WEBVTT 00:00:04.599 --> 00:00:12.638 Many men and women of violence have been romanticised by people of later eras. Driven by pieces 00:00:12.638 --> 00:00:17.609 of popular culture such as the Assassin’s Creed games, the popular conception of an 00:00:17.609 --> 00:00:23.079 assassin has turned from that of a ruthless murderer to that of a renegade antihero, killing 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:27.939 only because it is for the greater good. The foundations of this viewpoint lay within the 00:00:27.940 --> 00:00:33.689 historical Islamic realm which would come to be known as the Nizari Ismaili State. Welcome 00:00:33.689 --> 00:00:38.549 to our video on how the Nizari became the most feared assassins of their era, and how 00:00:38.549 --> 00:00:40.378 they eventually met their end. 00:00:40.378 --> 00:00:45.268 We live in the Information age, which means that the protection of our personal data and 00:00:45.268 --> 00:00:50.948 information is of utmost importance. 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Dashlane is trusted by sources you trust, including 11 million 00:01:25.868 --> 00:01:26.868 active users, Apple, Google, press ranging from Wired to Forbes and it is the top-rated 00:01:26.868 --> 00:01:29.718 on the iOs App Store. So, what are you waiting for? Try is on your first device by heading 00:01:29.718 --> 00:01:38.108 to Dashlane.com/kings and get 25% off premium with the code kings 00:01:38.108 --> 00:01:44.209 Almost simultaneously with Islam’s meteoric rise to superpower status in the seventh-century, 00:01:44.209 --> 00:01:49.548 internal division permanently split the new faith into two opposing parties. These were 00:01:49.549 --> 00:01:55.049 the Sunni - Muslims who believed that Abu Bakr’s succession of Mohammed in 632 was 00:01:55.049 --> 00:02:00.130 correct - and the Shia - who considered the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law Ali the 00:02:00.129 --> 00:02:05.969 legitimate heir - or ‘Imam’. After a series of civil wars, Umayyad leader 00:02:05.969 --> 00:02:10.758 Muawiyah took the caliphate from the heirs of Ali, and this subsequent struggle against 00:02:10.758 --> 00:02:16.169 central power defined the Shia and prompted the breakaway of many subgroups with diverging 00:02:16.169 --> 00:02:22.859 viewpoints. In time, the Umayyads were defeated by the Abbasids in another civil war. 00:02:22.860 --> 00:02:27.870 The age of Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur was the catalyst for one of these new sects - the 00:02:27.870 --> 00:02:34.700 Ismaili. At some point in his reign, the sixth Shia Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq declared his radical 00:02:34.699 --> 00:02:42.479 eldest son Ismail to be his divinely inspired successor - a doctrine known as nass. However, 00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:49.039 his plans were derailed in 762 when Ismail unexpectedly died at the age of 40, raising 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:55.039 hard questions on who the next imam should be. When Ja’far also passed away a few years 00:02:55.039 --> 00:03:00.699 later, six groups disputed who the next Imam ought to be. Two of these groups became the 00:03:00.699 --> 00:03:06.729 first Ismaili Shia by asserting the legitimacy of Ismail despite his death, and supporting 00:03:06.729 --> 00:03:12.939 his descendants. In contrast, those who accepted Ismail’s younger brother Musa’s imamate 00:03:12.939 --> 00:03:18.359 eventually became known as ‘Twelvers’, the Shia denomination championed by the Iranian 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:22.970 states, from the Safavids to the modern Islamic Republic of Iran. 00:03:22.969 --> 00:03:28.090 The Ismailiyah disappear from history until around the mid ninth-century, when their leaders 00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:32.870 burst onto the historical stage and spread the movement to regions across the faltering 00:03:32.870 --> 00:03:39.099 Abbasid caliphate, from the Maghreb to Khurasan. The movement managed to tear away vital pieces 00:03:39.099 --> 00:03:45.569 of the once unified Caliphate. An Ismaili revolt in Arabia led to the creation of a 00:03:45.569 --> 00:03:49.859 ‘religious-utopian republic’ in modern Bahrain under the Qarmatian dynasty, whose 00:03:49.860 --> 00:03:56.570 slaveholding society was otherwise unusually egalitarian and communal for the age. However, 00:03:56.569 --> 00:04:01.840 the crowning achievement of this sectarian revolution was the establishment of al-Mahdi 