Hashshashin: Encyclopedia II - Hashshashin - Etymology of the word assassin

Hashshashin - Etymology of the word assassin

The name "assassin" is commonly believed to be a mutation of the Arabic "haššāšīn" (حشّاشين, "hashish-eaters"). However, there are those who dispute this etymology, arguing that it originates from Marco Polo's account of his visit to Alamut in 1273, in which he describes a drug whose effects are more like those of alcohol than of hashish. It is suggested by some writers that assassin simply means 'followers of Al-Hassan' (or Hasan-i Sabbah, the Sheikh of Alamut (see below). Others suggest that since hashish-eaters were generally ostracized in the middle ages the word "Hashshashin" had become a common synonym for "outlaws". So the attribution of Hassan's Ismaili sect with this term is not necessarily a clue for drug usage. Some common accounts of their connection with hashish are that these "assassins" would take hashish before missions in order to calm themselves; others say that it helped to boost their strength, and turned them into madmen in battle. Yet other accounts state it was used in their initiation rites in order to show the neophyte the sensual pleasures awaiting him in the afterlife. The connection between their mysticism and that drug is not something subject to reliable or consistent historical accounts; this is not surprising given their secrecy and infamy.

"Many scholars have argued, and demonstrated convincingly, that the attribution of the epithet 'hashish eaters' or 'hashish takers' is a misnomer derived from enemies of the Isma'ilis and was never used by Moslem chroniclers or sources. It was therefore used in a pejorative sense of 'enemies' or 'disreputable people'. This sense of the term survived into modern times with the common Egyptian usage of the term Hashasheen in the 1930s to mean simply 'noisy or riotous'. It is unlikely that the austere Hasan-i Sabbah indulged personally in drug taking."

"There is no mention of that drug [hashish] in connection with the Persian Assassins - especially in the library of Alamut ('the secret archives')."

- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

Another possible derivation of the term is from the Arabic word hassas, from the root hassa, meaning "to kill".

Amin Maalouf, in his novel Samarkand, writes of the assassins that 'their contemporaries in the Muslim world would call them hash-ishiyun, "hashish-smokers"; some Orientalists thought that this was the origin of the word "assassin," which in many European languages was more terrifying yet....The Truth is different. According to texts that have come down to us from Alamut, Hassan liked to call his disciples Assassiyun, meaning people who are faithful to the Assass, the "foundation" of the faith. This is the word, misunderstood by foreign travelers, that seemed similar to "hashish."'

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Etymology of the word assassin", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki