Marco Polo gives us a substantial, and doubtless exact, account of the ceremonies which took place upon the initiation of a _fedawí_ into the order. Within the precincts of their impregnable fortresses were gardens furnished with all that could delight the eye or appeal to the sensual taste of the voluptuary. Here the neophyte was led, delicious meats and wine of exquisite flavour were set before him, girls as beautiful as the houris of the prophet’s paradise ministered to his pleasures, enchanting music ravished his ears, his every wish was gratified almost before it was uttered, and, intoxicated with delight, he fancied that he had really entered upon the joys of the blessed. An intoxicating drug had in the meanwhile been mixed with the wine, and, by producing a sort of delirium, for a time enhanced his enjoyment, but as the satiety and languor consequent upon excess crept over him he fell back stupefied and insensible, in which state he was carried out of the place. On awaking he found himself beside the grand master, who told him that all the joys he had experienced were but a foretaste of what was destined for those who yielded implicit obedience to his commands. The alternative for those who doubted or hesitated was instant death.
The youth thus “devoted” to the service of the order was carefully trained in all the arts of deception and disguise; he was taught to speak various languages, and to assume a variety of dresses and characters; and, loosed from all trammels of conscience or of creed, he went forth, prepared to plunge his dagger into the breast of his dearest friend, and even into his own, at his superior’s command. Such an association could not but prove a formidable political agent in those troublous times, and the sovereigns of the East feared the secret dagger of the order more than the armies of their foes, and rendered to the grand master whatever tribute and homage he chose to demand. Towards the middle of the twelfth century the power of the Assassins had extended itself from Khorassan to the mountains of Syria, from the Mediterranean to the Caspian. All trembled before it, and submitted more or less to its will. Hassan died in 1124, after having chosen for his successor Kia Buzurgumíd, one of the most strenuous of his _dá‘ís_; and the dignity of grand master became ultimately hereditary in his family. The order of Assassins continued in its integrity until 1254, when Manjou Khan, grandson of the celebrated Jenghíz Khan, put an end to its existence. As for the association of the Ismaelites in Cairo, the _Mejális el Hikmeh_, or scientific lodges, they were finally suppressed by Saladin in the year 1171 A.D.