The <i>sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā</i>, the “Tale of the Three Schoolfellows” and the <i>wasaya</i> of the Niẓām al-Mulk

Abstract

The original version of the Assassin biography of al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, called sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā , is not extant. All we possess are two recensions of it, if such a term is apposite, in the notes taken on the work by the two seventh/thirteenth century historians, ‘Aṭā-Malik al-Juwaynī (work completed 658/1260) and the Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍdl Allāh (work completed 710/1310–11). For unless we may suppose that al-Juwaynī, who discovered the book in the library of the Assassin headquarters at Alamūt, afterwards condensed the notes that he first took, and that the Rashīd later incorporated these first longer notes in his history, we can only conclude that the Rashīd consulted the original work afresh, since his version is in fact very much fuller than al-Juwaynī's. Which the Rashīd did it is impossible to say. There is one fact, however, that points to the first course as the likelier, namely that in introducing their, extracts both use almost the same words (which cannot have appeared in the original work). Moreover, the copy used by al-Juwaynī was burnt after perusal with the other pernicious writings of the heretics. So the second course would involve the (improbable) existence of another copy.