Book is in Very Fine condition with boards and spine tight and square. Pages are clean and bright with NO marks, writing or underlining (title page is signed by author " To Zohra, Farhad Daftary"). D/J is in Very Fine condition with very minor shelf wear on edges. 213pp. Deep red binding with gilt title on spine. Very nice signed copy.

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Bibliographic Details

Title: The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'Ilis
Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, London
Publication Date: 1994
Language: English
ISBN 10: 185043705X
ISBN 13: 9781850437055
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition, Second Printing
Condition: Very Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Fine
Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

For hundreds of years Westerners have been fascinated by stories of the Assassins, their mysterious leader and their remote mountain stronghold at Alamut in Northern Iran. The legends first emerged in the 12th and 13th centuries, when Crusaders in Syria came into contact with the Nazari Isma'ilis, one of the communities of Shi'ite Islam who, at the behest of their leader Hassan Sabaa (mythologized as the ""Old Man of the Mountain""), engaged in dangerous missions to kill their enemies. Elaborated over the years, the tales culminated in Marco Polo's claim that the ""Old Man"" controlled the behaviour of his self-sacrificing devotees through the use of hashish and a secret garden of paradise. So influential were these tales that the word ""assassin"" entered European languages as a common noun meaning ""murderer"".

Daftary traces the origins and early development of the legends - as well as investigating the historical context in which they were fabricated and transmitted. As such, this book reveals an extraordinary programme of propaganda rooted in the medieval Muslim world and medieval Europe's ignorance of this world. This book also provides the first English translation of French orientalist Silvestre de Sacy's famous 19th-century ""Memoire"" on the Assassins.

About the Author

Farhad Daftary is the Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications at The Institute of Ismaili Studies.

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