Alamut (23 page)

“You’re becoming more and more difficult to understand. You say you’ve been carrying a secret around for twenty years? And this secret has to do with these gardens? With overthrowing the kingdom of Iran? This is all very murky.”

“I know. It has to be, until I explain it. These gardens, those girls, Apama and her school, and ultimately you and I, the castle of Alamut and what’s behind it—all these things are elements of a long-range plan that I’ve transformed from fantasy into reality. Now we’ll see if my assumptions have been right. I need you. We’re on the verge of a great experiment. There’s no going back for me. It’s hard for me to express this.”

“You always amaze me, Hasan. Speak. I’m listening carefully.”

“To help you understand me better, I’ll reach far back into my youth. As you know, I was born in Tus and my father’s name was Ali. He was an opponent of Baghdad and the Sunna, and I often heard discussions of these things at home. All these confessional disputes about the Prophet and his heirs seemed vastly mysterious and attracted me with an uncanny force. Of all the warriors for the Muslim faith, Ali was closest to my heart. Everything about him and his descendants was full of mystery. But the thing I found most moving was the promise that Allah would send someone from his line into the world as the Mahdi, to be the last and greatest of the prophets. I would ask my father, I would ask his relatives and friends to tell me what would be the signs of al-Mahdi and how we were to recognize him. They weren’t able to tell me anything specific. My imagination was fired up. One moment I saw the Mahdi in this or that dai or believer, in this or that peer, and on lonely nights I would even wonder if I weren’t the awaited savior myself. I burned, I practically burned to learn more about this teaching.

“Then I heard that a certain dai by the name of Amireh Zarab was hiding in our town, and that he was fully initiated into all of the mysteries of the coming of the Mahdi. I asked around about him, and one older cousin of mine who wasn’t particularly fond of the Shia told me that the dai belonged to the Ismaili sect, and that the adherents of that sect were secretly sophists and godless freethinkers. Now I was really interested. Not yet twelve years old, I sought him out and immediately leapt at him with my questions. I wanted to hear from his mouth whether the Ismaili doctrine was really just
a cover for freethinking and, if so, what that meant for the coming of the Mahdi. In a tone of the utmost derision, Amireh Zarab began explaining the Ismailis’ external doctrine: that Ali was the Prophet’s sole legitimate heir, and that Ismail’s son Mohammed, the eighth in the line of Ali, would some day return to earth as al-Mahdi. Then he split hairs about the other Shiite sects and blasted the ones that held that the twelfth imam, who wouldn’t be from the line of Ali, would appear to the faithful as al-Mahdi. All of this squabbling over individuals struck me as trivial and pathetic. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a mystery about it. I returned home, dissatisfied. I decided that from then on I wouldn’t worry about these doctrinal disputes and that, like my peers, I would enjoy more readily attainable things. And I probably would have succeeded, if only another Ismaili refiq by the name of Abu Nedjm Saradj hadn’t passed through our town about a year later. Still furious at his predecessor for not being able to reveal any mysteries to me, I searched him out and began deriding him for the pedantry of his doctrine, which I said was every bit as ridiculous as Sunnism. I said that neither he nor his adherents knew anything definite about the Mahdi’s coming and that they were just leading poor, truth-seeking believers on.

