October 7, 2020 • 57 mins
What's the difference between an assassination and a garden-variety murder? Where does the term 'assassin' actually come from, and how did an obscure sect founded almost one thousand years ago fundamentally change the course of history as we know it? Tune in for the answers to these questions and more in the first part of this special two-part series.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today,
we're embarking on a two part episode, one that travels
across time and space, from the ancient Middle East all
(00:50):
the way to the modern day. Uh, let's let's start
this way without too much too much introduction. What is
the difference between and assassination and a murder? Well, here
are the facts. We all kind of know what an
assassin is, right, Yes, at least to an extent, we
(01:10):
know that an assassin is a murderer. Right, in order
to assassinate something or someone, you have to murder it
or kill it, right, Whereas a typical, a typical murderer
that is out there might commit homicide, which is taking
the life of another human being for any number of reasons.
(01:31):
And we have laws on the books to differentiate between
those types of homicides and degrees. Right, there's the Weirdly enough,
just from a linguistic standpoint, the coolest sounding one, manslaughter
is actually less man than murder in the first degree.
(01:53):
It's like, whoops, I hit you with my car. That's manslaughter, right,
A little sexist and outdated term. By the way, want
to say, but human death, you caused human death, that's good, Matt.
So it appears that assassination is a genre of homicide,
and and that's correct. But why is it a genre. Well,
(02:16):
an assassin is defined by their target, their tactics, and
their motivations. So if we it's interesting because recently, earlier
this year, there was a huge hubbub in Western media
about the use of a word, the word being assassination
or assassin. Webster's New World College Dictionary, which MPR uses
(02:41):
for their editorial purposes as they're kind of guide for
how to write reporting, they define an assassin as someone
who murders a politically important or prominent person, typically by
a surprise attack, usually for some sort of payment or
in the service of some sort of ideological belief. And
(03:01):
this is this, this sounds cold when we look at
it this way, because that means that let's say someone
knocks over a gas station in a robbery, they fatally
shoot a cashier. That makes that criminal a murderer, but
not an assassin. An assassin would be someone who fatally
attacks the president of a country, unless, of course they
(03:26):
somehow I'm laughing, this is ridiculous, unless of course they
somehow accidentally kill the president, which is which is terrible manslaughter. Yeah,
by like accidentally giving them coronavirus. Maybe maybe maybe, I mean,
that person is definitely in for a good talking to
a stiff. Fine, perhaps, But you know, is that going
(03:47):
to be considered an assassination? Well, I don't know, right,
maybe if it was premeditated, that's certainly one of the factors.
But my question for you, too, Ben, is like, what
if say someone was paid to kill a prominent podcaster
and a point, do you go into the realm of
like being politically important enough to be assassinated versus just
(04:07):
oft you know, or or or have a hit put
out on you don't don't worry, dude, We're off the
table for assassinations, are you sure? Yeah, because it keeps
me up nights. We we cannot be assassinated, certainly, okay, right,
we can feel better now stabbed or shot? Yeah. That's
interesting because to a degree, our definition of what counts
(04:29):
as an assassination is is something we arrive at retroactively. Right.
But if you, for instance, someone who may not be
seen as prominent may be murdered and their death may
set off a series of events that changes the world,
and later historians will say it was an assassination for
(04:50):
that reason, like Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Right, Yeah, well I
would He's already an assassination worthy victim, right because he
an archde Right. You see, the question gets complex. Like
the most uh, one of the weirdest examples of this
that I could think of was the story of the
(05:11):
biblical Kane. Enable was Kane just a murderer or was
he an assassin before the term existed? I mean, it
checks the boxes. He launched a surprise attack on a
politically and socially important person, and he did it because
he was driven by zealous beliefs. It was his brother though, right,
(05:31):
wasn't his jealousy though? Because his father like like the
other brother better? I think I think that's what you're doing.
You're using this as like almost like a microcosmic uh
Mini story that sort of encapsulates the larger thing because
it was political because he was favored by his father.
Therefore it was motivated because he wanted to be the
(05:51):
favorite son. Yeah, and it twisted with that, is with
such a small cast of characters in that story, everybody
as prominent and politically and socially important. That's that's really smart.
Band I like that. And then in the end uh
Can was was condemned by God and forced to walk
the earth like another cane from Kung Fu. It just
(06:14):
made me realize, maybe that's where that came from, and
maybe that's where it came from. Yeah, exactly this. Okay,
So this murder versus assassination thing, it might seem like
it's a game of semantics, like it doesn't really make
a big difference calling something an assassination versus calling it
a murder. Definitely doesn't bring that person back from the dead.
(06:35):
But the difference, as we'll find, is huge and it's
crucial in some cases it as legal implications. Like earlier
this year, the United States of America targeted prominent Iranian
general Cassum Solomany in January, and news organizations like MPR,
(06:56):
Fox CY and and all all the hits they were, uh,
they were really concerned about how they should describe this,
and and that's because murder has a legal implication, as
does assassination. Well, it's like the maybe the military jargue
would be eliminating a high level target or something along
(07:17):
those lines, But the idea of calling it assassination is
a bad look, you know, PR wise, It's like, that's
where the semantics do matter for the optics of this.
We don't assassinate people, we take out targets. Well, yeah, exactly,
because when NPR actually labeled this action and assassination, it
(07:39):
became a big deal um and there was a lot
of outcry from audience members about just again the semantics
of it. This was not an assassination. No, you can't
call it that. Don't don't call it that. We're the
good guys. Don't attack with daggers and drones in the dark.
But I guarantee the people in Sulimani's own country sure
(08:01):
as hell considered an assassination, didn't they. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it's weird because this strategy if we just objectively
look at this strategy. It doesn't matter what you call it,
it matters what happened. And this strategy of assassination is
familiar to cultures across the planet throughout the ages. I
(08:24):
mean just from like from John Wilkes Spooth. That's a
famous US based assassin, right he assassinated then President Abraham Lincoln.
From that guy, all the way back to the ancient
days with people like Locusta the Poisoner, you don't have
to look very far, very deep defined historical records of assassins.
(08:44):
There's a book. I guess I'll just hold it up.
We'll do a little uh disturbing reading rainbow here. I
don't know if you guys can see this. There's a
the cover. I love that image. Let's see is it?
I think it is, But either way, it's one of
those classic like it looks like the cover of a
Joy Division album. It's like this person dead in the
bath with their arm kind of draped over the side.
(09:06):
That classic. I believe it's Impressionists, but it's you know it, Curbs.
You would be a great example, really high definition, super
moody and very kind of eerie image. But I love
those types of paintings. That's right. The Encyclopedia of Assassinations
available at any arcane bookstore near you, right by Karl Sifficus.
(09:26):
This explores both attempted and successful assassinations throughout human history,
and interestingly enough, it lists several cases such as that
of dag Hammer Scold by the way, Yeah it's a
cool name. Uh. It lists that case as an assassination,
but that still has not been officially confirmed as such,
(09:49):
even though the US president at the time dag Hammer
school was in charge of the u N when he
was when he died in a mysterious airplane acts and
we have an old YouTube video on that. But the
point is this, this book is pretty old, but these
cases of assassination, because of the controversy, they remain very
(10:13):
touchy subjects for a long long time. And so today
in the in the first part of our series, we
wanted to ask where did this come from? Where? Where
does the concept of an assassin actually originate? We'll tell
you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it
(10:41):
gets crazy. Assassin isn't some dramatic, exotic word some hack
writer invented to just sort of joos up an otherwise
depressing murder story. That's right, it's i P for movies after.
In fact, the term assassin refers to an all too reel,
(11:05):
all too conspiratorial organization from ancient history. It's an honest
to God's secret society. Let's call it the Order of Assassins. Oh,
oh my god. Wait, you're saying it's real. That's what
we're saying. The Order of Assassins is real or was? Yeah. No, no, no,
(11:28):
well we're not saying, you know, we're not saying Assassin's
creed should be considered, um a playable documentary, although there's
a lot of great historical research in there. Uh, we're
we're saying there was a real group. We don't know
a ton about them. This is something that you'll always
run into when you're looking at controversial institutions in ancient history.
(11:52):
The fortress of the Assassins, and they did have a
real fortress, was conquered in twelve fifty six CE. And
when they were conquered, the the castle was raised essentially
a their library was destroyed, so we have no written
historical records about the Assassins from the Assassins themselves. Still,
(12:16):
we do know some things that's right. Between ten ninety
and twelve seventy five, a small Nazari Ismaili sect high
in the mountains of Persia and Syria went into the
murder for higher business. Um. The Assassins were an offshoot
of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, and it was
founded by Hassan E Sabah, who referred to his followers
(12:39):
as a minute oh okay assassy young a s A
s I y y u N with some underscore characters
over the A and the U. And that means people
who are faithful to the foundation of faith um. And
they were. They had a stronghold fortress called a La
Mut's Castle that was about a hundred thirty miles from
(13:02):
what is today known as Tehran. Wow. I mean, it's
just so cool to that that that's real. Um. So
the concept here of this group they wanted to challenge
the Seljuk Turks, who were Sunni Muslims. So we're we're
talking about Shia and Sunny conflicts back in what did
(13:25):
we say, the one thousand nine to twelve hundred UM
the Sunni Muslims, these Seljuk Turks, they were in control
of Persia at this time when when this group was
organized for these purposes, and this is when the group
first became known as the hasha sheen another cool word here,
(13:48):
but today they're better known as assassins. It's it's a
term that was given to them by the European crusaders
who are rolling through and you know, to wing their thing.
Those Europeans just making language work for them, you know. Yeah,
just kind of a corruption of the phrase, right, But
(14:10):
that's what you get with a living language. This group,
known as the Assassins, they actively and covertly murdered first
Muslim than later Christian leaders throughout the Middle East. And
they murdered these folks or assassinated these folks when they
were seen as a threat to this sect, to their society,
(14:33):
to their geopolitical control. And while the term assassins applies
to the whole crew, right, uh, there was actually only
a smaller inner group known as the Fidity, that engaged
in actual conflict in what is sometimes euphemistically referred to
(14:54):
as direct action. This is important that we have. We
do have to say that none of us are fluent
Arabic speakers. So thank you in advance with for your
understanding of our pronunciations. Uh. We we do know that
the Nazari did not have a standing army, so they
(15:15):
relied upon these warriors, these operatives to carry out espionage.
