daftary, governor and director emeritus of the Institute of Ismaili Studies. (Supplied)

The subsequent split created two main Shiite groups. The largest was Twelver Shi’ism, whose members believe that the line of rightful succession ended with the concealment, or occultation, of the 12th imam, Al-Mahdi, whose reappearance is still anticipated by his followers.

The other was the Ismailis, whose name derives from their recognition of Ismail ibn Jafar, the eldest son of Jafar Al-Sadiq, as his rightful spiritual successor.

But even within Ismailism a further split loomed, triggered by the death in 1094 of the 18th Ismaili Imam, who was also the eighth caliph of the Cairo-based Fatimid empire.

“When he died,” said Daftary, “his succession was disputed by two of his sons, Nizar, who was the original heir-designate, and his younger brother, who was actually installed on the Fatimid throne. So, it was on the basis of this succession dispute that the previously unified Ismaili community split into Nizari and Musta’lian factions.”

It was then that the historic figure of Hassan i-Sabbah, a missionary, or dia, working for the Fatimids in Iran, steps into the story.




Painting depicting Hasan ibn Sabbah, a prominent Ismaili leader considered as founder of the Nizari state. (Shutterstock)

At the time, much of what is today Iran was under the control of the Seljuk Turks, and Hassan began plotting a revolution against the unpopular Sunni regime.

As a result, “Hassan, who championed the cause of Nizar in Iran and severed his relations with Cairo and the Fatimid regime, which had lent its support to Nizar’s younger brother, was the founder of the Nizari Ismaili state and community.”

Daftary said it is true that Hassan instituted a policy of assassinations, but the modern characterization of the Nizaris as the original terrorists is misplaced.

Hassan, who seized and established his base in Alamut Castle in Persia’s mountainous north in 1090, “was confronting a very powerful military adversary in the Seljuks. He could not confront them in battle because he could not raise an army to match.”




A view of the Alamut Castle in the mountainous Qazvin region of Iran, which is currently being restored. (Shutterstock)

Instead, he set about destabilizing the decentralized Seljuk authority by targeting key ruling figures, “locality by locality, emir by emir.”

This did not, however, make the Nizaris the precursors of today’s terrorists, said Daftary.

“They had nothing in common with modern terrorists. Their causes were not the same, their means were not the same and their motives and their practices were not the same.

“These assassinations were highly selected and targeted; they were not acts of terror, killing innocent people.”

Besides, “they were not the inventors of assassination, which was practiced at the time by the Seljuks themselves and the Crusaders. But there were highly exaggerated reports and rumors, to the effect that almost every assassination of any major significance in the region was attributed to these people.”

In fact, contemporary records kept by the Nizaris show that during the 34 years of Hassan’s reign, fewer than 50 assassinations were carried out by the group.




Painting depicting the Siege of Alamut by the Mongols in 1256. (Wikimedia Commons: by Tarikh-i Jahangushay-i Juvaini)

The capture of Alamut Castle in 1090 is recognized by historians as the founding moment of the Nizari Ismaili state, based on a series of strongholds strung across Persia and the Levant, which would hold out against all foes, from Islamic rivals to the Christian Crusaders, for 183 years. The state was finally swept away by the Mongols in about 1256.

It was in the Levant that the Crusaders first encountered the Nizaris during the opening decade of the 12th century. Today, the ruins of the group’s main stronghold there, Masyaf Castle, still stand on the edge of the Syrian town of the same name.




Old stone castle Masyaf on the hill, in Masyaf, Syria

Here, between 1162 and 1193, ruled Rashid ad-Din Sinan, lord of the Nizari Ismaili state in Syria, who was immortalized by the Venetian explorer Marco Polo as “The Old Man of the Mountain.”

Polo’s writings repeated and embellished many of the legends surrounding the assassins, said Daftary. These included the supposed existence of “a secret Garden of Paradise, in which the mischievous leader of this group would give hashish to these would-be assassins, who would find themselves surrounded by all the pleasures promised to them in Paradise.




Rashid ad-Din Sinan. (Wikimedia Commons)

“Once they’d become sufficiently addicted to these bodily pleasures, they were given a dagger and sent to kill, and told: ‘If you succeed you will go back to the Garden of Paradise, and if you die, your soul will go to Paradise anyway’.”

The Crusaders “couldn’t understand the self-sacrifice of these people. So, to come up with explanations that would provide logical reasons for a type of behavior which otherwise seemed irrational or crazy to them, they began to fabricate these tales, which, by the way, we do not find in contemporary Muslim sources, even though they were perhaps even more hostile towards the Ismailis than the Crusaders were.”