“The whole time I was raining this abuse down on him, I expected him to leap at me and throw me out the door. But the refiq listened to me patiently. I noticed a sort of satisfied smile playing around his mouth. When I finally ran out of words, he said, ‘You’ve passed the test with honors, my young friend. I predict that one day you will become a great and powerful dai. You’ve reached the point where I can reveal the true Ismaili doctrine to you. But first you have to promise me that you won’t share it with anyone until you’ve been initiated.’ His words struck me to the quick. So my hunch had been right after all, and there
was
a mystery? I made the promise with my voice shaking, and he told me, ‘The doctrine of Ali and Mahdi is just bait for the masses of believers who hate Baghdad and venerate the name of the Prophet’s son-in-law. However, to those who can understand, we explain, as Caliph al-Hakim established, that the Koran is the product of a muddled brain. The truth is unknowable. Therefore we believe in nothing and have no limits on what we can do.’ It was as though I’d been struck by lightning. The Prophet a man with a muddled brain? His son-in-law Ali an idiot for believing him? And the teaching of the coming of the Mahdi, that glorious, mystery-laden teaching of the coming of a savior, just a fairy tale dreamt up for the common masses? I shouted at him, ‘What is the point of deceiving people?!’ He looked at me sternly. ‘Don’t you see we’ve become slaves of the Turks?’ he said. ‘And that Baghdad is in league with them, and the masses are discontented? To them the name of Ali is sacred. We’ve used it to unite them against the sultan and the caliph.’ My tongue felt paralyzed. I ran home as if I were out of my mind. I threw myself down on my bed and cried. For the last time in my life. My magical world had been dashed to pieces. I
got sick. For forty days and nights I hovered between life and death. Finally the fever broke. My strength came back. But it was an entirely new person reawakening to life.”

Hasan stopped speaking and grew pensive. Miriam, who hadn’t moved her gaze away from his mouth the whole time, asked him, “How is it, ibn Sabbah, that you believed that godless doctrine right away, when the previous teacher had completely disillusioned you?”

“Let me try to explain it to you. It’s true that the first dai had proclaimed a number of very definite ‘truths,’ but behind them I sensed something that aroused my suspicion. They didn’t fulfill my curiosity, my longing for truth, for some higher knowledge. I tried to accept them as the real truth, but my heart rejected them. It’s true, I didn’t immediately grasp what the second teacher told me, either. But his doctrine settled on my soul like a vague premonition of something dark and awful that would someday open up to my understanding. My reason tried to reject it, but my heart welcomed it in. When I recovered from the illness, I decided to order my whole life in such a way that when I matured I would reach a state where the refiq’s assertion would go without saying—or else that I would clearly recognize its fallacy. ‘You have to test whether the refiq’s claims hold,’ I told myself, ‘in real life.’ I decided to study everything, not leaving out anything that people knew. The opportunity soon came. Youth being what it is, I couldn’t keep quiet about it. I started discussing the issues troubling my spirit with anyone who cared to listen. My father already had the reputation of secretly being a Shiite and got frightened. To dispel suspicions that he was an infidel, he sent me away to a school in Nishapur, run by Muafiq Edin, a man known widely as a learned lawyer and a Sunni dogmatist. That’s where I got to know Omar Khayyam and the eventual grand vizier, Nizam al-Mulk.

“There’s not much to say about our teacher. He quoted a lot of authors and he knew the Koran from the first sura to the last by heart. But he wasn’t able to satisfy my passion for knowledge one whit. So the encounter with my two classmates was all the more powerful. The eventual vizier was from Tus, just like me, and we both shared the same name: Hasan ibn Ali. He was eight to ten years older than I was and his knowledge, especially of astronomy and mathematics, was already quite extensive. But issues of faith, the search for truth in its own right—none of this mattered to him. That’s when it first dawned on me what huge gaps there are between individuals. He had never heard of Ismaili teachers passing through Tus, and he had never gone through any kind of intellectual crisis that practically cost him his life, as I had. And yet he had a powerful intellect, superior to most others.

