the method of enlisting numerous dupes and placing weapons in their hands that brought about the "Terror" of the Assassins six centuries before that of their spiritual descendants, the Jacobins of 1793.
Taking as his groundwork the organization of the Grand Lodge of Cairo, Hasan reduced the nine degrees to their original number of seven, but these now received a definite nomenclature, and included not only real initiates but active agents.
Descending downwards, the degrees of the Assassins were thus as follows: first, the Grand Master, known as the Shaikh-al-Jabal or "Old Man of the Mountain"--owing to the fact that the Order always possessed itself of castles in mountainous regions; second, the Dail Kebir or Grand Priors; third, the fully initiated Dais, religious nuncios and political emissaries; fourth, the Rafiqs or associates, in training for the higher degrees; fifth, the Fadais or "devoted," who undertook to deliver the secret blow on which their superiors had decided; sixth, the Lasiqus, or law brothers; and lastly the "common people," who were to be simply blind instruments. If the equivalents to the words "Dai," "Rafiqs," and "Fadais" given by von Hammer and Dr. Bussell as "Master Masons," "Fellow Crafts," and "Entered Apprentices" are accepted, an interesting analogy with the degrees of Freemasonry is provided.
Designs against religion were, of course, not admitted by the Order; "strict uniformity to Islam was demanded from all the lower rank of uninitiated, but the adept was taught to see through the deception of 'faith and works.' He believed in nothing and recognized that all acts