Today, Nizari Ismailis number about 15 million, with communities all over the world, the largest of them in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Syria, but also in Iran, eastern Africa, the UAE, North America, the UK and several European countries.

Modern Nizari Ismailis “hate” the misrepresented reputation of their forebears, said Daftary, “because they are peaceful, progressive people.”




In this photo taken on March 8, 2018, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (L) poses with Prince Karim Aga Khan IV (R) at Windsor Castle during a private dinner she hosted in honor of the diamond jubilee of Khan's leadership as Imam of the Shia Nizari Ismaili Muslim Community. (Photo by Dominic Lipinski/POOL/AFP)

The current and 49th imam of the Nizari Ismaili Shiites is His Highness Aga Khan IV, who established the Institute of Ismaili Studies in 1977. The IIS, which has the largest faculty of Islamic studies of any academic institution in the UK, holds the world’s largest collection of original Nizari texts, available in translation to scholars in Persian, Arabic and English.

Daftary does not, he said, want to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the TV series “Al-Hashasheen” over Ramadan.

“Just remember, most of these stories from the Orient were told by returning Crusaders as they sat by their fireplaces in Europe. So, as long as they are treated as only tales that have nothing to do with the actual history of this community and the practices of this group, then that’s fine.”

 


UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

Updated 11 sec ago
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UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

  • A further 24 people were injured, 14 of them civilians, when a car bomb exploded near a bomb-disposal vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday
  • Emirati Foreign Ministry sends condolences to families of the victims and the people of Pakistan following the ‘cowardly attack’

LONDON: Authorities in the UAE and Jordan have strongly condemned a terrorist attack on a military convoy in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in which 13 soldiers were killed and at least 24 people were injured.

The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent its condolences to the families of the victims, and all the people of Pakistan, following the “heinous and cowardly attack,” along its best wishes for a speedy recovery of those who were injured.

It added that the UAE firmly rejects all forms of terrorism and violence that undermine security and stability.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the attack and expressed its solidarity with Pakistan during this terrible time.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the military convoy on Saturday and it detonated near a bomb disposal vehicle. Of the 24 people who were injured, 14 are civilians.

Armed group Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was one of the deadliest, single-day incidents in recent months targeting security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.


Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

Updated 30 June 2025
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Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

  • King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments with Qatar
  • He reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week

LONDON: Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met King Felipe VI of Spain in Seville on the sidelines of a UN-organized international investment conference.

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development began on Monday and will continue until July 3, bringing together global leaders to discuss urgent reforms necessary for financing sustainable development.

King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments through small and medium-sized enterprises following the recent economic agreements between Qatar and Spain.

He also reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week, praising Doha’s role in facilitating a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.

Sheikh Tamim emphasized Qatar’s commitment to enhancing cooperation with Spain across cultural, educational and security fields to serve the common interests of both countries, the Qatar News Agency reported.


Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

  • The Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move ‘provocative and humiliating’

LONDON: Israeli authorities permitted a wedding engagement ceremony for Jewish settlers within the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem on Monday.

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move “provocative and humiliating,” describing it as a transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into what resembles a public hall for celebrations by extremist settlers.

“(This is) a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the mosque, a serious provocation of the feelings of Muslims, and a deliberate attempt to impose a new reality that erases the Islamic identity of the site and paves the way for its division temporally and spatially,” the Jerusalem Governorate said.

On Monday, settlers, accompanied by Israeli police, toured the Al-Aqsa compound. Police prevented Palestinians from approaching the settlers to disrupt the ceremony, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Jerusalem Governorate said that Israeli policies aim to impose sovereignty on Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that these repeated provocations contradict international law and the 2016 UNESCO resolution, which recognized Al-Aqsa Mosque as an Islamic heritage site and called for its preservation.

Since 1967, the Jerusalem Endowments Council, which operates under Jordan’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, has been the legal authority responsible for managing and regulating the affairs of Al-Aqsa.

However, this status quo has been challenged in recent years by extremist settlers who regularly tour the site under the protection of Israeli police and are often accompanied by government officials and far-right ministers and activists.


UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

Updated 30 June 2025
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UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

  • Letter to PM: ‘The same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families’
  • Death toll ‘likely to be exponentially higher’ than official figure due to collapse of local govt, health systems

LONDON: MPs in the UK are calling on the government to launch a visa system for Palestinians in Gaza with family already living in Britain.

Sixty-seven politicians have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking for a Gaza Family Scheme mirroring the Ukraine Family Scheme established in 2022 to help refugees escape the war with Russia. It allowed Ukrainians to live and work in the UK for up to three years.

“We believe that the same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families,” said the letter, seen by Sky News.

Signatories include 35 Labour MPs and members of the House of Lords, as well as several people currently suspended from the governing party, including its former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. 

