Page "Assassins" Paragraph 52

The tales of the fida ' is training collected from anti-Ismaili historians and orientalists writers were confounded and compiled in Marco Polo's account, in which he described a " secret garden of paradise ".

After being drugged, the Ismaili devotees were said be taken to a paradise-like garden filled with attractive young maidens and beautiful plants in which these fida ' is would awaken.

Here, they were told by an " old " man that they were witnessing their place in Paradise and that should they wish to return to this garden permanently, they must serve the Nizari cause.

So went the tale of the " Old Man in the Mountain ", assembled by Marco Polo and accepted by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an 18th century Austrian orientalist writer responsible for much of the spread of this legend.

Until the 1930s, von Hammer's retelling of the Assassin legends served as the standard account of the Nizaris across Europe.