Why kill an r Why fighting army when you can
just kill the king or the general the Their preferred
method of killing was usually going to be through the
use of daggers, so that means close up to their target,
(15:36):
no poison drop offs, no arrows, and often they were
known for being completely okay with Diane or being tortured
after they had committed their murder. Uh. They posed a
strategic threat to Fatimid Abysses and Seljout authority alike. And
(15:59):
for almost three hundred years, we know they killed hundreds
and hundreds of people important people. The you know that
era's version of v I p s three colleagues, Ruler
of Jerusalem, tons of other leaders Muslim and Christian alike.
So despite the fact that we don't have direct accounts
(16:20):
from like Hassan himself saying I don't these guys up
and brainwashed them and now we're killing everybody, we do
have accounts from other people who were alive or around
at the time. Um, now let's let's see what you
think of these. One of the first ones comes from
a Spanish rabbi named Benjamin of today La. He traveled
(16:43):
through Syria in eleven sixty seven, so this is while
the group was active, and Benjamin not our Benjamin, the
one we just mentioned. He told of this mysterious leader
that existed named the Old Man in the Mountain. That's
the old Man in the Mountain. That he referred to
him as Old Man in the Mountain, This old Man
(17:03):
in the Mountain, this Yoda like figure, although he did
not have that reference, who led a sect of warriors
who dwelled in hidden mountain fortresses. I think, yeah, it
is more of a Palpatine and it's um gosh. I
can't remember which episode. I think we did one on
military and Drugs, where we talked about, um, the mountain
fortresses in several parts of the region there and how
(17:26):
important they were, and then how we saw that reflected
in the conflicts that the US then went into and
places around Afghanistan and out in the Middle East, and
these these mountain fortresses that were so difficult too if
you were an invading force or someone who's trying to attack,
so difficult to penetrate but that's an interesting thing, right,
(17:50):
there's an old man in a mountain and he's he
is controlling or leading a bunch of these warriors that
live there. And there's also information quite a bit more
actually that comes from Syrian Sunni chroniclers, and you know
it's there, it exists, which is very nice, but unfortunately
quite a bit of this information is biased. Again, like
(18:12):
you have to remember that there was conflict there between
the Shia and the Sunni Muslims, and because of that conflict,
the Syrian Sunni population really did hate or at least
some of these prominent writers seem to show anger and
hatred in in the writing or at least writing about
(18:33):
them from you know, from an enemy's perspective, because they
were the enemies, and they probably did hate them because
they did some heinous things they had, I mean, they
had every reason hate the assassins. But it just thinks
that the historical record then itself becomes this version of
it rather than well, let's, you know, let's actually look
at it as equal parts um in some way or
(18:56):
at least in some form and the crusaders. We're aware
of these chronicles from the from the Syrian Sunni population.
They said, look, this is close enough to the truth.
Someone's out here killing everybody, so let's just run hog
(19:17):
wild with it. You know, who has time to fact check.
That's a problem we have in the modern day. So
as a result, we have to treat these stories with skepticism.
It's kind of like propaganda you would see against the
pope by their successors or against royalty. A lot of
the AGAs armies of the propaganda produced is intense. Yeah,
(19:41):
they're gonna say, like, you can read some of these
things and translations thereof and say, okay, this looks like
maybe it was designed to entertain an audience or just
a character assassinate the assassins themselves. And they talked about
how powerful, how competent these ratives were, But then they
(20:01):
also made these pretty crazy claims about how they became
so successful. Yeah, and um. In the twelfth century, William
the Second, who was a crusader and the Archbishop of
tire believed that this whole old man in the mountain
idea um was true and that he commanded this this
individual as many as sixty thousand assassins. And he noted
(20:23):
that they would uh do suicide attacks. Um. They had
no regard for their own safety in their own lives.
They were seeking destroy, and if they don't make it
out alive, so be it. It's all about the target
and getting the job done. Um of this old man
in the Mountain figure Um William the second wrote this quote,
it is their custom to install their masters and choose
(20:46):
their chief, not by hereditary right, but solely by virtue
of merrit What a novel idea. By the way, Um
disdaining any other title of dignity, they call him the Elder.
The bond of submission and obedience that binds as people
to their chief is so strong. There's no task so arduous,
difficult or dangerous that any one of them would not
undertake to perform it with the greatest zeal and you know,
(21:11):
speaking back to the propaganda and the war of words
and trying to smear folks to be taken with a
grain of salt. But there was there were reports about
this group that they God forbid eight pork and married
their sisters, which were to unpack that that quotation from
William the second. He's not saying meritocracy is a good thing.
(21:34):
He's pointing it out as a criticism he's implying their
barbaria because they don't, because they respect people's talents over
their genetic lottery, which is ever so counterintuitive and fascinating
and like a product of the time, you know what
I mean. They don't have a royal pure bloodline, the
(21:54):
lineage sending directly to God, you know, for shame. It's
like they hire people based on their skills, they promote
them based on their skills. They eat pork, and they're
sleeping with their siblings. All three of those things were
just terrible. And somehow the people who join up are
willing to do things for their leaders, willing to right
(22:20):
right right. It's almost like the chance of being promoted
makes people better at their jobs. That's a very that's
Please don't make that the main takeaway from today's episode,
but yeah, you're right. The fact is they that this
guy noticed these people were not the type of individuals
(22:43):
to turn away from a task, even if it meant
that they would be killed in completing it or captured
and tortured afterwards. In some ways, this was seen as
noble in this community. Uh this, so these rumors are around.
It's kind of a an urban legend. It's kind of
a conspiracy theory, and there's proof in you know, in
(23:06):
terms of dead bodies of important people that keep showing
up at weird times in history. It gets really popular
and mischaracterized in Western Europe thanks to one of the
best selling books of the medieval era, the Travels of
Marco Polo. It's this book alone spreads so many claims
(23:27):
about the order, and if we read it through the
lens of the modern day, it sounds like Marco is
telling us the assassins are a cult. There's there's this
idea that the elder, the old man in the mountain,
starting with Hassan himself, has been brainwashing his followers, has
(23:47):
been doping them with some sort of substance. Again, we
don't know the exact nature of that substance, but Hashisham
assassins Hashishuh the the rumor is, or at least what
he says in the book, is that the old Man
of the Mountain is giving his followers a drugged potion
(24:09):
during their training, right, and this is breaking down the
usual human moral qualms with things like assassination. And then
before he sets him off on an assassination mission, he
gives them some version of this again, so it has
a lot in common if you think about it with
reports of like Manchurian candidates, people who are through systematic
(24:35):
psychological tactics and through the ingestion of substance. Uh, they're
turned into zombies, you know, uh, or you know, here's
the deal is it? Are we saying we think, at
least according to that book, we think it might be
hashish is that and and that is cannabis a weed? Right?
(24:56):
It's uh, it's it's basically like it's the stuf that's
the sticky crystal stuff that sticks to the outside of cannabis.
When it's cured, they can shake it off and you
essentially make it into like you press it and make
it into a resinous kind of material that is able
to be smoked. So I've heard, but we're saying, we're saying,
or the travels of Marco Polo is saying that that's
(25:21):
the substance that made them in some way become a
Manchurian candidate, like they went out of their minds about.
It's interesting though, because so Hashisham Hashisham is the nickname
for the sect that was used by a lot of
(25:42):
its enemies or uh in casual conversation about this group,
and it was believed to have derived from the Arabic
word hashish. So naturally you can see how that didn't
come directly from Marco Polo's book that was already around.
But Marco Polo mentioned this drugged potion. It's cemented the
(26:04):
image of this order in in the zeitgeist of the time.
So they were like, these are shadowy, drug crazed fanatics.
They may have powers that the average undrugged human being
doesn't have, you know what I mean? And to a
degree psychologically that might be accurate. But you could say
(26:24):
that about any number of um, any number of groups
who institute systematized suicide attacks. Hey man, look we're all
the same. But I just gotta assassinate you, bro. I'm sorry. Yeah,
here hit this verse. It'll make you way more toill.
Exactly assassin e. So if this is true, think about it.
(26:50):
If this is true, it boggles the mind. Uh, how
is this not brought up more often, especially during these
moral panics. I love that you mentioned Reefer madness and all,
because if again, if this is true, it's one of
the best p s a s against the use of
cannabis in human history. Right, like smoke a joint and
then go kill the king. That's what You're a mindless
(27:13):
murder machine, right right? And I love that that rhymes
thank you this. There's a reason, I guess there's one
reason that this didn't show up in a lot of
p s a s uh. Well, first, most people wouldn't
be familiar with this story. But secondly, it turns out
that Marco Polo is the primary propagator for this hash claim.
(27:37):
If you look at the sources from the Islamic world,
even among the Assassin's enemies, even among the cell Jukes
and the Syrians who hated them, they don't they don't
really mention the use of hashi. So maybe a more
convincing explanation for that nickname comes from the Egyptian Arabic
word hash ma sheen, and that that means something totally different.
(28:02):
It's a little silly. It means like noisy people or
the troublemakers. Wasn't Marco Polo known to be a bit
of a exaggerator too, and possibly inventing some stuff just
like out a whole cloth to make himself look like
more of a badass explorer. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's true.
It's a a curated version of reality, right, But a
(28:25):
lot of the a lot of the things he says
Uh didn't bear up to scrutiny. Still, it was the
best information people had at the time. So this is
why modern scholars, people like Bernard Lewis, who was a
Middle Eastern historian and expert on the assassins, believes that
hashi she or hashim was a popular Syrian pejorative. It
(28:49):
was a term of abuse. Were discrediting these people. You know,
sure they're effective killers, but their drug addicts and you know,
it's the it's the devil's tobacco, it's the jazz as
cigarettes and the left hand smokes that are making them
such effective monsters. So you can see already that the
image people have of assassins in the modern day, and
(29:12):
the image people had of assassins when they were around
Uh kind of became larger than life. They were living legends.