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:07.420 Billah’s Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa. Although the Fatimids only occupied a relatively 00:04:07.419 --> 00:04:14.839 small and peripheral area at first, they managed to hugely increase their power in 969 by conquering 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:21.840 Egypt. Bolstered by that, the Fatimids entered what historian Farhad Daftary dubbed the ‘Ismaili 00:04:21.839 --> 00:04:27.149 century’. In the hundred years following Egypt’s fall to the Shia, rich and diverse 00:04:27.149 --> 00:04:32.459 Ismaili literature flourished in the many new libraries, blended with other traditions, 00:04:32.459 --> 00:04:37.599 and resulted in incredibly complex systems of thought. The Fatimids developed complex 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:42.570 administrative and financial structures, in addition to re-establishing far-flung trade 00:04:42.569 --> 00:04:48.409 routes to India. Along with the accompanying riches and exotic goods, this exchange also 00:04:48.410 --> 00:04:54.000 spread Ismaili teachings to Gujurat. However, beginning in the second half of the eleventh 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:59.370 century, the Fatimid star began to fade, as the Shia caliphate was faced with internal 00:04:59.370 --> 00:05:04.209 and external problems. A dynastic crisis shattered Ismaili unity 00:05:04.209 --> 00:05:12.039 forever in December 1094, when Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir passed away. After a 58-year-long 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:18.240 reign, it was widely expected that his well-prepared fifty-year-old son - Abu Mansur Nizar - would 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:24.280 inherit the throne in Cairo. But the powerful vizier - al-Afdal - effectively controlled 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:30.189 the government, and wanted to retain personal power. Upon al-Mustansir’s death, al-Afdal 00:05:30.189 --> 00:05:36.120 organized a palace coup, placing Nizar’s inexperienced 20-year-old brother Al-Musta'li 00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:40.019 on the throne, knowing that he could control the latter. 00:05:40.019 --> 00:05:45.019 This usurpation succeeded due to the support of the caliphate’s armies, as well as religious 00:05:45.019 --> 00:05:51.509 and court notables who were in thrall to al-Afdal, but Nizar wasn’t going to take it. He fled 00:05:51.509 --> 00:05:57.269 to Alexandria, where he was proclaimed Caliph by a Turkic governor. The population also 00:05:57.269 --> 00:06:02.680 supported him, and it seemed as though Nizar’s revolt would be a success. A Nizarist army 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:08.230 repelled an attack by the vizier’s troops and even advanced close to Cairo, however 00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:14.210 al-Afdal marshaled his superior resources and besieged Alexandria, leading to Nizar’s 00:06:14.209 --> 00:06:20.829 surrender in 1095. Soon the rightful Fatimid ruler had been imprisoned and executed by 00:06:20.829 --> 00:06:24.449 immurement. Most of the Ismaili religious communities 00:06:24.449 --> 00:06:30.490 in Egypt and Syria eventually came to terms with the succession. Persian and other adherents 00:06:30.490 --> 00:06:35.680 in the Muslim east, refused, continuing to support the martyred prince’s house and 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:41.560 becoming the independent Nizari. One prominent figure of the Nizari Ismaili would spearhead 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:48.040 their movement and found what would become known as the Assassins' Order - Hasan-i Sabbah. 00:06:48.040 --> 00:06:53.980 Although he was born in a Twelver family in Qom, Iran, at some point around 1050, Hasan 00:06:53.980 --> 00:07:00.480 had been educated in nearby Rey. After initially believing the Ismaili doctrine to be heretical, 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:05.800 he came into contact with a prominent local Ismaili missionary at 17 and was convinced 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:12.050 of the sect’s legitimacy. To prove his newfound devotion genuine, Hasan swore allegiance to 00:07:12.050 --> 00:07:18.960 al-Mustansir in faraway Cairo. He then travelled to Egypt in 1078 and stayed there for three 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:23.039 years. During his time in Fatimid lands, Hasan always 