Islam
Mawdud
Most of the Muslim world cried out in dismay when Jerusalem was captured by the Christians, partly because of the loss of the city but also because of the dreadful butchery that accompanied its fall. The outcry was mostly rhetorical, however; in practical terms, none of the leaders of Islam cared much. The Syrian and Palestinian coast was very much a backwater frontier, far removed from the centers of Muslim life. Egypt stood to lose or gain the most, but Cairo proved unable to field an army able to root out the Latins.
The first sign of a serious counter-offensive did not appear until 1110, when the Seljuk Sultan appointed one of his officers, Mawdud, as governor of Mosul. The Sultan specifically directed Mawdud to take the field against the Franks and drive them out. He attacked Edessa and defeated a Frankish army near Tiberias, but he was murdered in 1113 at Damascus.
Mawdud may have been killed by Assassins, new factor in Islamic politics at this time. When the Fatimid caliphate appeared to be hopelessly weak in the later 11th century, a Shi'ite leader emerged—Hassan i-Sabbah—who embarked on a bold new programme. He returned to Persia with a plan. In 1090, he seized the fortress of Alamut by a ruse. Over the next few years, his followers captured several more castles, all in northern Iraq. In 1094, he proclaimed that he was in possession of the current hidden Imam and that he was the Imam's guardian. His cult was called the New Preaching, and belonged to the Nizar Isma'ili, but his followers are known as the Assassins. The name stems from stories, which cannot be proved one way or the other, that the fida'is smoked hashish before embarking on their attacks. The fact that the story was so widely believed is a measure of the fear they instilled.
The Assassins were unable to penetrate into the cities and the centers of power; their strength was always in rural areas. They soon resorted to the device of political murder to gain allies and terrify their enemies, a technique not new to them. The Assassins flourished until well into the 13th century. Their daggers changed the course of many states, including those of the Crusader kingdom. Mawdud was only one of many victims, though an early one.