Samarkand (14 page)

Nizam had won, it is true, but by dint of playing the Sultan off against the Sultana he had poisoned irreparably his relations
with the court. Even if Malikshah did not regret having conquered the most prestigious cities of Transoxania so easily, his
self-respect suffered at having allowed himself to be abused. He went so far as to refuse to organize the traditional victory
banquet for his troops. ‘It’s out of avarice,’ Nizam whispered spitefully to all and sundry.

As for Hassan Sabbah, he learnt a valuable lesson from his defeat. Rather than try and convert princes, he would forge a fearsome
instrument of war which would bear no resemblance to anything which mankind had known until then: the order of the Assassins.

Alamut. A fortress on a rock six thousand feet high in a countryside of bare mountains, forgotten lakes, sheer cliffs and
narrow passes. The greatest army could only reach it in single file and the most powerful catapults could not graze its walls.

The Shahrud River, nicknamed the ‘mad river’, dominated the mountains, swelling up in springtime with the melted snow of the
Elburz mountains and snatching up trees and stones as it sped down its course. Woe to him who dared approach it! Woe to the
army which dared pitch camp on its banks!

Every evening a thick, woolly mist rose from the river and the lakes, stopping half-way up the cliffs. To those who were there,
the castle of Alamut was at such times an isle in an ocean of clouds. Seen from below, it was the abode of the jinns.

In the local dialect, Alamut means ‘the eagle’s lesson’. It was told that a prince who wanted to build a fortress to control
these mountains released a trained bird of prey. The bird, after flying around in the sky, came to land on this rock. The
master understood that no other site would be better.

Hassan Sabbah had imitated the eagle. He had searched the length and breadth of Persia for somewhere to gather, teach and
organize his faithful. He had learnt from his misadventure in Samarkand that it would be unrealistic to try and seize a large
city, for confrontation
with the Seljuks would be immediate and would inevitably turn out to the empire’s advantage. He thus needed something else,
a mountain redoubt which was inaccessible and impregnable, a sanctuary from which he could develop his activity in all directions.

Just as the flags captured in Transoxania were being unfurled in the streets of Isfahan, Hassan was in the vicinity of Alamut.
The site had been a revelation for him. From the moment he first saw it from in the distance, he understood that it was here,
and nowhere else, that his task would be accomplished and that his kingdom would arise. Alamut was at that time one fortified
village among so many others, where a few soldiers lived with their families along with some artisans, farmers and a governor,
named by Nizam al-Mulk, who was a courageous nobleman called Mahdi the Alawite, whose only concerns were his irrigation water
and his harvest of nuts, raisins and pomegranates. The turmoil taking place in the empire did not disturb his slumber.

Hassan started by sending out some companions, local men, to join the garrison, preach and convert. Some months later they
were ready to announce to the master that the ground was prepared and that he could come. Hassan turned up disguised as a
Sufi dervish as was his practice. He strolled around, inspecting and checking everything. The governor received the holy man
and asked him what would please him.

‘I need this fortress,’ said Hassan.

The governor smiled, thinking that the dervish certainly did not lack humour. His guest, however, was not smiling.

‘I have come to take possession of this place. I have won over all the men of the garrison.’

The outcome of this exchange was, admittedly, as extraordinary as it was incredible. Orientalists, who have consulted the
chronicles of the time, particularly the accounts set down by the Ismailis, needed to read and re-read them in order to reassure
themselves that they were not the victims of a hoax.

Indeed, let us take another look at the scene.

It was the end of the eleventh century, or to be exact 6 September, 1090. Hassan Sabbah, the brilliant founder of the Order
of the Assassins, was about to take over the fortress which was to be, for
166 years, the seat of the most fearsome sect in all history. Now, there he was, seated cross-legged in front of the governor,
to whom he was saying, without raising his voice:

‘I have come to take possession of Alamut.’

‘This fortress has been given to me in the Sultan’s name,’ the governor replied. ‘I have paid to obtain it.’

‘How much?’

‘Three thousand gold dinars!’