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:28.760 favoured Nizar’s faction and acted against the vizier - at the time al-Afdal’s father 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:34.620 - a fact which eventually saw him banished in early 1081. Having been thus expelled, 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:40.769 he returned to Isfahan. By this time, the once majestic Abbasid Caliphate had been all 00:07:40.769 --> 00:07:47.109 but subsumed by the all-conquering Seljuk Turks. These new invaders established a Sunni 00:07:47.110 --> 00:07:52.800 military empire which stretched from Khurasan to Anatolia, ruthlessly persecuting Ismaili 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:58.460 ‘heretics’ as they did so. In opposition to his new Seljuk overlords, Hasan traveled 00:07:58.459 --> 00:08:03.709 their empire as a missionary for 9 years, gauging their military strength and formulating 00:08:03.709 --> 00:08:09.728 a strategy of resistance. In 1087, the Ismaili firebrand started dispatching 00:08:09.728 --> 00:08:14.810 other missionaries into the vicinity of a remote and nigh-invulnerable mountain fortress 00:08:14.810 --> 00:08:20.310 known as Alamut, located in the area just south of the Caspian Sea, to ‘Ismailize’ 00:08:20.310 --> 00:08:26.550 its population. He withstood numerous Seljuk attempts to stop his underground activity 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:33.198 and managed to remain in hiding. In late 1090, Hasan moved via mountainous routes, finally 00:08:33.198 --> 00:08:39.258 slipping into Alamut unnoticed. He lived under the radar as a religious tutor known as Dihkuhda 00:08:39.259 --> 00:08:44.278 for several months, instructing the children of Alamut’s garrison and slowly turning 00:08:44.278 --> 00:08:50.480 prominent figures to his side. Eventually, the castle’s governor realised the infiltration, 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:56.300 but it was too late. He had been slowly surrounded by a garrison and population who supported 00:08:56.299 --> 00:09:01.490 Hasan. Incapable of defending himself, the governor left the castle. 00:09:01.490 --> 00:09:06.839 Alamut’s capture was the beginning of what would become known as the Nizari Ismaili State, 00:09:06.839 --> 00:09:12.290 and the beginning of a new phase in the Ismailis’ relations with the Turkic sultans whom they 00:09:12.289 --> 00:09:17.708 vehemently opposed. What had previously been a clandestine, secret society-like movement 00:09:17.708 --> 00:09:23.948 became an open revolt aimed at the very heart of the Seljuk state, driven by a mix of sectarian 00:09:23.948 --> 00:09:31.539 and Iranian ethnic motivation. Sultan Malik-Shah I and vizier Nizam al-Mulk were keen to extinguish 00:09:31.539 --> 00:09:37.179 this budding heresy, and launched several attacks against Alamut, but the castle held 00:09:37.179 --> 00:09:42.849 out against overwhelming military strength. On the contrary, the Nizaris acquired a second 00:09:42.850 --> 00:09:47.680 enclave of territory in Quhistan after dispatching missionaries to that area. 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:54.318 They got a break from the attacks in late 1092, when both the sultan and his anti-Ismaili 00:09:54.318 --> 00:10:01.078 vizier died. It is possible that Nizam al-Mulk was the very first victim of the Nizari assassins, 00:10:01.078 --> 00:10:07.479 though the evidence is tenuous. Regardless, the loss of these two plunged the Seljuk empire 00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:13.339 into civil war, essentially fragmenting it into a mosaic of squabbling fiefs ruled by 00:10:13.339 --> 00:10:19.120 religious and military leaders. Hasan consolidated his position and expanded 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:24.419 Ismaili influence, acquiring other formidable strongholds in the Elburz mountains, among 00:10:24.419 --> 00:10:31.159 them Girdkuh and Lamasar. Rather than being one contiguous state, the various citadels 00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:37.028 of Hasan’s fortress network were almost always surrounded by potentially hostile territory. 00:10:37.028 --> 00:10:42.999 Therefore, the disunited Ismaili mountain castles acted both as an impenetrable defensive 00:10:42.999 --> 00:10:50.178 bastion and a base of operations for religious and military activity. These eastern Ismaili 00:10:50.178 --> 00:10:55.139 supposedly received congratulations and a message of goodwill from Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir, 00:10:55.139 --> 00:11:01.680 but after his death and the great Ismaili schism, Hasan cut all ties with Egypt. 