That missionary then perished, and after him came Sinān—a scourge and a calamity. He posed as an ascetic, humbled himself in appearance, and preached, sitting upon a rock as though he were a rock himself, nothing moving but his tongue. In this way he bound his followers to him; they went to excess in venerating him, and some even attributed divinity to him. Woe to him and to their ignorance! He beguiled them with sorcery and sleight of hand. He owned a large library, read extensively, and lived many years.

As for Alamut (1), after Ṣabbāḥ it was governed by his son Muḥammad, and after him by his grandson Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad. Ḥasan publicly displayed the symbols of Islam and, as an act of taqiyya, renounced permissiveness. He claimed that he had seen the Imam ʿAlī, who ordered him to restore the rites of religion, and he said to his intimates, “Does the religion not belong to me?”

They replied, “Indeed.”

He said, “At times I shall impose obligations upon you, and at other times I shall lift them.”

They responded, “We hear and obey.” He then summoned jurists and Qur’an-reciters to teach them (2), and by this stratagem they escaped the onslaught of Khwarazm-Shah.

Now, Sinān had been left lame by a stone that struck him during the great earthquake in the days of Nūr al-Dīn. According to al-Muwaffaq ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, his devotees gathered around him intending to kill him. He asked, “Why do you wish to kill me?”

They said, “So that you may return to us sound.” He thanked them and prayed for them (3), saying, “Be patient with me”—whereupon he killed them by deception.

Later, when he wished to release them from the constraints of Islam, he descended in the month of Ramadan to a melon patch (4), ate from it, and they ate along with him.

Ibn al-ʿAdīm states in his History: A shaykh who had met Sinān informed me that he was originally from Basra.