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The damage caused by the Batiniyya to the Muslim sects is greater than the damage caused them by the Jews, Christians and Magians; nay, graver than the injury inflicted on them by the Materialists and other non-believing sects; nay, graver than the injury resulting to them from the Antichrist who will appear at the end of time.
Abu-Mansur Abd-al-Kahir ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi. The Ismailis were known as the Batiniyya, as they claimed that there were hidden meanings, batin, in the Quran that only the enlightened could comprehend.
So, to a degree there was co-operation between the Shia and Sunni forces of Syria and Egypt against the Crusaders but this really just proved the old proverb, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. It would take the outrages committed by a far more radical sect of Shia followers than the Fatimids to drive the Sunni Levant towards a cohesive and committed jihad. The Ismaili Assassins would be a catalyst for the jihad that began to ferment among the petty Turkish rulers of Syria and in the Jazira of northern Iraq.
The Nizar Ismaili creed had, early on, established themselves as a faction capable of controlling the weak and politically isolated prince of Aleppo, Ridwan. The large Shiite population in Aleppo had earlier caused Ridwan to take Fatimid allegiance as a means to shore up his domestic approval. The Ismailis seem to have presented themselves to Ridwan as ‘fixers’, who could take care of all his political and population concerns in return for the free use of Aleppo as a base for propagating their faith and for the chance to obtain some strong fortresses. The first killing was of Prince al-Dawla of Homs, one of Ridwan’s political enemies, and an ally of Damascus. The assassination of Mawdud in Damascus in 1113 kept both Ridwan and the Ismailis safe from interference from Baghdad but then as Ridwan lay dying in December 1113, Ibn al-Khashab, the Sunni qadi of Aleppo and Ibn Badi, the leader of the city militia, gathered supporters and as many of the city’s militiamen as they could trust together. During the night, they spread out through the city, seizing and killing as many of the Nizari Ismailis as they could find. The qadi knew that he did not have the manpower to take on his Turkish overlords, but he hoped to deprive Ridwan’s son and heir, Alp Arslan, of the support base his father had relied on and by virtue of this to force the young prince, who was only 16, to depend on the Sunni body politic. The qadi’s policy seemed initially to be a success and Alp Arslan, perhaps sensing which way the wind was blowing, added his support to the anti-Nizari campaign. The Ismaili leader was killed and about 200 of his followers were also executed. But then under the prince’s guidance the purge quickly became a bloodbath, as these things are wont to do, and was used as a cloak for the destruction of all possible opposition to the new reign. Certainly, several more Nizaris were executed by being thrown off the citadel, but two of Alp Arslan’s brothers were also executed and officers and palace functionaries were included in the indiscriminate slaughter. Alp Arslan was eventually killed by one of his close servants named Lu Lu, in September 1114, as he slept. Aleppo was now under the rule of Lu Lu and an infant son of Ridwan. The governor of the city of Mardin saw an opportunity.
