The Ahl al-Jabal are a hunter compact dedicated to freeing Islam from the influence of the Supernatural.
History[]
The Middle East may be the cradle of civilization, but it is a cradle set afloat upon a sea of blood. For thousands of years the men and women of the Holy Land have met one another with daggers, swords and stones, murdering in the name of faith, tribe or creed. Some of the faithful know that the violence their compatriots pursue only serves to keep humanity divided and weak in the face of the greater threat: demons and monsters of the night. For as long as the faithful have crouched about fires in the deserts of modern day Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria, so have monsters haunted the shadows about those fires, waiting for them to gutter out and die, that they might fall upon a prey without recourse.
Some might expect that the monsters have won the Middle East, that the people of the region are too busy fighting one another or plotting terrorist strikes to organize themselves against the monsters of the night. Those people haven’t heard of the Ahl al-Jabal, the People of the Mountain, who test themselves nightly against the darkness, afraid of death only in so much as it represents the end of their vigil.
Early Islam was particularly rife with violent schisms, often over issues of orthodoxy and leadership. The first of these, the break between the Shiites and Sunnis, occurred almost immediately after Muhammad’s death. The latter up held Abu Bakr, a compatriot of the Prophet, as the new caliph of Islam. The Shiites felt that Ali ibn Abu Talib, the son-in-law of Muhammad, should take up the mantle of the spiritual leader of Islam. When the Sunni faction passed up Ali, again, when choosing a successor for Abu Bakr, the Shiites diverged from the larger faction, becoming a rallying point for numerous groups of dissent within the Islam faith. The Shiites upheld the position of Imam,the holy leader of Islam and direct heir to the Prophet. A disagreement over the succession of the Imam within the Shiite populace resulted in a second schism, producing the Twelver Shiites and the Ismailis. Yet another schism within the Ismailis produced the Fatimid dynasty of caliphs and the Naziri Ismaili, the most infamous of which were the warriors of Alamut.
Hasan-i-Sabah, a charismatic and brilliant leader, formed the sect that would eventually operate from Alamut. The sect garnered numerous epithets, the most lasting of which was Hashshashin, the origin of the word assassin. The Hashshashin served as a combination holy order, secret society and revolutionary state, with several independent cells operating within strongholds across the region, each answering to the highly secure mountain stronghold of Alamut. They practiced an ascetic approach to Islam, and each member was slowly initiated into the deeper esoteric truths (the batin), an initiation that included a preliminary period of dissolution of each initiate’s faith in the larger society and priesthood of Islam. Were the Hashshashin merely a heretical offshoot of a heretical branch of a grand heresy within the region’s foremost faith, they may have been left largely alone. Instead, the sect, under the orders of Hasan, struck at highly-placed officials and rulers within Islam (and later, the Christian Crusaders), killing each in broad daylight with a dagger to the heart, earning the enmity of much of Islam.
Over time, the Hashshashin weathered heresies of their own, but it was Rashid ad-Din Sinan, the Shaykh al Jabal (Elder of the Mountain), the leader of the Syrian Assassins during the Crusades, who was responsible for the greatest (and least historically known) schism among the assassins. Sinan followed the lead of his contemporary at Alamut, Hasan II (Hasan-i-Sabah’s grandson), in rejecting the overt ritual trappings of Islam. After Hasan II’s own family murdered him, Sinan refused to follow the orders of Hasan’s son and successor. He instead clashed with the dominant Muslim warlord of the age, Sultan Saladin. The pair shared a particularly vicious rivalry as assassins struck at the Sultan and the Sultan’s armies overran Hashshashin strongholds. Yet the two met in 1176, then went their separate ways, never to clash again.
Only the closest followers of Sinan knew what had occurred between the two men. Sinan, who had learned that a blood-drinking monster had infiltrated Alamut and manipulated his former friend, Hasan II, had turned his attention from murdering enemies of Islam to destroy-ing those very same monsters and the political figures he believed to be under their sway. Saladin had seemed to be just such a figure. Saladin, too, had heard tales of Sinan’s abilities and worked towards defeating the Hashshashin for the same reasons. Once the two learned how the paranoia engendered by their enemies had poisoned their efforts, they made a pact to establish a new group of warriors, a hidden sect dedicated to ridding Islam of the progeny of Hell.
