Meet the shadowy assassins who were seconds from taking out Saladin – and upending the Crusades

When Saladin sat down to supper in the spring of 1175, he was already one of the most significant figures in the Islamic world.

The former commander of the Fatimid armies in Egypt had, within a decade, dismantled the Shi’a caliphate there, restored Sunni rule, and begun extending his authority across Syria. He was building the first unified Sunni power in the region since the Seljuk empire, and it was set to transform the balance of power in the Crusades.

That evening, encamped outside Aleppo in Syria during a campaign against a regional Sunni rival, Saladin’s camp was busy with the hum of military life. It seemed an unlikely moment for immediate peril.

But amid all the bustling activity, a small group of strangers, disguised as common merchants, slipped inside Saladin’s tent. Moments later, as medieval historian Dr Steve Tibble recounts on the HistoryExtra podcast, “all hell [broke] loose, and they [went] straight for Saladin.”

These were deadly members of the Nizari Ismailis. A group who would later be labelled as ‘the Assassins’ in Western chronicles, the Nizari Ismailis were a small, embattled Shi’a sect who, says Tibble, “took the art of political murder to a new level of sophistication”.

But why had Saladin become a target? And what might have happened if they had succeeded?

Why the Assassins saw Saladin as an existential threat

By the 12th century, the Middle East was a patchwork of competing powers. Two Islamic powers, the Sunni and Shi’a, battled among themselves while Crusader states took and held key territories along the Levantine coast.

The Nizari Ismailis were a minority Shi’a community centred in remote mountain fortresses in Persia and Syria. And they had their own desires.

Their strategy, Tibble explains, stemmed from necessity.

“From their perspective, they were a tiny group fighting for their survival in the only way that they could.”

Surrounded by larger Sunni powers and despised by many for their beliefs, they honed assassination as a tool that allowed them to strike out at rulers who threatened them. Without great armies or territory, they used small teams of elite devotees (known as the fida’is) who were willing to die in their missions – it was a canny way to wield power.

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Saladin’s meteoric rise posed exactly the kind of danger that they were concerned about. By the early 1170s he controlled Egypt, held Damascus, and sought to bring northern Syria under his authority. More importantly, as Tibble notes, he held opposing religious beliefs.

“He’s a Sunni Muslim, standing up for Sunni Islam.”

It was his push to unite the region under Sunni leadership (an objective would go on to prove decisive in the story of the Crusades) that directly endangered the Assassins.

Their response was to act before they were surrounded.

1175: the first attempt on Saladin’s life

The first major attempt on Saladin’s life came during his 1175 campaign near Aleppo.

“These 13 fida’is, ostensibly unarmed, just wandered into the camp and made for Saladin’s tent,” Tibble says. At the last moment, one of Saladin’s men recognised them for who they really were. But it wasn’t quick enough to prevent the chaos. The attackers cut down guards and senior emirs [military commanders] before reaching Saladin himself.

Crucially, they “drew blood.” Saladin survived only because he was wearing armour beneath his robes: “head to toe, very good quality armour,” Tibble describes. His habit of remaining armoured even while eating showed his awareness of the threat the Assassins posed.

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All thirteen fida’is died. Saladin survived.

But it proved the Assassins could reach the most powerful man in the Islamic world.

1176: the second attempt

A year later, at the siege of Azaz (also in Syria), they tried again.

This time, a smaller group of three or four fida’is penetrated the camp and went straight for Saladin. Accounting for his armour, Tibble describes how they adapted their tactics, aiming for the unprotected parts of Saladin’s body. Again, they wounded him.

He narrowly survived but, Tibble notes, “It was very close.”

Saladin’s revenge against the Assassins

For Saladin, these back-to-back assaults were a turning point.

“Saladin was scared by this. He was worried about his family, and he was worried about himself,” says Tibble.

He was shaken. And he resolved to take revenge.

Saladin mobilised his full army and marched on the Assassins’ Syrian strongholds. His aim was to crush them before they could strike again.

But even with the full weight of his military power, Saladin couldn’t force a decisive victory. The Nizari castles were perched in near-impregnable mountain terrain, but the Assassins, overwhelmed by the scale of the force approaching them, were unable to defend themselves in open battle.

The result was a tense stalemate. “Then it got really weird,” says Tibble. “It seems as though they started going into negotiations.”

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Despite the resentment between the two forces, the negotiations were a pragmatic way forward. They concluded with the withdrawal of Saladin’s forces. While the precise details remain obscure, Tibble speculates that Saladin might have agreed to leave the Assassins in peace, in exchange for a moratorium on attacks on him and his allies.

When Saladin later negotiated a truce with the Crusaders, Tibble notes, he even insisted that the Assassins be included in its terms.

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What was at stake? The Crusades without Saladin

Had either of the assassination attempts on Saladin succeeded, the Crusades might have taken a dramatically different course.

Saladin’s authority and power as a leader of the Islamic forces against the Crusader states was unique. His victory at Hattin in 1187 and subsequent capture of Jerusalem reshaped the entire crusading movement, prompting the Third Crusade and the campaigns of Richard the Lionheart.

Without him, the Sunni world might have remained divided. Rival rulers could have checked each other rather than confronting the Crusader states. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem may have endured longer. The political map of the Middle East might have fractured, rather than coalesced.

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The Assassins understood that removing Saladin could transform the region in complex ways – ones that might be in their favour.

But it never happened. After the peace agreement, a tense stalemate settled between Saladin and the Assassins. Neither side trusted the other, but there was nothing to be gained by renewing hostilities: the Assassins would once again be besieged, while Saladin and those around him would again have their lives under threat.

It was a peace that lasted until both Saladin and Sinan, the Assassins’ leader, died in the 1190s.

With his death, Saladin’s empire fractured, giving the Crusader states a reprieve that set the stage for future waves of assault. And the violence continued.

Dr Steve Tibble was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.