Hasasn-e Sabbah had studied theology in the…
December 1092 CE
Hasasn-e Sabbah had studied theology in the Iranian city of Rayy and at about the age of seventeen had adopted the Isma'ilite faith.
An active believer, he had risen in the Isma'ilite organization.
In 1076, he had gone to Egypt, probably for further religious training, remaining there for about three years.
When he returned to Iran, he had traveled widely in an effort to further Isma'ilite interests.
He has made a number of converts, and, in 1090, with the aid of converts made within its garrison, had been able to seize the great Elburz Mountains fortress of Alamut near Kazvin in Daylam, a province of the Seljuq empire.
Hassan is the supposed founder of an anti-Sunnite Isma'ili Muslim sect, the so-called Assassins, a product of dynastic strife among the Fatimids, heads of the Shi'ite Isma'ilite movement and rival caliphs in Egypt in opposition to that of the 'Abbasids in Baghdad.
The Assassins—who, eventually, will lend their name to the later English word for a politically motivated murderer—in one of their first political killings, are supposedly behind the killing of Nizam al-Mulk, 1092.
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