"The origins of the Assassins are unlikely and obscure - and that is appropriate enough for any group with aspirations to, literally, cult status. With that obscurity, of course, often comes preconceptions of ancient beginnings, and of mysteries which have been lost in the mists of time. In fact, the Assassins were relative newcomers, and barely predated the crusader period in which they played such an intriguing part."
"In 969 Shi'ite supporters had created the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt, a dynasty of Ismaili Muslims. Ismailism was, in turn, a split from Shi'ite Islam, which put them at odds with most of the other Islamic players in the region, such as the majority of the local Muslim Arabs and the later Turkic entrants from the steppes, who adhered to Sunni Islam."
"Hasan was born in the Persian town of Qum, in modern Iran, at some point in the 1050s. His family were mainstream Shi'ites but, for reasons that are now obscure, he converted to Ismailism when he was 17. Hasan spent three years in Egypt learning more about his new religion and returned to Persia in 1081, eager to take on a leadership role."
The Assassins originated relatively late rather than in distant antiquity. The movement arose from successive factional splits within Shi'ism and Ismailism. The Fatimid caliphate, founded in 969 in Egypt by Ismaili Shi'ites, provided a political center for Ismailism. Ismailism's break from broader Shi'ite Islam set it at odds with local Muslim Arabs and later Turkic Sunni groups. Hasan Sabbah, born in Qum in the 1050s to a mainstream Shi'ite family, converted to Ismailism at 17, studied in Egypt for three years, and returned to Persia in 1081 to assume leadership and build the Nizari state.
Read at Medievalists.net
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