A book by the famous American orientalist M. J. S. Hodgson (1922-1968) [Hodgson, 1955], devoted to the ideology and history of the Nizari Ismailis, has been published in Russian translation. Thanks to the active charity work of Imam Aga Khan IV, whose foundation has long been successfully operating in many, including very explosive, regions of the world, their community is now widely known all over the world, well integrated into the structure of the modern world and strongly Westernized in the XX century. M. J. S. Hodgson's study was the first to sum up disparate information about the Nizarites and their beliefs and bring them together. Today it is recognized by experts as a classic.

First of all, you need to clarify the terms. Ismailis are followers of one of the largest branches of Shiite Islam. In the middle of the eighth century. They recognized the Shia Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq's eldest son, Ismail, as the heir, unlike the majority of Shia muslims who recognized Musa al-Kazim as his heir. Later, when the Ismaili Fatimid dynasty formed its own caliphate with its capital in Cairo, a new split occurred: after the death of Caliph al-Mustansir in 1094, one part of the Ismailis supported his son Mustali, the other-his eldest son Nizar. Mustali became the official Fatimid caliph, and Nizar was forced to flee to Alexandria. There, in turn, he was declared caliph. As noted

St. Petersburg: Evraziya Publ., 2004, 381 p. (in Russian)

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a modern researcher, an expert on the history of the early Nizarites. According to Daftari, "the proclamation of Nizar as both caliph and imam in Alexandria is confirmed by the discovery in 1994 of a gold dinar minted in 1095" (Daftari, 2003, p.118). In 1095, Nizar was defeated, captured and executed. However, his rights were recognized by the Ismailis of Northern Iran, who at that time were led by a prominent dai (preacher) Hasan al-Sabbah (1050s-1124), who established a small independent state there in 1090 with the center in Alamut. This is how the Nizari movement emerged in Ismailism, now headed by Imam Aghahan IV. During the Crusades, Europeans began referring to the Nizarites as"assassins." The term has taken on a negative connotation, and "assassin" has come to mean "assassin"in a number of European languages. The very same word "assassin" goes back to the Arabic hashish-using hashish. At the time, the Nizarites were believed to have committed political assassinations while intoxicated.

The spread of this legend in Europe was greatly promoted by the famous traveler Marco Polo (1254-1324), who wrote about how the Mountain Elder drugged young boys into his garden, the so - called earthly paradise, and turned them into assassins. "The young men will wake up in the palace (the next day - M. R.), but they do not rejoice because they would never have left paradise of their own free will. They go to the Elder and, considering him a prophet, bow down humbly to him; and the Elder asks them where they came from. From paradise, the young men say, and describe everything that is there as if in paradise, which Muhammad told their ancestors about; and those who have not been there, hear all this, and they want to go to paradise; they are ready to die just to get to paradise; they will not wait for the day to go there. If the old man wants to kill someone of importance, he will order to test and choose the best of his assassins; he sends many of them to nearby countries with orders to kill people; they go, and the order is obeyed; whoever remains unharmed returns to court, it happens that after killing them they are captured themselves they are being killed" (p. 357). This legend reflects the popular perception of the activities of Hassan al-Sabbah and his successors. As M. J. S. Hodgson shows, the legend narrated by Marco Polo has very little to do with historical reality. It is for this reason that the author pays close attention to the use of individual terror by the Nizaris, primarily against high-ranking Sunni leaders during the period when they were led by Hassan al-Sabbah and his first successors.

According to M. J. S. Hodgson, " at first the word jihad-holy war - was used to denote individual terror that pursued various religious and political goals in connection with the activities of early Shiite groups. Among the early Shiites, this method of fighting was called jihad kafi (secret war) and was opposed to open border warfare. One extremist Shiite group was called hunnak (stranglers), because this was the preferred method of killing its adherents. However, none of these groups attached as much political significance to the terrorist killings as they did to the Nizaris" (p.91).

