Rashid ad-Din Sinan

Rashīd ad-Dīn Sinān (رشيد الدين سنان), also known as the Old Man of the Mountain (شيخ الجبل Shaykh al-Jabal, Vetulus de Montanis) (1132/1135–1192), was a leader of the Syrian branch of the Nizari Ismaili state (the Assassins), and a figure in the history of the Crusades.

Biography
Rashid ad-Din Sinan was born in Basra, Iraq between the years 1132 and 1135. According to his autobiography, of which only fragments survive, Rashid came to Alamut, the centre of the Hashashins, as a youth and received the typical Hashashin training. In 1162, the sect's leader Ḥassan ʿAlā Dhikrihi's Salām sent him to Syria, where he proclaimed Qiyamah, which in Nizari terminology meant the time of the Qa'im and the removal of Islamic law. Based on the Nizari stronghold Masyaf, he controlled the northern Syrian districts of Jabal as-Summaq, Maarrat Misrin and Sarmin.

Rashid enjoyed considerable independence from the Nizari centre in Alamut and some writings attribute him with a semi-divine status.

His chief enemy, the Sultan Saladin (1137/1138–1193), ruled over Egypt and Syria from 1174 to 1193. Saladin managed twice to elude assassination attempts ordered by Rashid and as he was marching against Aleppo, Saladin devastated the Nizari possessions. In 1176 Saladin laid siege to Masyaf but he lifted the siege after two notable events that reputedly transpired between him and the Old Man of the Mountain. According to one version, one night, Saladin's guards noticed a spark glowing down the hill of Masyaf and then vanishing among the Ayyubid tents. Saladin awoke from his sleep to find a figure leaving the tent. He saw that the lamps in his tent were displaced and beside his bed laid hot scones of the shape peculiar to the Assassins with a note at the top pinned by a poisoned dagger. The note threatened that he would be killed if he did not withdraw from his siege. Saladin gave a loud cry, exclaiming that Sinan himself was the figure that left the tent. As such, Saladin told his guards to come to an agreement with Sinan. Realizing he was unable to subdue the Assassins, he sought to align himself with them, consequently depriving the Crusaders of aligning themselves against him.

Sinan's last notable act occurred in 1191, when he ordered the successful assassination of the newly elected King of Jerusalem Conrad of Montferrat. Whether this happened in coordination with King Richard I of England or with Saladin remains unknown.

He died in 1192 in Al-Kahf Castle in Masyaf, Syria. He was succeeded by men appointed from Alamut, which regained a closer supervision over Syrian assassins.