There was a lot of disinformation about them, and we
can only assume they probably used it to their credit,
because it's the kind of pr you can't buy. But
this is just one of the misconceptions. So I propose
(29:32):
we take a break for our sponsor, try our best
not to get assassinated and come back and explore some
of those misconceptions. Uh in just a moment, what do
you guys think? It sounds great? Everybody crossed your fingers
and hope that it's a CBD sponsor. Okay, cool, let's go,
(29:58):
and we've returned earned misconceptions about a group of killers
in ancient Persia slash Syria. This is the slightly awkward
part where we defend their character. But uh so, a
lot of medieval Europeans knew about the Order, especially once
(30:23):
the travels of Marco Polo were published. They believed that
this group was specifically targeting Christians. So this is fuel
to the fire for the Crusades and other campaigns. Right now,
we're now we're fighting to protect good Christian people against
this threat. Make you a cog in our Holy war
(30:45):
kind of situation. Right, But this thing was not entirely true.
In fact, it turns out this happens all the time
in the world of politics. It turns out these people
who were like publicly enemies to each other, behind closed doors,
they would not infrequently get together and be like, hey,
you know what, man, I know because there's a lot
(31:06):
of stuff going on in the bridge under the water. Um,
are you guys high, and don't worry about it. Let's
just let's let's work something out. Maybe we can make
an alliance. You know, well, you know that we're about
to talk about something here coming up, which is another
part of the misconceptions. But there are some realities that
this group faced that makes me wonder if there was
(31:30):
use of cannabis or some other drug like that, if
it didn't have more to do with their situation and
less to do with tactics for battle. It's a bit
of a spoiler, but we'll keep going here. No, I
think it's I think it's foreshadowing, Matt. We So we
want to pull one example of times that Christian forces
(31:51):
and Assassin forces got together. Right in twelve fifty one,
the King of France, Louis the ninth, sent some invoys
to meet the assassins, to go and find the Old
Man or the elder of the legends, and this meeting.
They took the meeting because it suited their diplomatic needs
(32:13):
at the time. Otherwise it seems like the sect was
they were Yeah, they were killing people when they had
to or when they wanted to. But they were largely
uninterested in Christians, at least at that time. They were
primarily focused on all the crazy changes happening in the
(32:34):
Muslim world and the events that had had shaped them.
They were also shaping these events in turn. Uh. And
that's because of their assassination tactics. Let's go to what
you said, Matt, about not just the rumors of drug use,
but about how these tactics came came to be. It
(32:56):
wasn't so much a matter of like religious belief for
what is the moral right way to kill someone? It
was necessity, it was desperation. Uh. Even if you take
that sixty thousand number in good faith, we have to
remember only a few people in the Assassin's order were
(33:16):
actually killing folks, were actually going out on these missions.
Hassan was outgunned and outnumbered the whole time. He was
out gunned, out manned, out numbered, out planned. I guess, yes, yes, yes,
he was very much so. Uh. And he was also
(33:37):
I guess everybody was outgunned at that time. Knives probably,
this is like the knife age, right, these guys are
using knives, they're using daggers to kill, arrows are around,
swords around. But there That's that's how they were. Yeah,
they pop out from the wrist. Uh. Yes, So he
(33:59):
knew he that there was no way they could wage
what we would call like conventional war of the time,
so he had to resort to being more crafty. And
we're talking about some James Bond level here, guerilla warfare, espionage, spying, UM,
targeted killings, assassinations, UM. There would be sleeper agents that
(34:21):
would basically travel in disguise and you know, pose as
members of the community in which they were trying to
infiltrate to get a better beat on their targets, uh,
and insert themselves into these very important strategic positions so
that they could you know, have the upper hand, right. Yeah,
I mean it may sound familiar again, like we just
(34:42):
dropped a reference to the Revolutionary War, a version of
a telling of the Revolutionary War. Um. But yeah, whenever
I think this is a commonality whenever you have a
small force that needs to operate effectively. Ali's Mulligan a spy.
Wasn't that his deal? Her past spoilers on that, right, Yeah,
(35:06):
I think I think so. Well, that's that's also no, No,
don't like Hercules. Mulligan is a real guy was a spy.
Like he also got firebars. Yeah, yeah, that was his
first love. I think that and being a Taylor and
then you know, Third America. But but think about that.
(35:28):
You know, we always think of sleeper agents in the
context of I guess like the Cold War here in
the West, right, that was the worry deep cover sleeper
agents from the US going into the USSR and vice versa.
But they existed in these ancient times. These guys would say, Okay,
we're gonna kill this person. We're going to do it
(35:49):
in two years. So tonight I'm going to travel with
this caravan and I'm gonna set up shop and I'm
just gonna you know, I'm just I'm gonna sell drinkets
and chats for a while until the time comes. That's
why I break out my drugged potion, break out my
dagger about being bout a boom. They did not say
(36:10):
about it being about a boom. We're pretty did they
say drugs potion? Though, because God, I love that phrase.
It just sounds like a good good time drugs potion.
I want to we should refer to things as potions
more often, right, I know there's some like there are
probably some craft breweries that use the phrase a lixer.
But let's bring back potion. Oh. Remember Philip Simore Hoffman's
(36:32):
character and the Paul Thomas Anderson movie The Master, Um,
he was really taken by Freddie Joaquin Phoenix is kind
of unhinged, like you know that character, because he would
make this hooch out of rocket fuel and like you know,
the photography chemicals and and uh and this is character
of PHILIPI. Mo. Hofman's character refers to it as give
(36:54):
me another taste of that delectable potion or something. Potions,
bring back pans. Uh. That's okay. So, so we've mentioned
this special core. The people who are actually doing the assassinations.
They're sometimes also known as the fedaen. They they were
(37:15):
very very effective, and they were very very selective. The
name translates to those who sacrifice themselves. They were drilled
to This is the most mind blowing part. So they
weren't just drilled to accept the possibility of death, the
(37:35):
possibility of torture. They were taught to find and eliminate
their target and then wait to be discovered and then
willingly submit to torture execution. That's terrible for the individual,
but imagine how amazing that is for the order. Yeah, exactly,
setting a precedent that this is gonna this is what's
(37:57):
gonna happen. You know who did it? Yeah, you don't
get any information out of them, and you can torture
them until they die. And oh god, how many are there? Wait,
there are a lot of them like this. We'll send
another one, yeah, exact, and and a lot of assassination,
as we'll see in part two of this series, is
about sending a message, and that's what they were doing.
(38:19):
So we would today consider this a kind of asymmetrical warfare.
Why do you fight an entire network? Why do you
attempt to go against an entire system? When you can
pop one link in the chain, right, you can get that,
you can get that individual dot at the top of
the command structure, and you can create all the results
(38:40):
you aimed to achieve. You so discord, Uh, you make
the opponent squander their resources and uh, you make them
expect even more terrible things from you in the future,
and you put them on the defensive. So there. I
don't know. It can lay out a hundred different ways,
(39:01):
but one example of this comes to us in ten
just to give you an actual snapshot of how this
group successfully conspired and carried out these murders. Yeah, and
this example comes to us from ten ninety two. This
is when this group of assassins murdered or assassinated the
(39:24):
visier nism Al Mulk. He was a powerful member of
the Seljuk Sultanate. And the records that that were available
from that time they say that Nassari disguised himself as
a Sufi mystic and was able to infiltrate, get in close,
(39:45):
close enough to stab this person and kill them. Pray
with me, my son. Yeah, yeah, it's it's intense. And
assassination had a real domino effect as we've been describing
exactly because shortly after the murder of Nizam al muk,
(40:08):
who was sort of think of him like, um, if
the sultan is the president, this guy is one of
the secretaries of the cabinet kind of, so it's it's
as if a secretary of the cabinet was murdered. People
are freaking out. And then a little bit later, the
(40:28):
sultan himself, the said Sultan Malik Shah is murdered and
at this point historians argued back and forth over whether
that second murder was the assassin's. But it doesn't matter
because this domino effect goes into play very quickly, the
seljuks and chaos. Who is supposed to be in charge
(40:49):
here there are people wearing disguises and killing us, Like,
I can't trust anyone. You know? What about that guy?
How long does he been in town? Well that that
guy says he grew up here, but is that true? Uh?
And then the attacks continued. The assassins started killing more rulers, generals, governors, clerics,
(41:14):
anyone anyone who h was seen in their eyes as
an enemy. And they seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.
You know what I mean. There's not an official uniform.
It could be the mystic next to you, It could
be the merchant two stalls down in the marketplace. So
people got really paranoid, right. They started hiring bodyguards, even
(41:37):
if they thought they might not be the number one target.
They wanted to also wear chain mail under their clothing,
like think about these are terroristic tactics, you know, Ben,
It's really this is very reminiscent to the fear that
permeated the United States, and I would say a lot
of the Western world and probably the entire world following
the September eleven attacks of two thousand one, where it
(42:01):
felt like anybody could be a target, right, Like, even
folks that were separated from like big urban centers like
in Middle America really felt vulnerable in that way where
maybe there's a sense of, oh, we're away from all
the big cities were somehow safe or not on the radar,
but that whole kind of comfort level really went out
the window. Yeah, and for very good reason, you know,
I mean, humans back then aren't that different from humans today.
(42:23):
We just have more toys. We're talking about the assassins
in the past tense at least this group, this origin story,
because eventually they did fall. They were active and effective
for the better part of three centuries, and they continued
after the death of their founder. The Old Man in
the Mountain died in eleven four sometime around then, and
(42:46):
the sect continued without him. In eleven thirty eight, his successor,
Won Boozer Need died. Uh died as well. I'm laughing
because we we know the date of his death thanks
to their big fans, the Sunni chroniclers. One Sunni chronicler
(43:06):
described his death in the following way. He says, brazog
Omed died crushed under the heel of perdition, so hell
was heated by the fuel of his carcass man. The
sick burn very very literally, very very visual. Wow, what
a what a wonderful, wonderfully hateful way of referring to somebody. Yeah,
(43:28):
it's very nice, spit on your grave style as obituaries go.
But the order continued on, and that means that the murders,
especially high ranking Sunni figures, continued. In the eleven sixties,
leadership fell to Hassan the second Hassan too. He took
the branch in a different theological direction. This is really interesting.
