Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations Read Online Free Page B

His creation of the Assassins launched a terrorist technique that functions to this day.
    Nizam kept his promise. After achieving a position of authority and influence among the Persians, he secured a pension for Khayyam, enabling the poet to live a life of ease in his beloved Nishapur region, where the Rubaiyat was composed. For his friend Hasan, Nizam obtained a ministerial post in the shah's palace.
    Hasan proved to be an excellent administrator, winning first the favor and later the trust of the shah, who assigned him the duty of managing the regime's wealth. Whether Hasan was larcenous from the beginning or his ethics became blinded by the sparkle of gold and jewels, the shah's trust was misplaced for Hasan embezzled enormous amounts of the kingdom's riches. Fleeing just ahead of the shah's guards, Hasan escaped to Cairo, remembering his father's tales of the Abode of Learning, where he believed he would be safe from certain execution. There he encountered a group of Ismailis who comprised the remaining nucleus of the old society. They had been waiting generations for both an opportunity and a leader to restore its power. Hasan was that man.
    Charismatic, cunning, ruthless and intelligent, Hasan gathered a number of adherents, convincing them that he possessed magical powers awarded by the Prophet himself. Their devotion to him grew stronger when, on a sea voyage to Africa, Hasan and his followers encountered a sudden violent storm. Soon waves were towering over the small ship, lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and winds threatened to smash the craft against the rocks if the water didn't first engulf the vessel and its occupants.
    Everyone on board panicked, and began to wail and pray.Everyone except Hasan, who remained calm and undisturbed. When they asked how he could remain tranquil when facing almost certain death, Hasan smiled and replied, “Our Lord has promised that no evil shall befall me.”
    And no evil did. The storm soon passed, the sea grew calm, and Hasan's devotees regarded him with even greater awe and respect. Back in Cairo, the tale of Hasan's stoic nature was repeated over and over again. Hasan was a blessed man protected from evil, a man to heed, and a man to follow. Hasan himself tended the tale with all the care and patience of a shrewd farmer anticipating a rich harvest.
    Meanwhile, he continued to absorb the training techniques employed by the Abode of Learning, recognizing that the power available to anyone who could refine the Abode's methods could be applied in a different context, with different goals. After a few months Hasan, accompanied by his most trusted supporters, returned to the region of his father's birth. He had found his destiny. Investing the riches he had stolen from the shah, and applying the brainwashing procedures of the Abode, he would construct a murderous society around a spectacular deception.
    Hasan's plan was based upon building trust and loyalty among a cluster of young followers by adapting methods pioneered at the Abode of Learning. After arriving in the Alborz Mountains, he traveled to a massive fortress shadowed by high mountain peaks north and west of the present Iranian city of Qazvin. The land here is exceptionally rugged, with nearby volcanic Mount Damavand soaring almost 6000 meters in height, creating a natural barrier between the Caspian Sea and the gently flowing plains of central Iran. For many years, Shiites fleeing persecution from Sunnis fled to the Alborz for safety. Tehran, the capital, may be barely a hundred kilometers distant, but the region remains remote to this day.
    Crowning a rugged mountain crest almost half a kilometer long and in some places only a few meters wide, the fortressappeared as a natural wall of rock from a distance, blindingly white in the afternoon sun, blue-gray in the dusk light, and blood-red at dawn. Approaching the structure, travelers encountered a steep gravel slope that foiled any attempt to reach its vertical walls.