Hussun, on account of several hill forts which he had seized, "was styled 'Sheik el-Jebel,' an Arabic title which signifies ' the chief of the mountains,' and which has been literally, but erroneously, translated • the old man of the moun.tain' " (Malcolm, i. 401). The Ismaelites in his time spread extensively. They flour- ished not only in Persia, but also in Syria and Arabia, until A.D. 1253, when their atrocities became unbeara- ble, and a general massacre against them was inaugu- rated. A command was issued b}'' the reigning prince, Mangu Khan, in the fi51st year of the Hegira," to exter- minate all the Ismaelites, and not to spare even the in- fant at its mother's breast. . . . Warriors went through the provinces, and executed the fatal sentence without mercy or appeal. WhercA-er thej' found a disciple of the doctrine of the Ismaelites they compelled him to kneel down, and then cut off his head. The whole race of Kia Busurgomid, in whose descendants the grand mastership had been hereditaiy, were exterminated. . . , Twelve thousand of these wretched creatures were slaughtered without distinction of age. . . . The ' de- voted to murder' were not now the victims of the or- der's vengeance, but that of outraged humanity. The sword was against the dagger [the weapon the Assas- sins most generally used to murder their opponents], the executioner destroyed the murderer. The seed sowed for two centuries was now ripe for the harvest, and the field ploughed by the Assassin's dagger was reaped by the sword of the mogul. The crime had been terrible, but no less terrible was the punishment" (Mad- den, ii, 187; comp. Milman's Gibbon [Harper's edition], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi, 215). But, with all these persecutions, they still struggled on for many years, and even in our own day "remains of the Ismaelites still exist both in Persia and Syria, but mere- ly as one of the many sects ai.d heresies of Islamism [see MonAJiMEi)AXis:vi], without any claims to power, without the means of retaining their former importance, of which they seem, in fact, to have lost all remem- brance. The policy of the secret state-subverting doc- trine which animated the followers of Hussun, and the murderous tactics of the Assassins, are equally foreign to them. Their writings pre a shapeless mixture of Is- maelitic and Christian traditions, glossed over with the ravings of a mystical theology. Their places of abode are, both in Persia and Syria, those of their forefathers, in the mountains of Irak, and at the foot of the anti- Lebanon" (Madden, ii, 190, 191). At present many stu- dents of Eastern history incline to the ouinion that
ISMAEL
692
ISMAEL BEN-ELISA
" the Druses" (q. v.), generally supposed to be the de- scendants of the Hivites, to whom they bear some char- acteristic resemblances (comp. Chasseaud [a native of Syria, and a very able scholar], Druses of the Lebanon, p.' 361 sq.), "must be looked upon as the only true rep- resentati\-es in Sj-ria of the Israaelian sect of the fol- lowers of Ali, from whom the Assassins are derived'" (Madden, ii, 196). Some also hold to a connection of the A nMirians with the Assassins, especially jMr.Walpole {Ti-nvels in the farther East in 1850-51 [London, 2 vols. 8vo] ; compare also his Travels in the East, iii, 3 sq.). Even in India the Ismaelites are believed to have fol- lowers, and as such " the Borahs, an industrious race of men, whose pursuits are commercial, and who are well known in the British settlements of India, who still maintain that part of the creed of Hussun Subah which enjoins a complete devotion to the mandate of the high- priest" (JIalcolm, i, 407, 408), are mentioned. See, be- sides the works already cited, J. F. Rousseau, Memoire siir les Ismaelis et les Nosairis, with notes by De Sacy; the Kev. Samuel Lyde, The Ansireeh and Ishmaleeh, a Visit to the secret Sects of Northern Si/ria (Lond. 1858, 8vo) ; 'Asiatic Researches, xi, 43 sq. See also Moham- JIEDAXS; Shiites. (J. H.W.)
Ismael Haji, a Mussulman reformer, was born on the SSth of Shawal, 1196 of the Hegira (Sept. 11, 1781), in the village of Pholah, district of Delhi. Kis family had furnished quite a number of distinguished theolo- gians, and Ismael began early to preach and write against the superstitious practices which had been in- troduced into the Mohammedan worship in Hindustan. In 1819 he became connected with Ahmed Shah, a Mo- hammedan of a family of Syeds of Bareilly, in Upper In- dia, who was at this time attracting a great deal of at- tention at Delhi by superior sanctity, and by his denun- ciations of the corrupt forms of worship then prevalent. In 1822, he and another Mussulman of some learning set out with Ahmed Shah on a visit to Arabia and Turkey. In all the great cities large congregations gathered about these new reformers, who sought to enforce attention to the precepts of the Koran independent of the opinions of tlie high ilignitaries of the IMosIem Church. After travelling about for more than four years thej' returned to Dellii, determined to establish a theocratic form of government in India, and to restore Islamism to its original simplicity. The reformers inaugurated a gen- eral war against the unbelieving, and laying particu- lar stress on the doctrine of the unity of God, they soon succeeded in gaining considerable power by the" great jHimber of their adherents. The Sikhs (q. v.) became their chief opponents, and with them a protracted strug- gle ensued. Driven from Delhi by the civil authorities, they retired in 1827 to Punjtar (situated in the Eusof- zal hUls, between Peshawur and the Indus), where thev found an ally in Omar, khan Afghan of Punjtar. At first these united forces were successful in their wars against the Sikhs, but the Afghans soon grew weary of these coufiuests for strange allies, ami Ahmed and Is- mael being left alone, removed to the left bank of the Indus, and there, amid rugged mountains, continued for a time the desultory warfare. Early in IVIay, 1831, how- ever, they were surprised at a place called Balakot, in the mountains of Pahkli, and slain.