All four sitting members of the Green Party have also signed, alongside former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and the Bishop of Chelmsford Dr. Guli Francis-Dehquani.

The letter accuses Israel of “shattering the temporary ceasefire agreement” with Hamas in Gaza, and of conducting a “campaign of bombardment and military assaults, and targeting of people accessing humanitarian aid.”

MP Marsha de Cordova, who helped organize the letter alongside the Gaza Families Reunited campaign, told Sky News that the Ukraine visa scheme “was the right response to a brutal war,” and that establishing one for Gazans “would be an extension of those same principles, showing that this government is steadfast in its commitment to helping families experiencing the worst horrors of war.

“It is time for the government to act now to help British Palestinians get their loved ones to safety, enabling them to rebuild their lives.”

The letter said the proposed scheme would let Palestinians reunite with “people they may never see again unless urgent action is taken,” and many Gazans trying to reach the UK “struggled to navigate the immigration system.”

It added that efforts to secure visas have been made “impossible due to the destruction of the visa application centre in Gaza and blockade of the Rafah crossing.”

The letter said the death toll in Gaza, reported by Palestinian authorities as numbering at least 53,000 people, “is likely to be exponentially higher” due to the collapse of local government and health systems in the enclave.

Ghassan Ghaben, spokesperson for Gaza Families Reunited, told Sky News: “Family unity is an undeniable human right.”

He urged more MPs, including Conservatives, to add their names to efforts to help get Palestinians to the UK, saying: “We are still waiting for the new government to do the right thing. We, as Palestinians in the UK, simply want the opportunity to bring our loved ones from Gaza to safety, until it is safe to return.”

A government spokesperson told Sky News: “The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable. Since day one, we have been clear that we need to see an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages cruelly detained by Hamas, better protection of civilians, significantly more aid consistently entering Gaza, and a path to long-term peace and stability.

“There are a range of routes available for Palestinians who wish to join family members in the UK.”


Israel strikes pound Gaza, killing 60, ahead of US talks on ceasefire

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israel strikes pound Gaza, killing 60, ahead of US talks on ceasefire

  • Israel’s Dermer due in US for talks on Gaza, Iran, wider deals
  • Israeli tanks push into Gaza City suburb, residents say

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israeli strikes killed at least 60 people across Gaza on Monday in some of the heaviest attacks in weeks as Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by US President Donald Trump.
A day after Trump called to “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, was traveling to Washington for talks on Iran and Gaza, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter.
Dermer was expected to begin meetings with Trump administration officials on Tuesday, the source in Washington said.
But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, there was no sign of fighting letting up. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Monday to residents in large districts in the northern Gaza Strip, forcing a new wave of displacement.
“Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions.”
“Look at us, we are not just numbers and not just pictures. Every day martyrs like this,” said displaced woman Amani Swalha, standing in the rubble of a Gaza city school hit in a strike. “It is our right to live, and to live with dignity, not like this in humiliation.”
Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.
At least 58 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, health authorities said, including 10 people killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 killed southwest of Gaza City. Medics said most of the 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents also reported an airstrike.
Twenty-two people, including women, children and a local journalist were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a beachfront cafe in Gaza City, medics said. The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate said more than 220 journalists had been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.
The Israeli military said it struck militant targets in northern Gaza, including command and control centers, after taking steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.
There was no immediate word from Israel on the reported casualties southwest of the Gaza Strip and the beachfront cafe.
The bombardment followed new evacuation orders to vast areas in the north, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind wide-scale destruction. The military ordered people there to head south, saying that it planned to fight Hamas militants operating in northern Gaza, including in the heart of Gaza City.
“Make the deal”
Alongside talks on Gaza ceasefire prospects, Dermer also plans to discuss Netanyahu’s possible visit to the White House in coming weeks, according to the source familiar with the matter.
In Israel, Netanyahu’s security cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.
On Friday, Israel’s military chief said the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu said new opportunities had opened up for recovering the hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two warring sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.
A Hamas official said that progress depends on Israel changing its position and agreeing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Israel says it can end the war only when Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel has agreed to a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage deal, and put the onus on Hamas. He told reporters: “Israel is serious in its will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, speaking in Jerusalem alongside her Israeli counterpart, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “unbearable.”
“The suffering of civilians is increasingly burdening Israel’s relations with Europe. A ceasefire must be agreed upon,” she said, calling for the unconditional release of hostages by Hamas and for Israel to allow the uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel says it continues to allow aid into Gaza and accuses Hamas of stealing it. The group denies that accusation and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the Gaza population.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians. Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees ending the war.
The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel’s single deadliest day.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 80 percent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the UN.