Early life and education Rashid ad-Din Sinan was born between the years 1131 and 1135 in
Basra, southern
Iraq, to a prosperous family. According to his autobiography, of which only fragments survive, Rashid came to
Alamut, the fortress headquarters of the
Assassins, as a youth after an argument with his brothers, and received the typical Assassin training. In 1162, the sect's leader
Ḥassan ʿAlā Dhikrihi's Salām sent him to Syria, where he proclaimed
Qiyamah (repeating the ceremony of Hassan II at Alamut), which in Nizari terminology meant the time of the
Qa'im and the removal of
Islamic law. Based at the Nizari strongholds
al-Kahf and later
Masyaf, he controlled the northern Syrian districts of
Jabal as-Summaq,
Maarrat Misrin and
Sarmin. Rashid enjoyed considerable independence from the Nizari centre in Alamut and some writings attribute him with a semi-divine status usually given to the Nizari Ismaili Imam.
Assassin activity His chief enemy, the Sultan
Saladin (1137/1138–1193), ruled over Egypt and Syria from 1174 to 1193. Saladin managed twice to elude assassination attempts ordered by Rashid and as he was marching against
Aleppo, Saladin devastated the Nizari possessions. In 1176, Saladin laid siege to Masyaf but he lifted the siege after two notable events that reputedly transpired between him and the Old Man of the Mountain. According to one version, one night, Saladin's guards noticed a spark glowing down the hill of Masyaf and then vanishing among the
Ayyubid tents. Saladin awoke from his sleep to find a figure leaving the tent. He saw that the lamps in his tent were displaced and beside his bed laid hot scones of the shape peculiar to the Assassins with a note at the top pinned by a poisoned dagger. The note threatened that he would be killed if he did not withdraw from his siege. Saladin gave a loud cry, exclaiming that Sinan himself was the figure that left the tent. As such, Saladin told his guards to come to an agreement with Sinan. Realizing he was unable to subdue the Assassins, he sought to align himself with them, consequently depriving the Crusaders of aligning themselves against him. Sinan's last notable act occurred in 1191, when he ordered the successful assassination of the newly elected King of Jerusalem
Conrad of Montferrat. Whether this happened in coordination with King
Richard I of England, with Saladin, or with neither, remains unknown. In 1193, Sinan wrote a letter to
Leopold V, Duke of Austria at the request of Richard I, taking credit for the assassination order and subsequent death of Conrad of Monferrat, of which Richard was being accused. However, this letter is believed by modern historians to be a forgery written after Sinan's death. He died in 1193 in
al-Kahf Castle in Masyaf and was buried in
Salamiyah. He was succeeded by the Persian ''da'i'' Abu Mansur ibn Muhammad or Nasr al-'Ajami appointed from Alamut, which regained a closer supervision over the Syrian branch of the Assassin Order. == In popular culture ==