Eldridge’s Etymology of the Week–Assassin
Alright, now that we’re in to the swing of the school year, let’s move on to one of my favorite etymologies. This week’s etymology comes to us from the Middle Ages-and for a Medievalist like me the best things come from that ever entertaining millennium.
Our word is assassin, one who murders by surprise or one who carries out a secret plot to kill a prominent person.
It comes into English from Medieval Latin (again, if you’re unclear about the difference between Latin and Medieval Latin see last week’s post). It entered into Latin during the 11th-12th centuries from Arabic or Persian. As you may remember from those sketches they try to pass off as history in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, these were the centuries of the Crusades. Difficult and brutal centuries, and the Crusades were difficult and brutal adventures, fleecing Europe of some of its most prized warriors, kings, ne’er-do-wells, poor farmers, and even an entire army of children.
The armies of Christendom encamped in the “Holy Land” were foreigners in every sense of the word. They were totally unprepared for the complex, nearly indecipherable political tumult of the Middle East. They were subjected to (and committed) atrocities, military attacks, night time raids, brigandage, murder, and (yes) terrorism. There is a legend that a sect of fanatical Muslims, intent on protecting their lands from invaders, which the Crusaders were most assuredly were, would use hashish to enter into ecstatic, mystical states. Members of this sect would, at night, enter Crusader camps, murdering their enemies. From the term hashishim “takers of hashish”, then, the Latin speaking Crusaders created the word assassin as the noun and assassinare as the verb to assassinate, or murder in secret.
But this explanation seems a little too perfect. I mean what a better way to smear your enemies with an awful crime: secret killing was considered a crime punishable by death, whereas open, public killing was considered not exactly lawful, but not as great a crime, and marginalize them as users of mind-altering drugs, robbing them of rationality and moral purpose. This description also flies in the face of reason: who would believe that drug-crazed religious fanatics would have the skill, patience, and training to infiltrate guarded camps, execute soldiers, and escape? There’s nothing better than being labeled by your enemies!
An alternative origin seems to hold a little better chance of being correct. A fringe and unhappy faction of Muslims, the Nizaris-who spoke Persian, not Arabic-gained a leader in al-Hassan ibn-al-Sabbah (Hassan son of Sabbah), a rising star in the Abbasid Caliph’s service; but his ambition outstripped the Caliph’s desire to reward. This charismatic and austere man left the Caliph’s service and organized and trained the Nizaris, turning them into a deadly and feared enemy. Some stories even claim that he was the terrifying Old Man of the Mountain, since the Nazaris dwelled in the mountainous region south of the Caspian Sea; in 1090 capturing the castle of Alamut. And so his agents-secret, deadly, and possibly everywhere, the ultimate ’sleeper cell’-were enemies of the Caliphate, the predominant Muslim power, and the Crusading Europeans. Outcasts. They were called the followers of Hassan, or Hassassin. These dreaded executioners appeared in public as anyone else, lurked in every shadow with scabard drawn, struck with awesome precision.
Later, their enemies, who were legion, conflated both terms, thereby forever tagging them with an evil that the strict Hassan would probably have never admitted. This story of hashish use was repeated by Marco Polo in his Travels (c. 1273). By this time the term hashishim had become a general term of abuse-which we find evidence for in Egyptian Arabic as hashasheen, “noisy or riotous” (c. 1930). By the 16th century assassin had entered into French and Italian and English as “treacherous killer.”
And so the tortured history of ethnography, war, geo-politics, and philology renders up quite an interesting and twisted, secret history-much like the original fanatics themselves.
Filed under: Etymologies, Language Notes and
too long dont wanna read
[Reply to comment]
sorry
[Reply to comment]
I see why Mr. Eldridge likes history. After you get past all the boring stuff, the actual people are interesting.
[Reply to comment]
It seems to me, that like animals words evolve over time to fit the environment, so like in bio (natural selection) nature chooses the best “words” for the environment.
