Ameen Rihani

“ In the name of Equality, Lawlessness and Communism, the tables were turned, every crime was sanctioned or condoned, the rich, in consequence, becoming poor, the poor becoming rich, and everywhere the mob ruled supreme. Morality and religion were renounced, abolished; man became a law unto himself ”

“ But the inconsistencies of these Old Men of the Mountain sometimes reach the sublime. We have no reason to doubt that Hasan himself, unlike Mazdak four centuries before him, lived the life of an ascetic in his castle on the hilltop. The miniature paradise, which he could behold from his window, was not for him, but for the young fadais who were willing to die in doing his will. A magnanimity hardly to be surpassed in this world. And he was a Spartan too, this Hasan. ”

“ Jelaluddin Hasan III poisoned his father because he could not wait to succeed him in the ordinary manner. Otherwise, he was a good man. He restored the old doctrine—secret principles for the initiated and Islam for the people—and no assassinations of interest occurred during his happy reign, except, of course, his own. Like his father, he, too, was quietly removed by poison. His son who succeeded him was an imbecile. He took the people into his confidence and revealed to them all the high mysteries of the Sect. Religion, he announced, is abolished forever: laws and moralities are extinct. ”

“ Mazdakism was more consistent, if not also more sincere. "God the best ruler sufficeth us: nothing is true, all is allowed," said the chiefs and the initiated of the Assassins.
On the other hand, believing sincerely that morality and religion are the best sureties of a nation, the strongest bulwark of a state, they affected an extraordinary sanctity, wearing the coarsest garments and abstaining, in public at least, from wine and sensuous pleasures. Hasan himself, whatever his motive, rarely ventured outside of his castle in Alamut, where he lived a recluse for thirty-five years. ”

“ They all had mastered the higher mysteries, and were fighting like demons to establish the reign of Allah on earth. No army of the Khalifs could withstand their desperate attacks and their slaughter. They threw themselves into the jaws of death, blindly obeying the command of their leaders.
But Mecca is the ultimate goal of every Muslem, and every Muslem rebellion. ”

“ All power emanates from God—a variation of Mazdak's All titles are vested in God—and mankind is responsible to Him alone. He is the one and only ruler, and they the Khawarij would recognize no other. Those that claimed to be vicars of God and his Prophet on earth, are usurpers, therefore, and impostors. Islam should not be ruled by an autocrat called khalif or imam, but by local councils elected by the people. This is the democracy that was so dear to the Arabs even before the Prophet; and the Khawarij called themselves the only true apostles of Mohammedanism and democracy. ”

“ Because of the inconsistency and dishonesty that even an assassin or a chief of assassins, with the insight of Hasan, could well have avoided.
But his weakness was that he followed unquestioning in the path of the Ismailites who taught that lawlessness is good for the ruler, but bad for the subject; that the many are held together by the few through the bridle of the law; that religion is for the common people, knowledge and freedom from all restraints for the elect; and that a secret system of atheism and immorality could work the destruction of those in power. ”

“ And the Karmathians, who secretly coveted the throne, made certain concessions at first to religion. But while they adopted the two fundamental doctrines of Islam, that is, the omnipotence of God and the fixedness of Fate, they declared all the others, even as the Wahhabys of today, vain and futile. Nay, they are snares contrived to exalt a certain portion of mankind at the expense of the vast majority. And they the Karmathians would free the majority from these snares. ”

“ Patriotism is a narrow-minded prejudice, incompatible with universal benevolence;—the princes and nobles—the diplomats of our day—instead of serving the people, served only their kings, and under the flattering idea of "the balance of power" they kept the nations in subjection;—the pernicious influence of accumulated property is an insurmountable obstacle to the happiness of any nation;—man has fallen from his high estate in civil society and only by returning to nature can he accomplish a complete regeneration. ”

“ The extremists, no matter how long and brilliant their temporary success, have gone the way of all political despots and all religious impostors. And their culpability is not in plunging a nation into anarchy and crime, but in debasing the ideals of utopia, by yoking them with the destructive agencies of negation in a people. ”

“ But when we penetrate behind the veil, we find the dark currents that connect the Illuminati with the Ismailites of Islam as well as with the Mazdakites of Persia.
All things, good and evil, come out, it seems, of the East. The Illuminati, like the Ismailites, dealt in allegories; and like the Mazdakites, they played with fire. In the letters of Spartacus-Weishaupt, if they are all authentic, is a complete revelation of the secret teachings and designs of the Order. ”

“ And the Arab is no where so well at home as in metaphysical abstractions and the desert. He is most credulous, is more believing, in fact, than religious. His deep sense of the possibilities that may be hidden in the depths of the unknown, induces in him a ready easy credence in any message supposedly divine. If one prophet, why not another? Mohammed has by no means closed the Arab nation's account with Allah. This is the religious reason for Quermut's great success. ”

“ And this can only be realized in a state of liberty and moral and social equality, free from all the obstacles which subordination, rank and riches throw in the way of man. "Our secret association," wrote Weishaupt, "works in a way that nothing can withstand it, and man shall soon be free and happy." ”

“ The law worketh wrath; all men are born equal; God is the direct source and owner of all things: with these three cardinal doctrines, Mazdak embarked upon his utopian career, pursuing the fatal phantom of his logic. ”

