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The English word 'assassin' comes from hashishi, a medieval Arabic insult for the Nizari Ismailis, a Shia Muslim group known for killing political enemies. No surviving source shows that their agents actually took hashish before their missions.

Etymology

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The story behind the card

Hashishi literally meant 'hashish user', but as an insult it meant something closer to 'riff-raff'. Its earliest known use is in a polemic issued around 1122 by the Fatimid caliph al-Amir in Cairo, whose own Ismaili branch had split from the Nizaris; Sunni writers used similar terms. Crusaders in Syria picked the word up, and by the fourteenth century Italian assassino meant a hired killer. In 1809 the French scholar Silvestre de Sacy traced the word to hashish and assumed the drug had been used, which helped fix the story in popular belief.

Türkçe oku
Batı dillerinde “suikastçı” anlamına gelen assassin sözcüğü, Orta Çağ'da Nizari İsmaililere, yani siyasi rakiplerini öldürmeleriyle tanınan Şii topluluğa yakıştırılan “haşişî” hakaretinden gelir. Günümüze ulaşan hiçbir kaynak, bu adamların görevden önce gerçekten esrar kullandığını göstermez.

Haşişî kelime anlamıyla “haşiş içen” demekti, ama hakaret olarak “ayak takımı”na yakın bir anlam taşıyordu. Bilinen en eski kullanımı, Kahire'deki Fatımi halifesi el-Âmir'in 1122 dolaylarında yayımladığı bir reddiyede geçer; halifenin bağlı olduğu İsmaili kolu Nizarilerden ayrılmıştı. Sünni yazarlar da benzer sözcükler kullandı. Suriye'deki Haçlılar sözcüğü benimsedi; 14. yüzyılda İtalyancada assassino kiralık katil demekti. 1809'da Fransız bilgin Silvestre de Sacy sözcüğü haşişe bağladı ve bu insanların uyuşturucu kullandığını varsaydı; hikâyenin halk arasında yerleşmesinde bu yorumun da payı oldu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Order of Assassins
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