“Omar, on the other hand, was completely different. He was from Nishapur and he seemed to be quiet and meek. But when we were alone he’d make fun of everything and be skeptical of everybody. He was totally unpredictable, sometimes so amazingly clever that you could listen to him for
days on end, then he’d become introspective and moody. We grew very fond of him. We would get together in his father’s garden every evening and make great plans for the future. The scent of jasmine wafted over us while the evening butterflies sucked the nectar from its flowers. We would sit in an arbor, shaping our fate. Once—I remember it as though it were last night—in the grips of some desire to show off to them, I told them I was a member of a secret Ismaili brotherhood. I told them about my encounters with the two teachers, and I explained Ismaili doctrine to them. I identified the struggle against the Seljuk rulers and their lackey, the caliph of Baghdad, as being at its heart. When I saw how astonished they were, I cried out, ‘Do you want us, the descendants of the Khosrows, of the kings of Iran, of Rustam, Farhad and Firdausi, to be the hirelings of those horse thieves from Turkestan? If their flag is black, then let ours be white. Because the only shame is in groveling before foreigners and bowing down to barbarians!’ I had hit a sore spot. ‘What should we do?’ Omar asked. I replied, ‘We have to try to climb up the social ladder as quickly as possible. The first one to succeed should help the other two.’ They agreed. All three of us swore allegiance to each other.”

He fell silent and Miriam drew closer to him.

“It’s true, life is like a fairy tale,” she said in a thoughtful voice.