“ For if all titles of worldly things are vested in God, they are destined for the common use of all human kind.
Mazdak's three cardinal fallacies were more attractive, indeed, to the people than Christianity. And they were excellent vehicles for a counter-movement. Mazdak moved and many others moved with him. In spite of his initial success, however, he knew that, without royal sanction and support, the new Temple—the Temple of Fire and Freedom and Common Ownership—would not long endure. But with a king and a prophet at its head, the new cult would spread, would prosper, would triumph. ”

“ Hasan, therefore, would set up one of his own. And by bribing his followers with immunity from all laws and his assassins with a foretaste of Paradise, he succeeded in founding the dynasty that spread its red terror in many lands for more than two centuries. ”

“ Paul carried the dissensions through Armenia to Persia, thus weakening the newly acquired faith, which had but a slight hold upon the people. It certainly had little or no influence upon King Kobad. As for Mazdak, he must have found his original inspiration in St. Paul. "The law worketh wrath; where no law is, there is no transgression." This he announced as a divine revelation to the people and proceeded to draw his own conclusions and enlarge upon them. His second revelation was that all men are born equal and have a right to maintain this equality through life. ”

“ All things are inherent in Nature and God and the World are one, may cover a few sore spots; but the nakedness here and there of Atheism, is as appalling as that of Hasan ibn Sabah, who denounced all religions as the contrivances of ambitious and wicked men. ”

“ Mazdak himself was a vegetarian, and he prohibited the killing of animals for food or for sport. Indeed, to kill a man who had an abundance of the things of the world, was in his eye, a virtue; but to kill even an insect was a crime. ”

“ Liberty and equality are the great aims of all his teachings; and these can only be attained through morality and virtue. Here is an example: Man has fallen from the condition of liberty and equality—the state of pure nature. He is under subordination and civil bondage, which are born of organized society. ”

“ Most prominent among these is the intellectual Bolshevism, which first appeared in Germany in the latter part of the 18th century. The rebel cry of a group of fanatics, who were then known as the Illuminati or Perfectibilists, is re-echoed today and translated into machine guns by the Sparticides, whose patron saint is not the Thracian gladiator and leader of the slaves against Rome in Pompei's time, but Adam Weishaupt, who adopted the name of Spartacus. And the members of the secret society he founded assumed the names of Cato, Hannibal, Alcibiades and other heroes of antiquity. ”

“ But the vision of the Perfect State, which awakens a people from the stupor of slavery, arouses them to revolt, fires them with dazzling promises, and leads them to self-sacrifice, to martyrdom, to destruction, continues, nevertheless, to leaven the aspirations of succeeding nations. The theory of "eternal recurrence" is inseparable, it seems, from the theory of "creative destruction." ”

“ With this single exception, however, all the movements of the world that sought to establish, by the dagger, the sword, the bayonet, the machine gun, or even by peaceful communities, a utopia on earth, have been doomed to failure. ”

“ This was the ideal the people continued to cherish,—the ideal that the leaders forever dandled before their eyes. And as a rule of succession, although marked with poison and slaughter,—the most natural thing in the world,—it was an improvement upon all the others. ”

“ Weishaupt then struck out alone, availing himself of the medium of his lecture room to spread among his pupils his pet theories of equality and internationalism, and his philosophy of the pastoral virtues. He drew for them fascinating pictures of a happy society, where "every office was held by a man of talent and virtue and every talent is set in a place fit for its exertion." ”

“ Every one of his successors, therefore, had it proclaimed that he was the promised imam, promised by his predecessor or by Hasan himself. And to preserve and strengthen the new dynasty, each one was to remove certain prohibitions, or rather to extend the immunity from laws and creeds to a greater number of his subjects. One of the rulers won so many adherents because he drank wine openly and freely and indulged in other forbidden practices. They saw in these lawless habits a clear sign of the coming imam who was to do away with all prohibitions. ”

“ There was Ismail, the son of the sixth Imam after Ali and descendant from Ali's line. And Kaddah, who was a master of mystic lore, ingeniously evolved the theory of hidden and revealed successors to the Prophet. Ismail, he claimed, was the last revealed, and since his death the succession continued through hidden or unincarnate imams. But he, Kaddah, awaiting the psychological moment, harbored the secret purpose, the ambition of proclaiming himself to Islam the first revealed imam and khalif after Ismail. He died, however, a disappointed man. ”

“ More than once in history have people revolted against the inequalities of life and refused to submit to the restraints of laws and creeds. They have often gone through a period of communism and red terror in the hope of realizing ultimately the Perfect State. ”

“ It continued, even after the fall of Ruknuddin and the capture of Alamut, to be a red terror to rulers and princes as well as to the Crusaders. The reign of the dagger in Syria was based on the principle of absolute impartiality. It made no distinction between Mohammedans and Christians, Orientals and Europeans. The followers of Bahram, the Syrian Old Man of the Mountain, practiced the most unspeakable atrocities against the inhabitants as well as against those in power. Carrying off women and children from the streets in open day, was the least of their crimes. ”

“ And like the Jesuit Order, they made special efforts to enlist young men of wealth and rank and social importance, so that gradually, through them, they would control the mainsprings of all authority and power. Furthermore, like the secret societies of the East, its membership was divided into classes and degrees. But the free masons alone—a proof that it had abjured Christianity—were eligible to the degrees of regent and magnus, or masters of the higher mysteries. ”

“ But in their interpretation of the Koran, some of the Ismailite doctors pushed the allegory so far that it ended in nothing less than the abolition of all public worship and the foundation of a purely philosophic—in name—and a very licentious moral code—in reality—on the ruins of all revelations and all civil and spiritual authority. ”