Masyaf castle
Syria is no stranger to sectarian divides. The hashashin, the military order of a sect of Shi’ites originally from Persia, made inroads from the east into what is now Syria roughly around the same time in the early 12th century as the Crusaders began carving out their fiefs in the west. They derive their name from the Arabic word hashish, the narcotic substance many of the order supposedly imbibed before carrying out their missions. What were these missions? Well, they gave to European languages the word “assassin.” At odds with Christians and fellow Muslims alike, the hashashin insinuated themselves in many of the intrigues of the medieval Mediterranean world, the reach of their plots and blades extending even into the heart of Western Europe. Their most famous leader at this time, Rashid al-Din Sinan, made his court at Masyaf, a fortress zealously guarded by the hashashin that was built on the ruins of an old Roman settlement. There, he remained a pivotal player in the politics of the Crusades—and was even a sometime foe of Saladin, the Sunni warlord who famously crushed a generation of Crusaders. The impregnability of his castle — and the shadowy nature of his order — earned Sinan the almost mystical sobriquet of the “Old Man in the Mountains.”