(43:51):
Remember we talked about the propaganda saying, look, implying heavily like, look,
these guys aren't even real Muslims. They pork, they're marrying
their siblings. Don't fall for the hype. But Hassan two
did something interesting. He said, you know, if you're a
true believer, if you're willing to die for this cause,
(44:13):
you are relieved, you are absolved from moral customs. Pray
when you can where you can. If you can't turn
the direction of Mecca, that's fine. You can do things
that are regarded as openly sinful as well, because you
were ultimately in service of, wait for it, the greater good. Snap.
(44:34):
I didn't realize it was the greater good that this
whole thing was about. Okay, now changes everything, right, I mean,
it's the greater good. It's about the regular good anyway,
that's the next level good. It's the most good is
But that's just an argument such it's just a common
argument for doing terrible things throughout history and politics and
war and all. It's, oh, it's for the greater good. Yeah,
(44:56):
we gotta murder all these people, but it's okay because
you know, the greater good will benefit. So don't think
about this thing, think about the big picture. It's just
it's a way of pivoting responsibility from the you know,
the people that are actually doing the bad the bad
stuff too, I don't know, like it's it's it's interesting
because the greater good too, is also very very subjective, right,
(45:18):
what that even means? But why why? Why isn't it
the greatest good, the goodest, just the best. It's for
the best. That what people do say about too, don't
they It's for the best, But that means something different.
Doesn't it for the best just means well, come secome sah. Yeah,
it's just that's just the way it went, and it
was for it was for the best. It's just that
(45:38):
it's a lie we tell ourselves, which I believe. So
is the greater good? Yeah, I mean I maybe we
should Maybe we should think about it as just make
up a word here, will churchify a little? Maybe we
should think about it as, uh, the good ocity the
speed and direction of a given good, right, because yes,
so you know, mileage may vary in terms of where
(46:03):
you what direction you feel is good, and what speed
you feel is good. That's a weird one, but it
is important for this episode, this period, you know, like, hey,
throw some of the rules out of the window. We
can cut some corners, because ultimately we have to remember
we're the good guys. Uh, this is probably what are
(46:25):
we good guys? But are we the goodest guys? What's
our good aucity? Uh? But this is probably influenced Marco Polo.
As a matter of fact, it's certainly influenced what he
wrote later and then Europeans read that and it didn't matter.
Remember we print retractions in the back of the paper, right,
It didn't matter that later the sect went back to
(46:49):
a more um, a more strict or austere interpretation of Islam.
The damage was done, and everybody who didn't like these folks,
Christian and Muslim alike, was able to say, well, are
they really some sort of religious warriors? They don't even
bother following the rules at home, you know, which is
(47:09):
a great argument to make. And that's that's part of
why no one came to help in the thirteenth century
when Mongol invaders breached the stronghold. They breached Alamoot Castle
in twelve fifty six, and they put an end to
the Nazari the assassins, at least at least that's what
that's what we believe exactly. Guys, do you have any
(47:33):
favorite assassin sects from pop culture? From video games, from movies,
TV series, books Like I really like the Faceless Men
from Game of Thrones. I think that's one of the
coolest assassin sects in in literature in a lot of ways.
I'm wondering if you guys have any other cool references
for folks to check out. For me, is the Elder Scrolls?
(47:55):
One Ben, remind me what that is? The Dark Brotherhood, Yeah,
Dark Brotherhood that they're great. They have the same taste
and logos as us as well. Uh yeah. Then there's
of course the Assassins and Assassin's creed, and they're more
of like an anti hero kind of vibe. Uh. And
then I would say faceless Men is great assassin groups.
(48:19):
I guess he could say, you know, it's weird. Uh
is is James Bond and Assassin? I mean yeah, right
as he is, he contains multitudes. Yeah, he definitely does
assassinate people for sure. Yeah. I like the Kingsman's vibe,
you know what I mean. I like the gadgets and
the suits. Uh. And this these are all these are
(48:42):
all cultural artifacts or cultural descendants of this real life group,
the Assassins, because even after they were wiped out, the
word assassin had passed into the common parlance in the
thirteenth and fourteen centuries, and you can trace it through
fiction and entertainment all the way to the modern day.
And I think, is that is that part of what
(49:03):
you're getting out here a little bit? Uh? Yeah, I
mean for sure, it's certainly something that is has captured
the imagination of of folks that are into this sort
of thing, you know, fantasy and fiction, because there is
this sense of like like you said, Matt, the assassin's
Creek character is almost an anti hero, but at the
same time you root for them, you know, so the
(49:25):
assassins won't always have to be the bad guy. But
one thing I think the interesting about assassins that we
haven't really touched on is that by nature there's sort
of not a moral but like they are a tool,
especially the faceless men. They don't take a stance politically.
They just do whatever they're paid to do, which I
think is a really interesting facet of being an assassin.
(49:46):
It's like we talked about having um a political motivation
or you know, some zella you know, zelotry kind of
driven ideology, but ourn't. Assassin is usually kind of just
a tool of whoever is paying them, and they don't
really have a stance. We'll see. That's where you bring
things like the assassins. They that exist in john Wick
(50:07):
in the John Wick universe. Right, that's a good that's
that's I love that. I love those But yeah, you
you you pay for a job, right, I mean, they're
hit men, right, more so than political tools or something
like that. I don't know. I mean, yeah, we started
off the episode talking about semantics, and I think we're
still hovering in this gray area of like what is
(50:29):
an assassin? What is a hit man? We know what
a murderer is. We know a manslaughter is, or human murder.
What would you call it? It's human death. But but
it's it's defined. I mean, it is pretty clearly defined,
at least in the common usage in English usage as
a political killing, right, I mean, or killing of importance
(50:52):
in the modern day, you know, but think about like
it's it's weird because the motivation can be spread a
cross multiple individuals. Right. I am the owner and CEO
of United kum Quats Global Incorporated, LLC whatever, And I
am so tired of the government, that of the government
(51:18):
that rules the land where most of my kumquat plantations are.
And so I am motivated to kill them and have
them replaced with a government that's more pro kum Quat
or pro pro my organization, more sympathetic to the kum
Quat lobby. Right, And so my motivation, uh, my motivation
(51:39):
is financial gain and power. So I enlist the help
of a let's say, a religious sector offshoot of secessionists
in that country and they kill the prime minister of
the president. For me, they may be doing it because
they're getting paid. They may be doing it because they
believe their legion will be better represented by a different government.
(52:03):
So the thing is, at the end of the day,
the prime minister is dead and the villains walk away happy. Yeah,
and United Kumquat is victorious. I got really I felt
uncoverable every time we said that word. Isn't that like?
Is that a tiny orange? Isn't that what it? Kume?
Quote is it's like a little tiny or what do
(52:23):
you even do with them? Do you just eat them?
With the skin on and everything? Like? It seems like
an awful lot to peel such a tiny fruit. I
would imagine you would just pop it right in your mouth.
It's like the size of an olive. Yeah, but it's
like it's central. It looks like an orange in shape
and color. Um. I don't know. I just chose it
as a memorable I love it's a beautiful word. So
(52:44):
could we maybe say that not all hits are assassinations,
but all assassinations are hits. Perhaps that's kind of what
we said at the top. Okay, just to just to
lead with that from my own you know, clarif clarity.
I think this is so fascinating. But I think it's
interesting how there's that intersection because it all depends on
the prominence and perhaps the the end result, you know,
(53:06):
as to whether it qualifies as an assassination. Yeah, and
speaking of in results here we are. We know that
the military might of this group or what or the
assassinatory might of this group faded over time, but it's
important to know the faith itself survived and and doesn't
(53:28):
have anything to do with assassination. So we want to
be very careful not to vilify this religious community. You
can find Ismaali in twenty five different countries today, at
least Central and South Asia, Africa, the Middle East. The
reputation of the group we refer to as assassins nowadays,
I think we built a pretty good case. It was.
(53:51):
It was founded on some exaggerations by their enemies, right,
some propaganda, but their tactics were effective. And it's strange
should realize that such a small group of people could
have such a profound impact on history. More importantly, it's
disturbing to realize just how much influence and inspiration they
(54:13):
gave to their imitators ever since. And that's that's where
we end today's episode. How much of an impact do
you think, fellow conspiracy realists, that the assassins had on
the world in their time, and how much of that impact,
if any uh, remains with us in the modern day.
(54:35):
That's that's a great question. And can't wait to hear
what you all think. Uh. This is going to conclude
this episode of assassins, but guess what, there's another one coming.
We're gonna delve into more modern day assassins. We're gonna
get closer to the present. Are there still people out
(54:57):
there in groups that are specifically designed and operated to
commit assassinations? I bet you know the answer to that,
at least a little bit. We're gonna tell you all
about it next episode. In the meantime, right as tell
us your favorite assassin groups or individuals lone wolf assassins
from pop culture. We'd love to hear all about it.
(55:18):
You can find us on the usual social media spots.
I think our preferred place on the internet are are
happy places, the Here's where it gets Crazy Facebook group.
You can join the conversation there. I'm sure this is
gonna generate some great memes and posts from you and
your fellow conspiracy realists. Check that out. Here's where it
gets crazy on Facebook. Just name one of anybody involved
(55:38):
in the show some reference to let us know that
you're a real human being and you are in. And
if you don't care to communicate via social media unless
you use really up to means like the Lake City
Quiet Pills guys, Uh, then go ahead and just give
us a phone call, you know, luke Ma bell into
(55:59):
this guy conversation. Hit us up. We're one eight three
three st d w y t G. You've got three minutes. Uh,
you'll just hear voicemail and it'll set you up. Let
us know your thoughts about anything related to this episode,
suggestions for a future episode you think your fellow listeners
would enjoy, and most importantly, let us know whether or
(56:21):
not you are comfortable with us using your name and
or voice on air. Don't forget to head over to
YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. It's the channel that's
been around for many, many a year and we are
uploading videos again with these conversations with our faces. Um,
(56:41):
you know, hopefully you're into that. We think it's okay,
it's the Castle. Yeah. Um, but please subscribe. Let other
people know if if you know, share that stuff out
if you if you feel inclined. One other thing, if
you want to and you feel inclined, please leave a
review on Apple podcast for this show. It really does
(57:02):
help us out, makes us a little more visible to uh,
to everybody else and UH. If you don't want to
do any of that stuff, but you still want to
connect with us, send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(57:36):
don't want you to know. Is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today,
we're embarking on a two part episode, one that travels
across time and space, from the ancient Middle East all
(00:50):
the way to the modern day. Uh, let's let's start
this way without too much too much introduction. What is
the difference between and assassination and a murder? Well, here
are the facts. We all kind of know what an
assassin is, right, Yes, at least to an extent, we
(01:10):
know that an assassin is a murderer. Right, in order
to assassinate something or someone, you have to murder it
or kill it, right, Whereas a typical, a typical murderer
that is out there might commit homicide, which is taking
the life of another human being for any number of reasons.
