DYING FOR GOD 237Buzurg was succeeded by his son Muhammad I in whose reign the
Masyad fortress became the chief seat of the Syrian branch of the Assas-
sins. Muhammad I’s son Hasan declared himself the promised Imam, the
caliph of God and lineal descendant of Ismail, taking the name Ismail.
But Toghtekin’s heir, his son Taj al-Mulk Buri had other ideas. He insti-
gated a mass rising against the cult and had their followers slaughtered
wherever they could be found.
Frightened by these events, Ismail opened up negotiations with the
Frankish crusaders. King Baldwin agreed to take the Assassins under his
protection. Ismail and his sect were settled within the Frankish territories.
Ismail soon fell ill of dysentery and died a few months later, dealing
conclusively with his claim to divine selection. His followers dispersed.
With Ismail dead and much of his forces in disarray, the Assassins were
at a low ebb. Baldwin moved to protect Banyas in early November, and
inA.D. 1149 the Assassins fought alongside the Crusaders.
The new Kurdish leader of the Assassins’ Syrian sect, ibn Wafa, hated
the Muslim military leader, Sultan Nur al-Din, more than he hated the
Christians. InA.D. 1148 ibn Wafa surprised Nur al-Din as he moved
through the Aswad plain. Nur al-Din’s army was forced into a hasty and
ignominious retreat. The next year, at the battle of Murad, a combined
force of Crusaders and Assassins moved to defend the fortress of Inab.
Nur al-Din, misinformed of the size of this force, again retreated.
On June 28, 1149, Nur al-Din surrounded the combined force of Chris-
tians and Assassins. In the subsequent attack the Christians and Assassins
were defeated and the leader of the Assassins killed.
InA.D. 1152 Raymond II of Tripoli had the honor of being the first
Christian victim of the Assassins. No motive for his murder was ever
discovered.
After Raymond’s death a decade of quiet began. The sect had approx-
imately ten fortresses in Syria, and their numbers were estimated at
60,000, including both fighting men and the population they controlled.
They consolidated their power in the Nosairi Mountains and maintained
their enmity with Nur al-Din. One night during this period he received a
warning that he was going too far. He awoke to find a dagger on his pillow.
One can only wonder at this story—warnings were not the main stock-in-
trade of the sect.
In 1169 the Assassins at Alamut, Persia, sent a new governor to the
Nosairi province. The Persian branch was the senior half of the Assassin
sect, and the Syrians the junior. This new leader was Rashid ed-Din Sinan
of Basra. He was a formidable man and would be known by the Crusaders
as the “Old Man of the Mountains.” With his arrival, the Syrian Assassins