Obviously, this practice was primarily caused by the weakness of political structures in the Sunni states of that time, which were mostly headed by Seljuk rulers, so the murder of individual sultans, wazirs or major military leaders often led to general destabilization, confusion and chaos in a particular region of the Muslim world. The Nizarites killed those military and civilian leaders who actively fought against them and opposed the spread of their faith. Sometimes it could be about self-defense and revenge. According to F. According to Daftari, "Hassan al-Sabbah's decision to turn murder into a tool for achieving military and political goals was, in fact, a response to the political fragmentation and military power of the Seljuq regime" [Daftari, 2003, p.136].

In turn, M. J. S. Hodgson drew attention to the fact that "Ismaili murders differed from many murders that took place in Muslim general political life, not only in their less personal nature, since they rarely served as a means of resolving private disputes and rivalries between individuals, but also in the general entourage, since they were more often used as a means of resolving private disputes and rivalries between individuals." in total, they were performed in public and sometimes almost in a theatrical setting: in a mosque, at the royal court. The Ismailis acted openly. They were almost never suspected of using poison" (p. 122).

A. G. Yurchenko, the scientific editor of M. J. S. Hodgson's book, gives a vivid example of such a theatrical murder in his comments, quoting the Armenian historian Kirakos

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Gandzaketsi: "One of the nobles named Orhan, whose wife was the Sultan's mother, especially oppressed the inhabitants of the city of Gandzak (Ganja - M. R.) - and not only Christians, but also Persians - with large extortions. He was killed in that city by the Mulehids (heretics, as the Nizarites were called-M. R.), whose custom is to kill people insidiously. While this man (Orhan) was walking through the streets of the city, some people approached him, allegedly oppressed by someone and [wanted] to apply for rights. They showed him the paper they had in their hands and shouted " Justice, justice." And when he stopped and wanted to ask who was oppressing them, they rushed at him from all sides, and with their swords, which they hid and kept with them, they wounded him and killed him. Thus, evil was destroyed by evil. But his murderers were barely able to hit with arrows; they fled through the city, and many were wounded by them... "(pp. 253-254).

Unfortunately, M. J. S. Hodgson does not provide statistics on the terrorist practices of the early Nizaris. A relatively complete list of victims of the Ismaili individual terror is given in the work of the Russian historian L. V. Stroeva (Stroeva, 1978). It is based on the information of a 14th-century Persian historian. According to Rashid al-Din, 49 people were killed during the reign of Hasan al-Sabbah (1090-1124), 12 under his successors Qiyah Buzurg Umid (1124-1138), and 14 under Muhammad ibn Qiyah Buzurg Umid (1138-1162). "Thus, in 72 years, the number of victims is 75 people. The lists include the name and social status of the victim, the name of the murderer, and sometimes the name and nisba (genealogy. - M. R.) the murderers or the number of persons who committed the murder, the place, month and year of the murder, in isolated cases-the motive of the murder." Thus, according to the lists, 8 sovereigns (including 3 caliphs), 6 wazirs, 7 military leaders, 5 walis (regional governors), 5 rais (city governors), 5 muftis and 5 kazis (Muslim judges) were killed. Late in the autumn of 1121, the commander-in - chief of the Fatimid Caliphs, Afdal ad-Din, was killed, and the legitimate imam of the Nizarites, Nizar, was deprived of the caliphal throne and died [Stroeva, 1978, pp. 148-150].

L. V. Stroeva draws attention to the fact that "the absolute number of Ismaili victims is not so high. It is significantly less than the number of people killed by Ismailis in open combat", while by the end of the period under review, individual terror "is significantly reduced and almost comes to naught" [Stroeva, 1978, p.152]. In general, a similar conclusion is reached by M. J. S. Hodgson, who notes "that both local beatings and local murders of opponents of Ismailism characterize the first decades of the Nizari struggle for influence in Muslim cities; after this period, we rarely find references to such events" (p.123). Such a phenomenon as individual terror cannot be absolutized, but must be analyzed in a specific historical context. It is obvious that it is more often an instrument of the struggle of a minority, as was the case with the Ismailis, who at that time were strengthening their statehood in a complex and difficult confrontation with numerous Sunni rulers. Later, the Ismailis moved away from the practice of individual terror.

