Alternatively, they may never have used any such stimulants and their reputation as drug users was rather a fictional demonisation or invented excuse for their unnaturally high success rate in killing people and the almost complete ineffectiveness of anyone to stop them.
The use of drugs by the Assassins may have been a way for their enemies to explain their extraordinary abilities and willingness to die for their cause. The assassination was often planned to be carried out in a crowded location to maximise the political & religious consequences of the act. The name 'Assassin' in English comes from the Latin term assassinus, which is a corruption of the Arabic words hasisi, al-Hashishiyyun or hashashun, meaning 'hashish-eater.' As the Nizari Ismailis used the strategy of assassination so often, the name medieval Arabs used to describe their drug habits became synonymous with the act of murdering a political or religious opponent. The Nizari Ismailis ate powdered hemp leaves (hashish) which contain a natural psychoactive (mind-altering) drug, reportedly doing so before they went on an assassination mission. The Nizari Ismailis continue to exist as a branch of Islam today. The group was known as the Assassins by their enemies in reference to their use of hashish, 'assassin' being a corruption of the Arabic hasisi ('hashish-eater'), and so the name has since come to be associated with their chief modus operandi, the act of murder for political or religious purposes. Secure in their fortified hilltop castles, they became infamous for their strategy of singling out opposition figures and murdering them, usually in knife-wielding teams.
The Assassins (aka Nizari Ismailis), were a heretical group of Shiite Muslims who were powerful in Persia and Syria from the 11th century CE until their defeat at the hands of the Mongols in the mid-13th century CE.
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