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:06.828 Although the Seljuk Empire’s post-Malik Shah weakness removed the immediate threat 00:11:06.828 --> 00:11:13.368 to Hasan’s Ismaili realm, the decentralisation also made his ultimate goal - the total overthrow 00:11:13.369 --> 00:11:18.550 of the Seljuks - almost impossible. There was no longer a single figure who could be 00:11:18.549 --> 00:11:25.139 defeated in battle and cast from the throne. In effect, there was now no central target, 00:11:25.139 --> 00:11:30.808 but a whole gallery of petty kings. Surrounded by more powerful adversaries and seeking a 00:11:30.808 --> 00:11:36.110 new method of achieving their aims in lieu of an army, Hasan’s Nizari began to utilize 00:11:36.110 --> 00:11:41.188 another strategy that had been used by Shia groups for centuries - assassination. 00:11:41.188 --> 00:11:47.708 Though political murder was and is a universal method of warfare, the Nizari granted it an 00:11:47.708 --> 00:11:53.759 increasingly central role in their political strategy, knowing how effective it could be. 00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:59.249 This part of Nizari history has been distorted by groups who were hostile to or unfamiliar 00:11:59.249 --> 00:12:05.459 with them and their practices. For example, rumours circulated by later Latin sources 00:12:05.458 --> 00:12:10.609 threw the term ‘Hashashin’ around to designate them, due to the probable fiction of Hashish 00:12:10.610 --> 00:12:16.050 use as inspiration for the assassins. That being said, there does seem to have been what 00:12:16.049 --> 00:12:21.159 might be called a ‘cult of assassination’ in Alamut and the other fortresses. Nizari 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:26.629 assassins were known as fi’dai - literally ‘those willing to sacrifice’ - and were 00:12:26.629 --> 00:12:32.230 revered for their bravery and courage. This was largely because such missions were considered 00:12:32.230 --> 00:12:38.569 suicidal. Nizari leaders dispatched their fi’dai, who became increasingly professional, 00:12:38.568 --> 00:12:44.368 primarily to dispatch targets who were a known threat to the Nizari State. This included 00:12:44.369 --> 00:12:48.220 Seljuk viziers, local emirs, and prominent rulers. 00:12:48.220 --> 00:12:54.220 The Nizaris also managed to expand their influence into Syria around the time of the First Crusade, 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:58.999 capturing a few fortresses and intermingling politically with Seljuk principalities and 00:12:58.999 --> 00:13:04.678 the Christian crusader states. In Persia, Muhammad Tapar took command of the Turkic 00:13:04.678 --> 00:13:10.078 empire in 1105 and immediately launched a series of campaigns against all of the Nizari 00:13:10.078 --> 00:13:16.388 territories south of the Caspian Sea. His main stroke fell on Shahdiz in 1107, which 00:13:16.389 --> 00:13:22.379 fell relatively quickly after a fi’dai failed to slay one of the sultan’s viziers. For 00:13:22.379 --> 00:13:28.149 over a decade, Seljuk campaigns against the Nizari continued unabated, resulting in constant 00:13:28.149 --> 00:13:33.519 massacres and persecution of those Ismaili who could not escape to the castles. 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:38.459 Many Nizari fortresses fell under the assault, but finally, when the Seljuks were on the 00:13:38.458 --> 00:13:45.498 verge of taking Alamut in April 1118, Muhammad Tapar died and the pressure waned. This was 00:13:45.499 --> 00:13:52.350 the beginning of a new phase in Nizari-Seljuk relations - one of a stalemate due to exhaustion. 00:13:52.350 --> 00:13:59.019 Scores of Ismailis had been slain in the cities, damaging their support base. Hasan’s three-decade-long 00:13:59.019 --> 00:14:04.190 anti-Seljuk revolt, in which a ‘state’ with no real army had survived, inflicting 00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:10.519 damage on a giant military empire, had failed, but the Nizari state was still a cohesive 00:14:10.519 --> 00:14:16.909 one. From that point, the focus would turn to defence and consolidation - the transformation 00:14:16.909 --> 00:14:23.159 of the Nizari state into a permanent one. Hasan’s attention turned to scholarly pursuits 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:30.139 and peaceful relations, though the latter was often achieved by illicit means. For example, 00:14:30.139 --> 00:14:35.318 Hasan received reports that a Seljuk ruler named Ahmad Sanjar was planning a campaign 00:14:35.318 --> 00:14:41.428 against him. Allegedly, that man woke up one day to find a dagger thrust into the bed next 00:14:41.428 --> 00:14:47.619 to him, accompanied by a note stating that Hasan-i Sabbah would like peace. Shocked and 00:14:47.619 --> 00:14:53.249 no doubt slightly terrified, he gave the Nizaris no further trouble, even promoting a relatively 00:14:53.249 --> 00:14:58.810 tolerant attitude and granting them 4,000 dinars per year as a pension. 