“But somewhere,” Hasan continued, “at the bottom of my heart, I still missed those fairy tales from my earliest youth, my tenacious faith in the coming of the Mahdi and the great mysteries of the Prophet’s succession. That wound still bled secretly, my first great disillusionment still stung. But the evidence was mounting in support of the thesis that nothing was true! Because just as much as the Shiites defended their claims, the Sunnis defended theirs. What’s more, Christians of all sects, Jews, Brahmans, Buddhists, fire worshippers and pagans were just as passionate about their teachings. Philosophers of all persuasions made their claims and refuted each other, one claiming there was only one god, another that there were many of them, and a third claiming there was no god and that everything happened by pure coincidence. More and more I began to see the supreme wisdom of the Ismaili dais. Truth is unattainable to us, it doesn’t exist for us. What then is the proper response? If you’ve concluded that you can know nothing, if you don’t believe in anything, then everything is permitted, then follow your passions. Is that really the ultimate possible knowledge? Studying, learning about everything, this was my first passion. I was in Baghdad, Basra, Alexandria, Cairo. I studied all the sciences—mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, chemistry, physics, biology. I delved into foreign languages, other peoples, other ways of thinking. And the Ismaili doctrine kept making more and more sense. But I was still young and it began to bother me that the vast majority of humanity was entangled in ignorance and subject to stupid fabrications and lies. It occurred to me that my mission on earth was to sow the truth, to open mankind’s eyes, to liberate it from its false assumptions and especially
from the frauds who were responsible for them. Ismaili doctrine became my flag in the struggle against lies and illusions, and I saw myself as the great torchbearer who would light the way for mankind out of its ignorance. How sadly mistaken I turned out to be again! All of our brotherhoods accepted me as a great warrior for the Ismaili cause, but when I explained my plan to enlighten the masses to the leaders, they shook their heads and warned me against it. At every step they undermined me, and it was then I realized that the leadership was intentionally withholding the truth from the people and keeping them ignorant for selfish reasons. So then I started addressing the masses directly during my travels. At bazaars, in caravanserais and on pilgrimages I told them that everything they believed in was illusory, and that if they didn’t shake off the fairy tales and the lies, they would die thirsting for and bereft of the truth. The result was that I had to flee from a hail of stones and ugly curses. Then I tried to open just the brighter individuals’ eyes. Many of them listened to me carefully. But when I would finish, they would reply that they had had similar doubts themselves, but that it seemed more practical to them to hold onto something solid than to grope their way through eternal uncertainty and endless negation. Not just simple folk from the masses, even the more exalted minds preferred a tangible lie to an ungraspable truth. All my attempts to enlighten individuals or groups came to nothing. Because truth, which for me stood at the summit of all values, was worthless to the rest of humanity. I abandoned my would-be mission and gave up. I had wasted many years with those efforts. I went to see what my two classmates had achieved in the meantime, and I found out that I’d lagged far behind them. My namesake from Tus had entered into the service of a Seljuk prince, and just then, in recognition of his statesmanship, the sultan at that time, Alp Arslan Shah, had invited him to serve as vizier at his court. Omar had gained a reputation as a mathematician and an astronomer and, true to his youthful promise, Nizam al-Mulk was providing him with a government annuity of twelve hundred gold pieces. I felt a desire to visit Omar on his estate in Nishapur. I set out on the journey—it will have been a good twenty years ago now—and surprised my old classmate amidst his wine, girls and books. My appearance must not have been particularly reassuring, because as imperturbable as he was, he looked startled when he saw me. ‘What’s happened to you!’ he exclaimed once he recognized me. ‘A person would think you were coming straight from hell, you look so parched and sunburnt …’ He hugged me and invited me to stay with him as his guest. I made myself right at home too, finally enjoying witty and wise conversations over wine after so many years. We told each other about everything that had happened to us. We also confided our life experiences and intellectual theories to each other, and to our mutual surprise we determined that both of us had come to surprisingly similar conclusions, though each in his own way. And he had barely moved an inch away from home, while I had wandered through practically
half the world. He said, ‘If I needed confirmation that I was on the right track in my search, I heard it from your mouth today.’ I replied, ‘Now that I’m talking with you and we’re in such complete agreement, I feel like Pythagoras when he heard the stars humming in the universe and merging with the harmony of the spheres.’ We talked about the possibility of knowledge. He said, ‘Ultimate knowledge is impossible, because our senses lie to us. But they’re the only mediator between the things that surround us and our thoughts, our intellect.’ ‘That’s exactly what Democritus and Protagoras claim,’ I agreed. ‘That’s why people condemned them as atheists and praised Plato to high heavens, because he fed them fairy tales.’ ‘The masses have always been like that,’ Omar continued. ‘They’re afraid of uncertainty, which is why they prefer a lie that promises something tangible to even the most exalted truth if it doesn’t give them anything to hold on to. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whoever wants to be a prophet to the masses has to treat them like children and feed them fairy tales and falsehoods. That’s why a wise man always keeps his distance from them.’ ‘But Christ and Mohammed wanted good for the masses.’ ‘That’s right,’ he replied. ‘They wanted good for them, but they also recognized all their utter hopelessness. Pity moved them to conjure up fairy tales about an otherworldly paradise that would be theirs as a reward for their suffering in this world.’ ‘Why do you think Mohammed would have let thousands die for his teachings if he knew they were based on a fairy tale?’ ‘Probably,’ he answered, ‘because he knew that otherwise they would have slaughtered each other for even baser reasons. He wanted to create a kingdom of happiness on earth for them. To do that, he invented his dialogues with the archangel Gabriel, otherwise they wouldn’t have believed him. He promised them heavenly delights after death, and in so doing made them brave and invincible.’ I thought for a while and then told him, ‘It seems to me that there’s no longer anyone who would joyfully go to his death just for the promise of getting into heaven.’ ‘Nations age too,’ he replied. ‘The thought of paradise has atrophied in people and isn’t a source of joy anymore like it used to be. People only keep believing in it because they’re too lazy to seize onto anything new.’ ‘So do you think,’ I asked him, ‘that a prophet preaching paradise to win over the masses today would fail?’ Omar laughed. ‘No question. Because the same torch doesn’t burn twice and a wilted tulip won’t bloom again. People are contented with their little comforts. If you don’t have the key to open the gates to paradise before their eyes, you might as well give up any thought of becoming a prophet.’ I grabbed at my head as though I were thunderstruck. Omar had jokingly articulated a thought that began spreading through my soul like wildfire. Yes, people wanted fairy tales and fabrications and they were fond of the blindness they blundered through. Omar sat drinking wine. But at that moment a powerful and immutable plan was born in me, the likes of which the world had never seen. To test human blindness to its utmost
limits! To use it to attain absolute power and independence from the whole world! To embody the fairy tale! To turn it into such reality that our remotest descendants would talk about it! To conduct a great experiment on man!”