Hassan Sabbah took a piece of paper and wrote: ‘Pay the sum of three thousand gold dinars to Mahdi the Alawite for the fortress
of Alamut. May God meet our needs, for He is the best of protectors.’ The governor was unsettled and did not think that the
signature of a man dressed in homespun might be honoured for such a sum. However, when he arrived in the city of Damghan,
he was able to cash his gold without any delay.

When news of the taking of Alamut reached Isfahan it aroused little concern. The city was much more interested in the conflict
which was currently raging between Nizam and the palace. Terkan Khatun had not pardoned the Vizir for the operation he had
conducted against her family’s preserve. She urged Malikshah to rid himself of his overpowerful Vizir with no further ado.
For the Sultan to have had a tutor upon his father’s death she pronounced absolutely normal as he was then only seventeen
years old; today he was thirty-five, an accomplished man, and he could not leave the management of affairs indefinitely in
the hands of his
ata;
it was time for people to know who the real master of the empire was! Had the Samarkand business not proved that Nizam was
trying to impose his will, that he was tricking his master and treating him as a minor before the whole world?

Malikshah was still hesitant about taking this step when something happened to push him into it. Nizam had named his own grandson
governor of the city of Merv. This conceited adolescent held too much store by his grandfather’s omnipotence, and had gone
so far as to insult an old Turkish emir in public. The emir then came in tears to complain to Malikshah, who beside himself
with rage had the following letter written to Nizam there and then: ‘If you are my aide, you must obey me and forbid your
relatives to
malign my men; if you deem yourself my equal, my associate in power, I will make the necessary decisions.’

Nizam sent back his response to the message, which had been conveyed by a delegation of the empire’s high dignitaries: Tell
the Sultan, if he was not aware of it until now, that I am indeed his associate and that without me he would never have been
able to build up his power! Has he forgotten that it was I who took charge of his affairs upon his father’s death, that it
was I who eliminated the other aspirants and crushed all rebels? That it is thanks to me that he is obeyed and respected to
the ends of the earth? Yes, go and tell him that the fate of his head is tied to that of my inkwell!’

The emissaries were dumbfounded. How could a man as wise as Nizam al-Mulk address the Sultan with words which would cause
his downfall, and without doubt his death? Could his arrogance have gone over into madness?

That day, only one man knew with precision how to explain such determination and that was Khayyam. For weeks Nizam had been
complaining to him of dreadful pains which had been keeping him awake at night and preventing him from concentrating on his
work by day. After examining him, probing his body with his fingers and questioning him, Omar diagnosed a phlegmonic tumour
which would not leave him long to live.

It was a truly unpleasant night when Khayyam had to announce to his friend his true condition.

‘How much time do I have left to live?’

‘A few months.’

‘Will I go on suffering?’

‘I could prescribe you opium to reduce the suffering, but you will feel constantly dizzy and unable to work any more.’

‘Will I not be able to write?’

‘Nor hold a long conversation.’

‘Then I prefer to suffer.’

Between one retort and the next there were long moments of silence and suffering contained with dignity.

‘Are you afraid of the hereafter, Khayyam?’

‘Why should one be afraid? After death there is either nothing or forgiveness.’

‘And the evil that I have wrought?’

‘However great your faults, God’s mercy is greater.’

Nizam seemed somewhat reassured.

‘I have also done good. I have built mosques and schools and have fought against heresy.’

As Khayyam did not contradict him, he went on:

‘Will I be remembered in a hundred years’ time, in a thousand years’?’

‘There is no knowing.’

Nizam stared at him hard with distrust, and then continued:

‘Was it not you who said one day: “Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters.
A man lived.” Do you think that will be the fate of Nizam al-Mulk?’

He gasped for breath. Omar had still not said anything.

‘Your friend Hassan Sabbah has gone throughout the country broadcasting that I am no more than a vile servant of the Turks.
Do you think that is what they will say about me tomorrow, that they will make me into the scourge of the Aryans? Will they
have forgotten that I was the only person to have stood up to sultans for thirty years and to have imposed my will upon them?
What else could I do after their armies’ victory? But you are not saying anything.’

