Also fidāwī. Young devotee who volunteers to sacrifice his life for a cause. Between the 11th and the 13th centuries, fidāʾīs are known to have gradually formed a corps whose members were sent from Alamut and the other Nizari fortresses in Iran and Syria to assassinate certain prominent enemies of the Nizaris, usually in public locations. Legends were developed by Muslim and Crusader authors, who began to attribute every single political assassination to the Nizaris. The myth that fidāʾīs were called ḥashshāshīn because they consumed hashish was popularised by European authors such as Marco Polo (d. 1324).