(01:31):
And we have laws on the books to differentiate between
those types of homicides and degrees. Right, there's the Weirdly enough,
just from a linguistic standpoint, the coolest sounding one, manslaughter
is actually less man than murder in the first degree.
(01:53):
It's like, whoops, I hit you with my car. That's manslaughter, right,
A little sexist and outdated term. By the way, want
to say, but human death, you caused human death, that's good, Matt.
So it appears that assassination is a genre of homicide,
and and that's correct. But why is it a genre. Well,
(02:16):
an assassin is defined by their target, their tactics, and
their motivations. So if we it's interesting because recently, earlier
this year, there was a huge hubbub in Western media
about the use of a word, the word being assassination
or assassin. Webster's New World College Dictionary, which MPR uses
(02:41):
for their editorial purposes as they're kind of guide for
how to write reporting, they define an assassin as someone
who murders a politically important or prominent person, typically by
a surprise attack, usually for some sort of payment or
in the service of some sort of ideological belief. And
(03:01):
this is this, this sounds cold when we look at
it this way, because that means that let's say someone
knocks over a gas station in a robbery, they fatally
shoot a cashier. That makes that criminal a murderer, but
not an assassin. An assassin would be someone who fatally
attacks the president of a country, unless, of course they
(03:26):
somehow I'm laughing, this is ridiculous, unless of course they
somehow accidentally kill the president, which is which is terrible manslaughter. Yeah,
by like accidentally giving them coronavirus. Maybe maybe maybe, I mean,
that person is definitely in for a good talking to
a stiff. Fine, perhaps, But you know, is that going
(03:47):
to be considered an assassination? Well, I don't know, right,
maybe if it was premeditated, that's certainly one of the factors.
But my question for you, too, Ben, is like, what
if say someone was paid to kill a prominent podcaster
and a point, do you go into the realm of
like being politically important enough to be assassinated versus just
(04:07):
oft you know, or or or have a hit put
out on you don't don't worry, dude, We're off the
table for assassinations, are you sure? Yeah, because it keeps
me up nights. We we cannot be assassinated, certainly, okay, right,
we can feel better now stabbed or shot? Yeah. That's
interesting because to a degree, our definition of what counts
(04:29):
as an assassination is is something we arrive at retroactively. Right.
But if you, for instance, someone who may not be
seen as prominent may be murdered and their death may
set off a series of events that changes the world,
and later historians will say it was an assassination for
(04:50):
that reason, like Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Right, Yeah, well I
would He's already an assassination worthy victim, right because he
an archde Right. You see, the question gets complex. Like
the most uh, one of the weirdest examples of this
that I could think of was the story of the
(05:11):
biblical Kane. Enable was Kane just a murderer or was
he an assassin before the term existed? I mean, it
checks the boxes. He launched a surprise attack on a
politically and socially important person, and he did it because
he was driven by zealous beliefs. It was his brother though, right,
(05:31):
wasn't his jealousy though? Because his father like like the
other brother better? I think I think that's what you're doing.
You're using this as like almost like a microcosmic uh
Mini story that sort of encapsulates the larger thing because
it was political because he was favored by his father.
Therefore it was motivated because he wanted to be the
(05:51):
favorite son. Yeah, and it twisted with that, is with
such a small cast of characters in that story, everybody
as prominent and politically and socially important. That's that's really smart.
Band I like that. And then in the end uh
Can was was condemned by God and forced to walk
the earth like another cane from Kung Fu. It just
(06:14):
made me realize, maybe that's where that came from, and
maybe that's where it came from. Yeah, exactly this. Okay,
So this murder versus assassination thing, it might seem like
it's a game of semantics, like it doesn't really make
a big difference calling something an assassination versus calling it
a murder. Definitely doesn't bring that person back from the dead.
(06:35):
But the difference, as we'll find, is huge and it's
crucial in some cases it as legal implications. Like earlier
this year, the United States of America targeted prominent Iranian
general Cassum Solomany in January, and news organizations like MPR,
(06:56):
Fox CY and and all all the hits they were, uh,
they were really concerned about how they should describe this,
and and that's because murder has a legal implication, as
does assassination. Well, it's like the maybe the military jargue
would be eliminating a high level target or something along
(07:17):
those lines, But the idea of calling it assassination is
a bad look, you know, PR wise, It's like, that's
where the semantics do matter for the optics of this.
We don't assassinate people, we take out targets. Well, yeah, exactly,
because when NPR actually labeled this action and assassination, it
(07:39):
became a big deal um and there was a lot
of outcry from audience members about just again the semantics
of it. This was not an assassination. No, you can't
call it that. Don't don't call it that. We're the
good guys. Don't attack with daggers and drones in the dark.
But I guarantee the people in Sulimani's own country sure
(08:01):
as hell considered an assassination, didn't they. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it's weird because this strategy if we just objectively
look at this strategy. It doesn't matter what you call it,
it matters what happened. And this strategy of assassination is
familiar to cultures across the planet throughout the ages. I
(08:24):
mean just from like from John Wilkes Spooth. That's a
famous US based assassin, right he assassinated then President Abraham Lincoln.
From that guy, all the way back to the ancient
days with people like Locusta the Poisoner, you don't have
to look very far, very deep defined historical records of assassins.
(08:44):
There's a book. I guess I'll just hold it up.
We'll do a little uh disturbing reading rainbow here. I
don't know if you guys can see this. There's a
the cover. I love that image. Let's see is it?
I think it is, But either way, it's one of
those classic like it looks like the cover of a
Joy Division album. It's like this person dead in the
bath with their arm kind of draped over the side.
(09:06):
That classic. I believe it's Impressionists, but it's you know it, Curbs.
You would be a great example, really high definition, super
moody and very kind of eerie image. But I love
those types of paintings. That's right. The Encyclopedia of Assassinations
available at any arcane bookstore near you, right by Karl Sifficus.
(09:26):
This explores both attempted and successful assassinations throughout human history,
and interestingly enough, it lists several cases such as that
of dag Hammer Scold by the way, Yeah it's a
cool name. Uh. It lists that case as an assassination,
but that still has not been officially confirmed as such,
(09:49):
even though the US president at the time dag Hammer
school was in charge of the u N when he
was when he died in a mysterious airplane acts and
we have an old YouTube video on that. But the
point is this, this book is pretty old, but these
cases of assassination, because of the controversy, they remain very
(10:13):
touchy subjects for a long long time. And so today
in the in the first part of our series, we
wanted to ask where did this come from? Where? Where
does the concept of an assassin actually originate? We'll tell
you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it
(10:41):
gets crazy. Assassin isn't some dramatic, exotic word some hack
writer invented to just sort of joos up an otherwise
depressing murder story. That's right, it's i P for movies after.
In fact, the term assassin refers to an all too reel,
(11:05):
all too conspiratorial organization from ancient history. It's an honest
to God's secret society. Let's call it the Order of Assassins. Oh,
oh my god. Wait, you're saying it's real. That's what
we're saying. The Order of Assassins is real or was? Yeah. No, no, no,
(11:28):
well we're not saying, you know, we're not saying Assassin's
creed should be considered, um a playable documentary, although there's
a lot of great historical research in there. Uh, we're
we're saying there was a real group. We don't know
a ton about them. This is something that you'll always
run into when you're looking at controversial institutions in ancient history.
(11:52):
The fortress of the Assassins, and they did have a
real fortress, was conquered in twelve fifty six CE. And
when they were conquered, the the castle was raised essentially
a their library was destroyed, so we have no written
historical records about the Assassins from the Assassins themselves. Still,
(12:16):
we do know some things that's right. Between ten ninety
and twelve seventy five, a small Nazari Ismaili sect high
in the mountains of Persia and Syria went into the
murder for higher business. Um. The Assassins were an offshoot
of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, and it was
founded by Hassan E Sabah, who referred to his followers
(12:39):
as a minute oh okay assassy young a s A
s I y y u N with some underscore characters
over the A and the U. And that means people
who are faithful to the foundation of faith um. And
they were. They had a stronghold fortress called a La
Mut's Castle that was about a hundred thirty miles from
(13:02):
what is today known as Tehran. Wow. I mean, it's
just so cool to that that that's real. Um. So
the concept here of this group they wanted to challenge
the Seljuk Turks, who were Sunni Muslims. So we're we're
talking about Shia and Sunny conflicts back in what did
(13:25):
we say, the one thousand nine to twelve hundred UM
the Sunni Muslims, these Seljuk Turks, they were in control
of Persia at this time when when this group was
organized for these purposes, and this is when the group
first became known as the hasha sheen another cool word here,
(13:48):
but today they're better known as assassins. It's it's a
term that was given to them by the European crusaders
who are rolling through and you know, to wing their thing.
Those Europeans just making language work for them, you know. Yeah,
just kind of a corruption of the phrase, right, But
(14:10):
that's what you get with a living language. This group,
known as the Assassins, they actively and covertly murdered first
Muslim than later Christian leaders throughout the Middle East. And
they murdered these folks or assassinated these folks when they
were seen as a threat to this sect, to their society,
(14:33):
to their geopolitical control. And while the term assassins applies
to the whole crew, right, uh, there was actually only
a smaller inner group known as the Fidity, that engaged
in actual conflict in what is sometimes euphemistically referred to
(14:54):
as direct action. This is important that we have. We
do have to say that none of us are fluent
Arabic speakers. So thank you in advance with for your
understanding of our pronunciations. Uh. We we do know that
the Nazari did not have a standing army, so they
(15:15):
relied upon these warriors, these operatives to carry out espionage.