He had a vacant look about him.

‘Seventy-four years. Seventy-four years which have passed before my eyes. So much deceit, so many regrets and so many things
I would have experienced differently!’

His eyes were half-closed, his lips contorted:

‘Woe betide you, Khayyam! You are to blame for Hassan Sabbah being able to perpetrate his misdeeds.’

Omar had wanted to reply: ‘How much you and Hassan have in common! If you are seduced by a cause such as building an empire
or preparing for the reign of the Imam, you do not think twice about killing in order to make your scheme triumph. In my opinion,
any cause which involves killing no longer attracts me. It becomes unattractive to me, it becomes sordid and debased, no matter
how beautiful it may have been. No cause can be just when it allies itself to death.’ He wanted to shout it out, but he got
the better of himself
and remained silent. He had decided to allow his friend to slide peacefully toward his fate.

In spite of this trying night, Nizam ended up by resigning himself to his fate. He became used to the idea of not existing
any more. However, from one day to the next he turned aside from affairs of state and determined that he ought to devote what
time remained to him to completing a book,
Siyasset-Nameh
, the Treatise of Government. This was a remarkable work, the Muslim world’s equivalent of Machiavelli’s
The Prince
, which was to appear in the West four centuries later with one crucial difference.
The Prince
is the work of a man disappointed by politics and thwarted from having any power while the
Siyasset-Nameh
is the fruit of the irreplaceable experience of an empire builder.

Thus, at the very moment when Hassan Sabbah had just conquered the unassailable sanctuary of which he had long dreamt, the
empire’s strongman was concerned only with his own place in History. He preferred words of truth over pleasantries and was
prepared to defy the Sultan to the very end. It could be said that he wanted a spectacular death, a death that befitted him.

He was to obtain it.

When Malikshah received the delegation which had come from meeting Nizam, he could not believe what he was told.

‘Did he really say that he was my associate, my equal?’

When the emissaries dolefully confirmed this, the Sultan let his anger come pouring out. He spoke of having his tutor impaled,
dismembered alive or crucified on the battlements of the citadel. Then he rushed off to announce to Terken Khatun that he
had finally decided to discharge Nizam al-Mulk from all his duties and that he wished to see his death. It only remained to
work out how he could be executed without provoking any reaction from the numerous regiments who were still loyal to him.
However, Terken and Jahan had their own idea: since Hassan also wanted to see Nizam’s death, why not facilitate the matter
for him, while leaving Malikshah free from suspicion?’

An army corps was thus sent out to Alamut, under the command
of a man loyal to the Sultan. The ostensible objective was to lay siege to the Ismailis’ fortress but in reality it was a
smoke-screen so that negotiations could take place without rousing suspicions and the course of events was planned down to
the very details. The Sultan would lure Nizam to Nahavand, a city equidistant from Isfahan and Alamut. Once there, the Assassins
would take over.

Texts from the time report that Hassan Sabbah gathered his men together and addressed them as follows: ‘Which man amongst
you will rid this country of the evil Nizam al-Mulk?’ A man named Arrani placed his hand on his chest as a sign of acceptance,
the master of Alamut charged him with the mission and added: ‘The murder of this demon is the gateway to happiness.’

During this period Nizam stayed shut up in his residence. Those who had previously visited his
diwan
had deserted him upon learning of his disgrace, and only Khayyam and officers of the
nizamiya
guard frequented his residence. He spent most of his time at his desk. He scribbled away furiously and sometimes asked Omar
to read it over.

As he read through the text, Omar gave off a smile or a grimace here and there. In the evening of his life, Nizam could not
resist shooting off a few arrows and settling some accounts – for example, with Terken Khatun. The forty-third chapter was
titled ‘On women who live behind the tent-work’. ‘In ancient times,’ Nizam wrote, ‘the spouse of a king had great influence
over him and there resulted therefrom nothing but discord and troubles. I shall say no more about it, for anyone can observe
such things in other epochs.’ He added: ‘For an undertaking to succeed, it must be carried out the opposite way to what women
say.’