Assassins is a name originally applied by the Crusaders and other mediaeval Europeans to the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs of the Alamūt period, whose state extended across Persia and Syria, with its seat at Alamūt. The Crusaders had extensive military and diplomatic encounters with the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs of Syria from the opening decade of the sixth/twelfth century. However, it was in the time of Rāshid al-Dīn Sinān that occidental chroniclers of the Crusades and a number of European travellers and emissaries began to write about this mysterious oriental sect, which