00:14:58.809 --> 00:15:04.028 The threat of assassination clearly worked as well as the deed itself, at least for as 00:15:04.028 --> 00:15:11.548 long as Hasan was alive. However, the Nizari leader fell ill in 1124 and designated his 00:15:11.548 --> 00:15:17.058 successor, appointing a council of advisors to guide him in the role. In the same year, 00:15:17.058 --> 00:15:22.969 he passed away inside Alamut at the age of 70, having never left the citadel for thirty-four 00:15:22.970 --> 00:15:29.889 years. An effective stalemate continued for decades following his death. Often the Nizari 00:15:29.889 --> 00:15:35.519 in Persia or Syria would take a fortress, only to have another one taken from them. 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:40.490 There were periods of peace as well as those of intermittent warfare. Throughout all of 00:15:40.490 --> 00:15:45.970 it, the strongholds of Hasan’s movement remained cohesive and organised. 00:15:45.970 --> 00:15:52.110 In 1162, a man named Rashid al-Din Sinan was sent from Persia to lead the Syrian branch 00:15:52.110 --> 00:15:57.028 of Nizari, who had grown in influence in the half-century since first penetrating into 00:15:57.028 --> 00:16:03.028 the region. Despite being far removed from one another territorially, the various Nizari 00:16:03.028 --> 00:16:09.058 enclaves all took their orders from the central leadership in Alamut. This appointee would 00:16:09.058 --> 00:16:15.568 later become known as the Old Man of the Mountain in the tales of European explorer Marco Polo. 00:16:15.568 --> 00:16:21.889 Sinan immediately delved into the ever-shifting, interfaith web of political alliances in Syria, 00:16:21.889 --> 00:16:26.539 eventually sending fi’dais to assassinate an up-and-coming Muslim leader who sought 00:16:26.539 --> 00:16:33.019 to unify the region - Saladin. The Nizari killers failed twice, once after invading 00:16:33.019 --> 00:16:38.619 the Ayyubid ruler’s military encampment and once during his siege of Azaz. Sinan’s 00:16:38.619 --> 00:16:44.589 headquarters at Masyaf was besieged in response, but it did not fall, and a compromise was 00:16:44.589 --> 00:16:51.220 eventually reached between the two great men. One of most notorious assassinations of Sinan’s 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:57.309 rule occurred during the closing stages of the Third Crusade. A rivalry had existed between 00:16:57.308 --> 00:17:02.118 Philip Augustus and Richard the Lionheart since the venture’s early stages, which 00:17:02.119 --> 00:17:08.400 prompted both men to support different candidates for the crown of Jerusalem. Much to King Richard’s 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:14.919 anger, the highly competent Conrad of Montferrat was unanimously elected to the throne of Jerusalem. 00:17:14.919 --> 00:17:22.240 However, the prospective monarch would never be crowned. At noon on April 28th 1192, the 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:26.419 Frankish crusader lord was returning from having lunch with his friend - the Bishop 00:17:26.419 --> 00:17:32.610 of Beauvais - accompanied by a few guards. On his walk, Conrad was approached by two 00:17:32.609 --> 00:17:38.069 Christian monks whom he had become familiar with recently. A conversation began between 00:17:38.069 --> 00:17:43.769 the two groups, putting Conrad’s guards at ease with the seemingly innocuous men. 00:17:43.769 --> 00:17:48.668 At that moment of greatest vulnerability, they suddenly sprang forward with daggers, 00:17:48.669 --> 00:17:53.679 brutally stabbing the king-elect with at least two blows to the side and back. 00:17:53.679 --> 00:17:58.860 Although the assassins - who were fi’dai dispatched by Rashid al-Din Sinan - were either 00:17:58.859 --> 00:18:04.099 killed or captured, Conrad either died instantly from his wounds or soon after being taken 00:18:04.099 --> 00:18:10.469 to a nearby church. Various motivations and culprits have been designated for the murder. 00:18:10.470 --> 00:18:15.350 Richard the Lionheart was accused because of his enmity towards Conrad, while a letter 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:21.599 to Austria’s Leopold V detailed Conrad’s murder of a shipwrecked Nizari crew in Tyre 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:27.908 as the cause of his death. Whatever the case, this killing only furthered the mythical European 00:18:27.909 --> 00:18:34.730 vision of mysterious assassins who did not fear death. These later decades of the twelfth-century 00:18:34.730 --> 00:18:39.819 marked a high point of the Syrian Nizaris in particular, a period that came to an end 00:18:39.819 --> 00:18:46.769 when Rashid al-Din Sinan died at Masyaf in 1193. The thirteenth-century was dawning, 00:18:46.769 --> 00:18:50.138 and it would be the equivalent of an apocalypse for the Ismailis. 00:18:50.138 --> 00:18:55.939 At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol juggernaut rolled through the Islamic 00:18:55.940 --> 00:19:01.769 world, crushing all in its path. The khans became famous for their utilization of talented 00:19:01.769 --> 00:19:07.019 native peoples from the lands they conquered, and this apparently included a number of Sunni 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:12.658 courtiers, who despised the Ismaili. They must have known of the Nizari’s reputation 00:19:12.659 --> 00:19:17.990 for defiance, in addition to their penchant for assassination. Perhaps after adding a 00:19:17.990 --> 00:19:23.599 few more fanciful details, these tales must have greatly concerned the khan, who viewed 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:27.779 them as a risk. After initial lukewarm relations, Muhammad 00:19:27.779 --> 00:19:34.759 III of Alamut received a dreadful shock in 1246. Upon the ascension of Ogedei’s successor 00:19:34.759 --> 00:19:39.631 Guyuk, many Muslim leaders sent embassies of congratulations and gifts to the great 00:19:39.631 --> 00:19:46.820 khan. Out of them, only the Nizari ambassadors were harshly dismissed. To back up this hostile 00:19:46.819 --> 00:19:52.419 stance, the khan proclaimed that of every ten reinforcements he would send to Persia, 00:19:52.420 --> 00:19:58.769 two must be used to reduce rebellious lands, prominently those of the Ismaili. This was 00:19:58.769 --> 00:20:04.138 a policy that Guyuk’s successor Mongke, who desired complete and total domination 00:20:04.138 --> 00:20:09.308 of western Asia, mimicked. Despite offering ferocious resistance, the 00:20:09.308 --> 00:20:16.970 Mongol pressure was simply too great. On November 19th 1256 the final Nizari imam - Khurshah 00:20:16.970 --> 00:20:23.299 - surrendered Alamut to Hulagu and was initially shown mercy. After being escorted from his 00:20:23.299 --> 00:20:29.349 lands, however, he was unceremoniously killed in the Khangai mountains. Back in Persia, 00:20:29.349 --> 00:20:34.439 the walls of captured Nizari fortresses were torn down, vast libraries of knowledge were 00:20:34.440 --> 00:20:40.759 torched and thousands of civilians slaughtered. One by one the mountain strongholds fell, 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:46.370 with their fi’dais putting up a desperate fight. The final Ismaili castle of Girdkuh 00:20:46.369 --> 00:20:52.189 fell on December 15th 1270. The violent destruction of Hasan-i Sabbah’s 00:20:52.190 --> 00:20:58.420 Alamut-based state put an end to Nizari statehood forever. Against all the odds, the Nizari 00:20:58.420 --> 00:21:05.320 did survive into the modern-day and are currently led by their 49th imam - Aga Khan IV - from 00:21:05.319 --> 00:21:10.659 the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, with an estimated 15 million followers in more than 00:21:10.660 --> 00:21:17.230 25 countries. Although these Nizaris are far less militant, the story of self-sacrificing 00:21:17.230 --> 00:21:22.460 predecessors continues to shine brightly in their memories. 00:21:22.460 --> 00:21:27.179 We always have more stories to tell, so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and 00:21:27.179 --> 00:21:32.220 have pressed the bell button. We would like to express our gratitude to our Patreon supporters 00:21:32.220 --> 00:21:36.909 and channel members, who make the creation of our videos possible. Now, you can also 00:21:36.909 --> 00:21:41.720 support us by buying our merchandise via the link in the description. This is the Kings 00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:44.909 and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.