Why kill an r Why fighting army when you can
just kill the king or the general the Their preferred
method of killing was usually going to be through the
use of daggers, so that means close up to their target,
(15:36):
no poison drop offs, no arrows, and often they were
known for being completely okay with Diane or being tortured
after they had committed their murder. Uh. They posed a
strategic threat to Fatimid Abysses and Seljout authority alike. And
(15:59):
for almost three hundred years, we know they killed hundreds
and hundreds of people important people. The you know that
era's version of v I p s three colleagues, Ruler
of Jerusalem, tons of other leaders Muslim and Christian alike.
So despite the fact that we don't have direct accounts
(16:20):
from like Hassan himself saying I don't these guys up
and brainwashed them and now we're killing everybody, we do
have accounts from other people who were alive or around
at the time. Um, now let's let's see what you
think of these. One of the first ones comes from
a Spanish rabbi named Benjamin of today La. He traveled
(16:43):
through Syria in eleven sixty seven, so this is while
the group was active, and Benjamin not our Benjamin, the
one we just mentioned. He told of this mysterious leader
that existed named the Old Man in the Mountain. That's
the old Man in the Mountain. That he referred to
him as Old Man in the Mountain, This old Man
(17:03):
in the Mountain, this Yoda like figure, although he did
not have that reference, who led a sect of warriors
who dwelled in hidden mountain fortresses. I think, yeah, it
is more of a Palpatine and it's um gosh. I
can't remember which episode. I think we did one on
military and Drugs, where we talked about, um, the mountain
fortresses in several parts of the region there and how
(17:26):
important they were, and then how we saw that reflected
in the conflicts that the US then went into and
places around Afghanistan and out in the Middle East, and
these these mountain fortresses that were so difficult too if
you were an invading force or someone who's trying to attack,
so difficult to penetrate but that's an interesting thing, right,
(17:50):
there's an old man in a mountain and he's he
is controlling or leading a bunch of these warriors that
live there. And there's also information quite a bit more
actually that comes from Syrian Sunni chroniclers, and you know
it's there, it exists, which is very nice, but unfortunately
quite a bit of this information is biased. Again, like
(18:12):
you have to remember that there was conflict there between
the Shia and the Sunni Muslims, and because of that conflict,
the Syrian Sunni population really did hate or at least
some of these prominent writers seem to show anger and
hatred in in the writing or at least writing about
(18:33):
them from you know, from an enemy's perspective, because they
were the enemies, and they probably did hate them because
they did some heinous things they had, I mean, they
had every reason hate the assassins. But it just thinks
that the historical record then itself becomes this version of
it rather than well, let's, you know, let's actually look
at it as equal parts um in some way or
(18:56):
at least in some form and the crusaders. We're aware
of these chronicles from the from the Syrian Sunni population.
They said, look, this is close enough to the truth.
Someone's out here killing everybody, so let's just run hog
(19:17):
wild with it. You know, who has time to fact check.
That's a problem we have in the modern day. So
as a result, we have to treat these stories with skepticism.
It's kind of like propaganda you would see against the
pope by their successors or against royalty. A lot of
the AGAs armies of the propaganda produced is intense. Yeah,
(19:41):
they're gonna say, like, you can read some of these
things and translations thereof and say, okay, this looks like
maybe it was designed to entertain an audience or just
a character assassinate the assassins themselves. And they talked about
how powerful, how competent these ratives were, But then they
(20:01):
also made these pretty crazy claims about how they became
so successful. Yeah, and um. In the twelfth century, William
the Second, who was a crusader and the Archbishop of
tire believed that this whole old man in the mountain
idea um was true and that he commanded this this
individual as many as sixty thousand assassins. And he noted
(20:23):
that they would uh do suicide attacks. Um. They had
no regard for their own safety in their own lives.
They were seeking destroy, and if they don't make it
out alive, so be it. It's all about the target
and getting the job done. Um of this old man
in the Mountain figure Um William the second wrote this quote,
it is their custom to install their masters and choose
(20:46):
their chief, not by hereditary right, but solely by virtue
of merrit What a novel idea. By the way, Um
disdaining any other title of dignity, they call him the Elder.
The bond of submission and obedience that binds as people
to their chief is so strong. There's no task so arduous,
difficult or dangerous that any one of them would not
undertake to perform it with the greatest zeal and you know,
(21:11):
speaking back to the propaganda and the war of words
and trying to smear folks to be taken with a
grain of salt. But there was there were reports about
this group that they God forbid eight pork and married
their sisters, which were to unpack that that quotation from
William the second. He's not saying meritocracy is a good thing.
(21:34):
He's pointing it out as a criticism he's implying their
barbaria because they don't, because they respect people's talents over
their genetic lottery, which is ever so counterintuitive and fascinating
and like a product of the time, you know what
I mean. They don't have a royal pure bloodline, the
(21:54):
lineage sending directly to God, you know, for shame. It's
like they hire people based on their skills, they promote
them based on their skills. They eat pork, and they're
sleeping with their siblings. All three of those things were
just terrible. And somehow the people who join up are
willing to do things for their leaders, willing to right
(22:20):
right right. It's almost like the chance of being promoted
makes people better at their jobs. That's a very that's
Please don't make that the main takeaway from today's episode,
but yeah, you're right. The fact is they that this
guy noticed these people were not the type of individuals
(22:43):
to turn away from a task, even if it meant
that they would be killed in completing it or captured
and tortured afterwards. In some ways, this was seen as
noble in this community. Uh this, so these rumors are around.
It's kind of a an urban legend. It's kind of
a conspiracy theory, and there's proof in you know, in
(23:06):
terms of dead bodies of important people that keep showing
up at weird times in history. It gets really popular
and mischaracterized in Western Europe thanks to one of the
best selling books of the medieval era, the Travels of
Marco Polo. It's this book alone spreads so many claims
(23:27):
about the order, and if we read it through the
lens of the modern day, it sounds like Marco is
telling us the assassins are a cult. There's there's this
idea that the elder, the old man in the mountain,
starting with Hassan himself, has been brainwashing his followers, has
(23:47):
been doping them with some sort of substance. Again, we
don't know the exact nature of that substance, but Hashisham
assassins Hashishuh the the rumor is, or at least what
he says in the book, is that the old Man
of the Mountain is giving his followers a drugged potion
(24:09):
during their training, right, and this is breaking down the
usual human moral qualms with things like assassination. And then
before he sets him off on an assassination mission, he
gives them some version of this again, so it has
a lot in common if you think about it with
reports of like Manchurian candidates, people who are through systematic
(24:35):
psychological tactics and through the ingestion of substance. Uh, they're
turned into zombies, you know, uh, or you know, here's
the deal is it? Are we saying we think, at
least according to that book, we think it might be
hashish is that and and that is cannabis a weed? Right?
(24:56):
It's uh, it's it's basically like it's the stuf that's
the sticky crystal stuff that sticks to the outside of cannabis.
When it's cured, they can shake it off and you
essentially make it into like you press it and make
it into a resinous kind of material that is able
to be smoked. So I've heard, but we're saying, we're saying,
or the travels of Marco Polo is saying that that's
(25:21):
the substance that made them in some way become a
Manchurian candidate, like they went out of their minds about.
It's interesting though, because so Hashisham Hashisham is the nickname
for the sect that was used by a lot of
(25:42):
its enemies or uh in casual conversation about this group,
and it was believed to have derived from the Arabic
word hashish. So naturally you can see how that didn't
come directly from Marco Polo's book that was already around.
But Marco Polo mentioned this drugged potion. It's cemented the
(26:04):
image of this order in in the zeitgeist of the time.
So they were like, these are shadowy, drug crazed fanatics.
They may have powers that the average undrugged human being
doesn't have, you know what I mean? And to a
degree psychologically that might be accurate. But you could say
(26:24):
that about any number of um, any number of groups
who institute systematized suicide attacks. Hey man, look we're all
the same. But I just gotta assassinate you, bro. I'm sorry. Yeah,
here hit this verse. It'll make you way more toill.
Exactly assassin e. So if this is true, think about it.
(26:50):
If this is true, it boggles the mind. Uh, how
is this not brought up more often, especially during these
moral panics. I love that you mentioned Reefer madness and all,
because if again, if this is true, it's one of
the best p s a s against the use of
cannabis in human history. Right, like smoke a joint and
then go kill the king. That's what You're a mindless
(27:13):
murder machine, right right? And I love that that rhymes
thank you this. There's a reason, I guess there's one
reason that this didn't show up in a lot of
p s a s uh. Well, first, most people wouldn't
be familiar with this story. But secondly, it turns out
that Marco Polo is the primary propagator for this hash claim.
(27:37):
If you look at the sources from the Islamic world,
even among the Assassin's enemies, even among the cell Jukes
and the Syrians who hated them, they don't they don't
really mention the use of hashi. So maybe a more
convincing explanation for that nickname comes from the Egyptian Arabic
word hash ma sheen, and that that means something totally different.
(28:02):
It's a little silly. It means like noisy people or
the troublemakers. Wasn't Marco Polo known to be a bit
of a exaggerator too, and possibly inventing some stuff just
like out a whole cloth to make himself look like
more of a badass explorer. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's true.
It's a a curated version of reality, right, But a
(28:25):
lot of the a lot of the things he says
Uh didn't bear up to scrutiny. Still, it was the
best information people had at the time. So this is
why modern scholars, people like Bernard Lewis, who was a
Middle Eastern historian and expert on the assassins, believes that
hashi she or hashim was a popular Syrian pejorative. It
(28:49):
was a term of abuse. Were discrediting these people. You know,
sure they're effective killers, but their drug addicts and you know,
it's the it's the devil's tobacco, it's the jazz as
cigarettes and the left hand smokes that are making them
such effective monsters. So you can see already that the
image people have of assassins in the modern day, and
(29:12):
the image people had of assassins when they were around
Uh kind of became larger than life. They were living legends.
