Assassins
or ISMAILI, a sect of religious fanatics who existed in the 11th and 12th centuries. They derived their name of assassins originally from their immoderate use of hasheesh, which produces an intense cerebral excitement, often amounting to fury. Their founder and law giver was Hassan-ben-Sabah, to whom the Orientals gave the name of known in Europe as the "Old Man of the Mountain"; he was a wily impostor, who made fanatical and implicit slaves of his devotees, by imbuing them with a religion compounded of that of the Christians, the Jews, the Magi, and the Mohammedans. The principal article of their belief was that the Holy Ghost was embodied in their chief, and that his orders proceeded from the Deity, and were declarations of the divine will.
They believed assassination to be meritorious when sanctioned by his command torious when sanctioned by his command, and courted danger and death in the execution of his orders. In the time of the crusades, they mustered to the number of 50,000. So great was the power of the Sheikh, th that the sovereigns of every quarter of the globe secretly pensioned him. For a long time this fearful sect reigned in Persia, and on Mt. Lebanon.
Holagoo, or Hulaka, a Mogul Tartar, in 1254, dispossessed them of several of their strongholds; but it was not till some years after that they were extirpated partially by the Egyptian forces sent against them by the great Sultan Bibars. A feeble residue of the Ismaili has survived in Persia and Syria. The Syrian Ismaili dwell around Mesiode, W. of Homar, and on Lebanon; they are under Turkish dominion, with a sheikh of their own, and formerly enjoyed a productive and flourishing agriculture and commerce.