[Reply to comment]
The Assasins continue to have a negative aura cast over them by the biases of their enemies. The text for AP World History has some choice words to describe that particular sect with, including bloodthirsty, souless, and fanatical thugs who use the cult as a vehicle to unleash their violent urges. The text even goes as far as to desctibe their destruction by the Mongols as the only decent thing the Il-Khans ever did. While many of these descriptions are well-grounded and justified, some of them are the remenents of the opinions of their old enemies. The text that we are given to learn from is never free from biases that at times construe and misrepresent the reality of a concept, in some cases, like this one, the bias of the text leads the reader in directions totally oposite to what really happened.
The Assasins were a fascinating elder religious sect. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it was the way it recruited its members:
Young men would be befriended by strangers in bars and other places of drinking, and they were drugged and when they awoke, they found themselves inside a secret valley built by the Assasins and stocked with exotic plants and animals, with beautifully terraced gardens, and of course, very beautiful women at their dispossal. After a few days of living in the fabulous valley of the Assasins, the young men awoke to find themselves back in their dreary and dull realities. When offered the chance to return to this paradise permantly; their services seemed to be a paltry price to pay. The assasins had very, very, very good and loyal soldiers, their allegiance to their leader al-Hassan ibn-al-Sabbah could even be described as fanatical.
Another alternate etymology of ‘Assasin’ is the arabic term ‘Assasseen’- meaning ‘guardians of the secrets’. for those of you that are interested, the Assasins did claim to posses secret knowlege passed on to them from the ancient Egyptians. I thought that that put a twist on things.
[Reply to comment]
There is a game coming out called Assassin’s Creed that sounds like what you are talking about David. Anyways, we all know who the best assassin is…
[Reply to comment]
Nice connections, David. The recruitment story you’ve posted here is basically the same as Marco Polo’s story from his book. But when we hear of “pleasure gardens” from Medieval Christians we need to be on our guard. The pleasure garden was a typical metaphor for corruption and sin–the garden had been forever ruined by Adam and Eve and their disobedience. So this story would be viewed as incontrovertible evidence by Christians that these “Mohammedans” (as they were called) were vile creatures.
Your history books won’t go into all of this, b/c learning cultural history is a lifetime of work, but this is where real history begins: when you begin to understand the cultural context of actors, you begin to understand how their words, which sound very much like ours, actually carry different meanings and connotations. Then you can begin to piece together what was real from what was propaganda. And to make matters worse, many of the people who lived through the times didn’t have access to many sources of information that later centuries do. So then we get into the complicated reality of having multiple versions of the same history that are correct!!!
[Reply to comment]
i’m really sorry but i just can’t hang with these conversations, mahn…this is gonna be long year!
[Reply to comment]
Sky, hang in there. Just worry about the post. My side notes about cultural history and context-dependent meaning will become more clear through our discussions… This is not something you pick up overnight or with a lot of ease. Like our initial discussion re: epistemology, it can be very confusing and intimidating.
I refer you back to the introduction in the syllabus. I mention that questioning some of our very dearly held beliefs will put us into a fearful state–but we will learn to deal with it and, eventually, to make sense of it. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask–if nothing else it gives other students a chance to keep up with their weekly posting.
[Reply to comment]
I must say I’m utterly impressed by what you wrote, David. I really do think you should teach history some day, especially because you recognize bias when you see it.
I really enjoy the textbook that we have now for AP United States History. It points out traditional biases once in a while, which is a refreshing change from that book we had last year.
[Reply to comment]
It’s interesting to see how some words actually have really cool history behind them. Most of the English language is based on a bunch of old words from a bunch of different languages and places. When they are brought into english their original meanings and pronunciations change.
[Reply to comment]
And it’s interesting to see that so few words are purely English. Anyone remember the book “Frindle”?
[Reply to comment]
@Alexei
I believe words do not evolve to fit their times. I think words regress with time which is very sad.
@davidreuter
I think History is fascinating because of how flexible it is. Just think of American History written mostly by white males it is bound to have some bias. They exalt the glory of men and neglect women…but that’s off topic I think. I think History is regurgitated by the many people that narrate it, but by finding connections between all of them one can find a better understanding of true History.
Oh and in another note I despise History textbooks!!! We should read the documents from which Historians base their conclusions THAT is real History. But I guess that would result in many complaints by the student body.
@Mr. Eldridge
I did not know about the second part of the etymology, words are so complex! I just love them. Once again language proves to be a beautiful art known to many, yet effectively used by a select few.
[Reply to comment]