There was a lot of disinformation about them, and we
can only assume they probably used it to their credit,
because it's the kind of pr you can't buy. But
this is just one of the misconceptions. So I propose
(29:32):
we take a break for our sponsor, try our best
not to get assassinated and come back and explore some
of those misconceptions. Uh in just a moment, what do
you guys think? It sounds great? Everybody crossed your fingers
and hope that it's a CBD sponsor. Okay, cool, let's go,
(29:58):
and we've returned earned misconceptions about a group of killers
in ancient Persia slash Syria. This is the slightly awkward
part where we defend their character. But uh so, a
lot of medieval Europeans knew about the Order, especially once
(30:23):
the travels of Marco Polo were published. They believed that
this group was specifically targeting Christians. So this is fuel
to the fire for the Crusades and other campaigns. Right now,
we're now we're fighting to protect good Christian people against
this threat. Make you a cog in our Holy war
(30:45):
kind of situation. Right, But this thing was not entirely true.
In fact, it turns out this happens all the time
in the world of politics. It turns out these people
who were like publicly enemies to each other, behind closed doors,
they would not infrequently get together and be like, hey,
you know what, man, I know because there's a lot
(31:06):
of stuff going on in the bridge under the water. Um,
are you guys high, and don't worry about it. Let's
just let's let's work something out. Maybe we can make
an alliance. You know, well, you know that we're about
to talk about something here coming up, which is another
part of the misconceptions. But there are some realities that
this group faced that makes me wonder if there was
(31:30):
use of cannabis or some other drug like that, if
it didn't have more to do with their situation and
less to do with tactics for battle. It's a bit
of a spoiler, but we'll keep going here. No, I
think it's I think it's foreshadowing, Matt. We So we
want to pull one example of times that Christian forces
(31:51):
and Assassin forces got together. Right in twelve fifty one,
the King of France, Louis the ninth, sent some invoys
to meet the assassins, to go and find the Old
Man or the elder of the legends, and this meeting.
They took the meeting because it suited their diplomatic needs
(32:13):
at the time. Otherwise it seems like the sect was
they were Yeah, they were killing people when they had
to or when they wanted to. But they were largely
uninterested in Christians, at least at that time. They were
primarily focused on all the crazy changes happening in the
(32:34):
Muslim world and the events that had had shaped them.
They were also shaping these events in turn. Uh. And
that's because of their assassination tactics. Let's go to what
you said, Matt, about not just the rumors of drug use,
but about how these tactics came came to be. It
(32:56):
wasn't so much a matter of like religious belief for
what is the moral right way to kill someone? It
was necessity, it was desperation. Uh. Even if you take
that sixty thousand number in good faith, we have to
remember only a few people in the Assassin's order were
(33:16):
actually killing folks, were actually going out on these missions.
Hassan was outgunned and outnumbered the whole time. He was
out gunned, out manned, out numbered, out planned. I guess, yes, yes, yes,
he was very much so. Uh. And he was also
(33:37):
I guess everybody was outgunned at that time. Knives probably,
this is like the knife age, right, these guys are
using knives, they're using daggers to kill, arrows are around,
swords around. But there That's that's how they were. Yeah,
they pop out from the wrist. Uh. Yes, So he
(33:59):
knew he that there was no way they could wage
what we would call like conventional war of the time,
so he had to resort to being more crafty. And
we're talking about some James Bond level here, guerilla warfare, espionage, spying, UM,
targeted killings, assassinations, UM. There would be sleeper agents that
(34:21):
would basically travel in disguise and you know, pose as
members of the community in which they were trying to
infiltrate to get a better beat on their targets, uh,
and insert themselves into these very important strategic positions so
that they could you know, have the upper hand, right. Yeah,
I mean it may sound familiar again, like we just
(34:42):
dropped a reference to the Revolutionary War, a version of
a telling of the Revolutionary War. Um. But yeah, whenever
I think this is a commonality whenever you have a
small force that needs to operate effectively. Ali's Mulligan a spy.
Wasn't that his deal? Her past spoilers on that, right, Yeah,
(35:06):
I think I think so. Well, that's that's also no, No,
don't like Hercules. Mulligan is a real guy was a spy.
Like he also got firebars. Yeah, yeah, that was his
first love. I think that and being a Taylor and
then you know, Third America. But but think about that.
(35:28):
You know, we always think of sleeper agents in the
context of I guess like the Cold War here in
the West, right, that was the worry deep cover sleeper
agents from the US going into the USSR and vice versa.
But they existed in these ancient times. These guys would say, Okay,
we're gonna kill this person. We're going to do it
(35:49):
in two years. So tonight I'm going to travel with
this caravan and I'm gonna set up shop and I'm
just gonna you know, I'm just I'm gonna sell drinkets
and chats for a while until the time comes. That's
why I break out my drugged potion, break out my
dagger about being bout a boom. They did not say
(36:10):
about it being about a boom. We're pretty did they
say drugs potion? Though, because God, I love that phrase.
It just sounds like a good good time drugs potion.
I want to we should refer to things as potions
more often, right, I know there's some like there are
probably some craft breweries that use the phrase a lixer.
But let's bring back potion. Oh. Remember Philip Simore Hoffman's
(36:32):
character and the Paul Thomas Anderson movie The Master, Um,
he was really taken by Freddie Joaquin Phoenix is kind
of unhinged, like you know that character, because he would
make this hooch out of rocket fuel and like you know,
the photography chemicals and and uh and this is character
of PHILIPI. Mo. Hofman's character refers to it as give
(36:54):
me another taste of that delectable potion or something. Potions,
bring back pans. Uh. That's okay. So, so we've mentioned
this special core. The people who are actually doing the assassinations.
They're sometimes also known as the fedaen. They they were
(37:15):
very very effective, and they were very very selective. The
name translates to those who sacrifice themselves. They were drilled
to This is the most mind blowing part. So they
weren't just drilled to accept the possibility of death, the
(37:35):
possibility of torture. They were taught to find and eliminate
their target and then wait to be discovered and then
willingly submit to torture execution. That's terrible for the individual,
but imagine how amazing that is for the order. Yeah, exactly,
setting a precedent that this is gonna this is what's
(37:57):
gonna happen. You know who did it? Yeah, you don't
get any information out of them, and you can torture
them until they die. And oh god, how many are there? Wait,
there are a lot of them like this. We'll send
another one, yeah, exact, and and a lot of assassination,
as we'll see in part two of this series, is
about sending a message, and that's what they were doing.
(38:19):
So we would today consider this a kind of asymmetrical warfare.
Why do you fight an entire network? Why do you
attempt to go against an entire system? When you can
pop one link in the chain, right, you can get that,
you can get that individual dot at the top of
the command structure, and you can create all the results
(38:40):
you aimed to achieve. You so discord, Uh, you make
the opponent squander their resources and uh, you make them
expect even more terrible things from you in the future,
and you put them on the defensive. So there. I
don't know. It can lay out a hundred different ways,
(39:01):
but one example of this comes to us in ten
just to give you an actual snapshot of how this
group successfully conspired and carried out these murders. Yeah, and
this example comes to us from ten ninety two. This
is when this group of assassins murdered or assassinated the
(39:24):
visier nism Al Mulk. He was a powerful member of
the Seljuk Sultanate. And the records that that were available
from that time they say that Nassari disguised himself as
a Sufi mystic and was able to infiltrate, get in close,
(39:45):
close enough to stab this person and kill them. Pray
with me, my son. Yeah, yeah, it's it's intense. And
assassination had a real domino effect as we've been describing
exactly because shortly after the murder of Nizam al muk,
(40:08):
who was sort of think of him like, um, if
the sultan is the president, this guy is one of
the secretaries of the cabinet kind of, so it's it's
as if a secretary of the cabinet was murdered. People
are freaking out. And then a little bit later, the
(40:28):
sultan himself, the said Sultan Malik Shah is murdered and
at this point historians argued back and forth over whether
that second murder was the assassin's. But it doesn't matter
because this domino effect goes into play very quickly, the
seljuks and chaos. Who is supposed to be in charge
(40:49):
here there are people wearing disguises and killing us, Like,
I can't trust anyone. You know? What about that guy?
How long does he been in town? Well that that
guy says he grew up here, but is that true? Uh?
And then the attacks continued. The assassins started killing more rulers, generals, governors, clerics,
(41:14):
anyone anyone who h was seen in their eyes as
an enemy. And they seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.
You know what I mean. There's not an official uniform.
It could be the mystic next to you, It could
be the merchant two stalls down in the marketplace. So
people got really paranoid, right. They started hiring bodyguards, even
(41:37):
if they thought they might not be the number one target.
They wanted to also wear chain mail under their clothing,
like think about these are terroristic tactics, you know, Ben,
It's really this is very reminiscent to the fear that
permeated the United States, and I would say a lot
of the Western world and probably the entire world following
the September eleven attacks of two thousand one, where it
(42:01):
felt like anybody could be a target, right, Like, even
folks that were separated from like big urban centers like
in Middle America really felt vulnerable in that way where
maybe there's a sense of, oh, we're away from all
the big cities were somehow safe or not on the radar,
but that whole kind of comfort level really went out
the window. Yeah, and for very good reason, you know,
I mean, humans back then aren't that different from humans today.
(42:23):
We just have more toys. We're talking about the assassins
in the past tense at least this group, this origin story,
because eventually they did fall. They were active and effective
for the better part of three centuries, and they continued
after the death of their founder. The Old Man in
the Mountain died in eleven four sometime around then, and
(42:46):
the sect continued without him. In eleven thirty eight, his successor,
Won Boozer Need died. Uh died as well. I'm laughing
because we we know the date of his death thanks
to their big fans, the Sunni chroniclers. One Sunni chronicler
(43:06):
described his death in the following way. He says, brazog
Omed died crushed under the heel of perdition, so hell
was heated by the fuel of his carcass man. The
sick burn very very literally, very very visual. Wow, what
a what a wonderful, wonderfully hateful way of referring to somebody. Yeah,
(43:28):
it's very nice, spit on your grave style as obituaries go.
But the order continued on, and that means that the murders,
especially high ranking Sunni figures, continued. In the eleven sixties,
leadership fell to Hassan the second Hassan too. He took
the branch in a different theological direction. This is really interesting.