Another and perhaps the most important topic for understanding the characteristics of the Nizari community is their teaching about the imamate and the role of the imam in the community. For Ismailis, the real presence of the imam in the world is extremely important, because, as M. J. S. Hodgson notes, " the imam is by his very nature al-hujja-proof of God, but he is more than al-Hujja, he is all forms of God. Therefore, God can be seen through him, just as the sun is seen through the light of the sun... To know the Imam is to know God, and to see him is to see God as much as one can know or see God" (p. 172). Hasan al-Sabbah and his first successors called themselves preachers, but probably the need to have their own imam was so great that the new ruler of the Nizarites, Hasan II (1162-1166), proclaimed himself an imam, but not in the earthly, but in the spiritual sense, i.e. in the highest heavenly reality (haqiq), so as he was not a descendant of the 4th Muslim Caliph Ali, from whom Shia imams traditionally traced their ancestry. This happened at a time when the Nizaris realized that they would not be able to convince the rest of the Muslim world of the correctness of their faith. That is why Hasan II declared himself a spiritual descendant of Nizar and abolished the power of Sharia as a religious right, while simultaneously declaring himself Ka'im-the Imam who brought Resurrection (for Ismaili ideas about Kaim, see [Nomoto, 2004, pp. 293-296]), which, however, did not mean that the Day of Resurrection had come in Sunni, This meta-event is understood in the spiritual sense that is characteristic of the majority of Muslims. During his reign, the Nizarites came to realize their special religious path and refused to seek mutual understanding with Sunnis and representatives of other branches of Shiism. From now on, all the Nizarites living on earth could "learn to know God directly, directly."-

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but (as the Sufis did)" (p. 162). In turn, the rest of the Muslims, for whom the rejection of Sharia was unacceptable, began to call them mulhids (heretics).

The teachings of Hassan II were continued and developed by his son, Imam Muhammad II (1166-1210), who believed that "the goal of the world is to know and see God ... and the only way to achieve this goal is to fully know the Imam spiritually. For the Imam himself is a perfect revelation of God " (p. 170). It should be noted that ideas about the special role of the imam are characteristic of all Shiism, but perhaps they are most pronounced among the Nizaris. According to their creed, there is "a need to accept as truth what a given imam proclaims in contrast to any other" (p. 236). It is this circumstance that explains M. J. S. Hodgson the fact that the son of Muhammad II, Hassan III (1210-1221), abandoned the radical views of his father and grandfather and restored Sharia law.

The last Nizari ruler of Alamut was Imam Khurshah, who capitulated to the Mongol forces of Hulagu Khan in 1256. At this historical stage, M. J. S. Hodgson's book ends, which quite successfully combines the analysis of the ideological search of the Nizaris, the polemics of Sunni theologians with them, and the presentation of the outline of historical events, sometimes overloaded with small details.

It seems that M. J. S. Hodgson's book helps the reader to understand the history of the formation of the Nizari community and the specifics of its worldview. Written in the early 1950s, the scholar's work has become a reference book for several generations of Ismaili scholars. Today, when there is a strong interest in Islam and its various movements, publishing the book in Russian is, in my opinion, extremely useful. The author's keen interest and passion for the subject of research are felt in the work, which are involuntarily transmitted to the reader. The scientific editor of the Russian edition of the book, A. G. Yurchenko, provided it with interesting historical sources and data in appendices.

list of literature

Hodgson M. G. S. The Order of Assassins. (The Struggle of the Early Nizari Ismailis against the Islamic World). University of Chicago, 1955.

Daftari F. A brief history of Ismailism: Traditions of the Muslim community, Moscow: Ladomir Publ., 2003.

Stroeva L. V. The state of Ismailis in Iran in the XI-XIII centuries. Moscow: Nauka, 1978.

Nomoto Sh. Revising Ismaili Christology with the views of Abu Hatim al-Razi // Otechestvennye zapiski, Moscow, 2004. N 5.

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