(43:51):
Remember we talked about the propaganda saying, look, implying heavily like, look,
these guys aren't even real Muslims. They pork, they're marrying
their siblings. Don't fall for the hype. But Hassan two
did something interesting. He said, you know, if you're a
true believer, if you're willing to die for this cause,
(44:13):
you are relieved, you are absolved from moral customs. Pray
when you can where you can. If you can't turn
the direction of Mecca, that's fine. You can do things
that are regarded as openly sinful as well, because you
were ultimately in service of, wait for it, the greater good. Snap.
(44:34):
I didn't realize it was the greater good that this
whole thing was about. Okay, now changes everything, right, I mean,
it's the greater good. It's about the regular good anyway,
that's the next level good. It's the most good is
But that's just an argument such it's just a common
argument for doing terrible things throughout history and politics and
war and all. It's, oh, it's for the greater good. Yeah,
(44:56):
we gotta murder all these people, but it's okay because
you know, the greater good will benefit. So don't think
about this thing, think about the big picture. It's just
it's a way of pivoting responsibility from the you know,
the people that are actually doing the bad the bad
stuff too, I don't know, like it's it's it's interesting
because the greater good too, is also very very subjective, right,
(45:18):
what that even means? But why why? Why isn't it
the greatest good, the goodest, just the best. It's for
the best. That what people do say about too, don't
they It's for the best, But that means something different.
Doesn't it for the best just means well, come secome sah. Yeah,
it's just that's just the way it went, and it
was for it was for the best. It's just that
(45:38):
it's a lie we tell ourselves, which I believe. So
is the greater good? Yeah, I mean I maybe we
should Maybe we should think about it as just make
up a word here, will churchify a little? Maybe we
should think about it as, uh, the good ocity the
speed and direction of a given good, right, because yes,
so you know, mileage may vary in terms of where
(46:03):
you what direction you feel is good, and what speed
you feel is good. That's a weird one, but it
is important for this episode, this period, you know, like, hey,
throw some of the rules out of the window. We
can cut some corners, because ultimately we have to remember
we're the good guys. Uh, this is probably what are
(46:25):
we good guys? But are we the goodest guys? What's
our good aucity? Uh? But this is probably influenced Marco Polo.
As a matter of fact, it's certainly influenced what he
wrote later and then Europeans read that and it didn't matter.
Remember we print retractions in the back of the paper, right,
It didn't matter that later the sect went back to
(46:49):
a more um, a more strict or austere interpretation of Islam.
The damage was done, and everybody who didn't like these folks,
Christian and Muslim alike, was able to say, well, are
they really some sort of religious warriors? They don't even
bother following the rules at home, you know, which is
(47:09):
a great argument to make. And that's that's part of
why no one came to help in the thirteenth century
when Mongol invaders breached the stronghold. They breached Alamoot Castle
in twelve fifty six, and they put an end to
the Nazari the assassins, at least at least that's what
that's what we believe exactly. Guys, do you have any
(47:33):
favorite assassin sects from pop culture? From video games, from movies,
TV series, books Like I really like the Faceless Men
from Game of Thrones. I think that's one of the
coolest assassin sects in in literature in a lot of ways.
I'm wondering if you guys have any other cool references
for folks to check out. For me, is the Elder Scrolls?
(47:55):
One Ben, remind me what that is? The Dark Brotherhood, Yeah,
Dark Brotherhood that they're great. They have the same taste
and logos as us as well. Uh yeah. Then there's
of course the Assassins and Assassin's creed, and they're more
of like an anti hero kind of vibe. Uh. And
then I would say faceless Men is great assassin groups.
(48:19):
I guess he could say, you know, it's weird. Uh
is is James Bond and Assassin? I mean yeah, right
as he is, he contains multitudes. Yeah, he definitely does
assassinate people for sure. Yeah. I like the Kingsman's vibe,
you know what I mean. I like the gadgets and
the suits. Uh. And this these are all these are
(48:42):
all cultural artifacts or cultural descendants of this real life group,
the Assassins, because even after they were wiped out, the
word assassin had passed into the common parlance in the
thirteenth and fourteen centuries, and you can trace it through
fiction and entertainment all the way to the modern day.
And I think, is that is that part of what
(49:03):
you're getting out here a little bit? Uh? Yeah, I
mean for sure, it's certainly something that is has captured
the imagination of of folks that are into this sort
of thing, you know, fantasy and fiction, because there is
this sense of like like you said, Matt, the assassin's
Creek character is almost an anti hero, but at the
same time you root for them, you know, so the
(49:25):
assassins won't always have to be the bad guy. But
one thing I think the interesting about assassins that we
haven't really touched on is that by nature there's sort
of not a moral but like they are a tool,
especially the faceless men. They don't take a stance politically.
They just do whatever they're paid to do, which I
think is a really interesting facet of being an assassin.
(49:46):
It's like we talked about having um a political motivation
or you know, some zella you know, zelotry kind of
driven ideology, but ourn't. Assassin is usually kind of just
a tool of whoever is paying them, and they don't
really have a stance. We'll see. That's where you bring
things like the assassins. They that exist in john Wick
(50:07):
in the John Wick universe. Right, that's a good that's
that's I love that. I love those But yeah, you
you you pay for a job, right, I mean, they're
hit men, right, more so than political tools or something
like that. I don't know. I mean, yeah, we started
off the episode talking about semantics, and I think we're
still hovering in this gray area of like what is
(50:29):
an assassin? What is a hit man? We know what
a murderer is. We know a manslaughter is, or human murder.
What would you call it? It's human death. But but
it's it's defined. I mean, it is pretty clearly defined,
at least in the common usage in English usage as
a political killing, right, I mean, or killing of importance
(50:52):
in the modern day, you know, but think about like
it's it's weird because the motivation can be spread a
cross multiple individuals. Right. I am the owner and CEO
of United kum Quats Global Incorporated, LLC whatever, And I
am so tired of the government, that of the government
(51:18):
that rules the land where most of my kumquat plantations are.
And so I am motivated to kill them and have
them replaced with a government that's more pro kum Quat
or pro pro my organization, more sympathetic to the kum
Quat lobby. Right, And so my motivation, uh, my motivation
(51:39):
is financial gain and power. So I enlist the help
of a let's say, a religious sector offshoot of secessionists
in that country and they kill the prime minister of
the president. For me, they may be doing it because
they're getting paid. They may be doing it because they
believe their legion will be better represented by a different government.
(52:03):
So the thing is, at the end of the day,
the prime minister is dead and the villains walk away happy. Yeah,
and United Kumquat is victorious. I got really I felt
uncoverable every time we said that word. Isn't that like?
Is that a tiny orange? Isn't that what it? Kume?
Quote is it's like a little tiny or what do
(52:23):
you even do with them? Do you just eat them?
With the skin on and everything? Like? It seems like
an awful lot to peel such a tiny fruit. I
would imagine you would just pop it right in your mouth.
It's like the size of an olive. Yeah, but it's
like it's central. It looks like an orange in shape
and color. Um. I don't know. I just chose it
as a memorable I love it's a beautiful word. So
(52:44):
could we maybe say that not all hits are assassinations,
but all assassinations are hits. Perhaps that's kind of what
we said at the top. Okay, just to just to
lead with that from my own you know, clarif clarity.
I think this is so fascinating. But I think it's
interesting how there's that intersection because it all depends on
the prominence and perhaps the the end result, you know,
(53:06):
as to whether it qualifies as an assassination. Yeah, and
speaking of in results here we are. We know that
the military might of this group or what or the
assassinatory might of this group faded over time, but it's
important to know the faith itself survived and and doesn't
(53:28):
have anything to do with assassination. So we want to
be very careful not to vilify this religious community. You
can find Ismaali in twenty five different countries today, at
least Central and South Asia, Africa, the Middle East. The
reputation of the group we refer to as assassins nowadays,
I think we built a pretty good case. It was.
(53:51):
It was founded on some exaggerations by their enemies, right,
some propaganda, but their tactics were effective. And it's strange
should realize that such a small group of people could
have such a profound impact on history. More importantly, it's
disturbing to realize just how much influence and inspiration they
(54:13):
gave to their imitators ever since. And that's that's where
we end today's episode. How much of an impact do
you think, fellow conspiracy realists, that the assassins had on
the world in their time, and how much of that impact,
if any uh, remains with us in the modern day.
(54:35):
That's that's a great question. And can't wait to hear
what you all think. Uh. This is going to conclude
this episode of assassins, but guess what, there's another one coming.
We're gonna delve into more modern day assassins. We're gonna
get closer to the present. Are there still people out
(54:57):
there in groups that are specifically designed and operated to
commit assassinations? I bet you know the answer to that,
at least a little bit. We're gonna tell you all
about it next episode. In the meantime, right as tell
us your favorite assassin groups or individuals lone wolf assassins
from pop culture. We'd love to hear all about it.
(55:18):
You can find us on the usual social media spots.
I think our preferred place on the internet are are
happy places, the Here's where it gets Crazy Facebook group.
You can join the conversation there. I'm sure this is
gonna generate some great memes and posts from you and
your fellow conspiracy realists. Check that out. Here's where it
gets crazy on Facebook. Just name one of anybody involved
(55:38):
in the show some reference to let us know that
you're a real human being and you are in. And
if you don't care to communicate via social media unless
you use really up to means like the Lake City
Quiet Pills guys, Uh, then go ahead and just give
us a phone call, you know, luke Ma bell into
(55:59):
this guy conversation. Hit us up. We're one eight three
three st d w y t G. You've got three minutes. Uh,
you'll just hear voicemail and it'll set you up. Let
us know your thoughts about anything related to this episode,
suggestions for a future episode you think your fellow listeners
would enjoy, and most importantly, let us know whether or
(56:21):
not you are comfortable with us using your name and
or voice on air. Don't forget to head over to
YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. It's the channel that's
been around for many, many a year and we are
uploading videos again with these conversations with our faces. Um,
(56:41):
you know, hopefully you're into that. We think it's okay,
it's the Castle. Yeah. Um, but please subscribe. Let other
people know if if you know, share that stuff out
if you if you feel inclined. One other thing, if
you want to and you feel inclined, please leave a
review on Apple podcast for this show. It really does
(57:02):
help us out, makes us a little more visible to uh,
to everybody else and UH. If you don't want to
do any of that stuff, but you still want to
connect with us, send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(57:36):
don't want you to know. Is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.