Saladin continued to wage war against the Christian invaders, and Sinan traveled constantly between the mountain fortresses under his banner, dispatching assassins as he always had. Yet the two remained in contact,through secret missives coordinating strikes against the greatest enemies of humanity. Eventually their secret war must have overwhelmed them, exposing them to their adversaries: Saladin and Sinan died within months of one another.
Yet their secret society of assassins persisted. Even after Alamut fell to the raiding Mongols and the Naziri Ismail immigrated into India (where they remain to this night), the Ahl al-Jabal continued their holy war against ghouls, sorcerers, jinni, ifrits, lilitu and stranger creatures yet. Tonight, unaffiliated cells spread across the nations in which Islam remains a major religion. Members are drawn almost exclusively from the Muslim community, initiated first into the Ahl al-Jabal’s interpretation of the Ismaili faith, then into the business of monster hunting. In the Americas, an increasing number of Martyrs are drawn from the population of the prison system, where Islam takes root in followers who are or (through the overcrowded prisons) quickly become familiar with the vagaries of violence.
Purpose[]
Ahl al-Jabal consider their mission a holy one, a matter of faith. Their chosen flavor of religion, Ismailism, puts significant emphasis on the subtle, esoteric aspects of Islam, while the history of abuse the Shiites and Ismaili have faced have engendered in the Ahl al-Jabal a strong tendency towards secrecy. Furthermore, the current world culture tends to turn a suspicious eye on any insular group of Muslims, especially when they carry weapons and combine their daily prayers with training in multiple forms of combat. As a result, members rarely coordinate with outsiders, including most of the major groups of monster hunters in the world.
The Ahl al-Jabal approach the hunt with a determined stoicism and quiet faith. They train heavily in the use of both the kukri and dagger, traditionally utilizing the larger weapon against monstrous or undead foes and the dagger against the human enemies of humanity. Ahl al-Jabal practice the Shiite survival skill known astaqiyya, a dispensation among the faithful to hide their true religious beliefs and affiliation when under the threat of violence or persecution. As the Ahl al-Jabal recognize that they always face the threat of undead monstrosities or devil-hearted wizards, they tend to live their entire lives in secret, letting their guard down only among other Martyrs. As a result, members come from all walks of life and may hold down any number of jobs. Other hunters, from other organizations, sometimes suspect that a few go so far as to join their groups while hiding who they actually are, but such must surely be the modern day equivalent to the prejudice the assassins have always faced.
The Martyrs also uphold jihad, the holy struggle to improve society. They believe that each monster they destroy weakens the influence of Satan in the world. Furthermore, they know that if they die in the course of the struggle, they will be reborn into Paradise. The Ahl al-Jabal do not, however, murder indiscriminately. Like the original Hashshashin, the Martyrs strive to do the most good with the fewest possible acts of violence. Rather than assault a vampire with guns blazing, a tactic assured to kill at least some of the vampire’s unfortunate slaves if not a number of innocent bystanders, the Martyr infiltrates the vampire’s lair, destroying the creature directly, often as it sleeps. Furthermore, the Ahl al-Jabal recognize that not every supernatural creature qualifies as a monster.The Martyrs do their best to explore and understand their enemies, judging each one on its own merits ratherthan murdering every unusual entity they come across. After all, their own founder was a man of many unusual and varied talents, yet the world has never seen a Muslim more devoted to the faith. While the Martyrs are willing to die in the pursuit of their cause, no member of the Ahl al-Jabal has ever become a suicide bomber; such in-discriminate destruction represents everything that their faith abhors.
Members of the Ahl al-Jabal possess a surprising amount of lore regarding the supernatural threats facing them in the World of Darkness. Unfortunately for them, the lore is spread so widely and so thin, that no individual cell of hunters benefits from the bulk of it. Most members of the Ahl al-Jabal recognize that fire and sunlight serve as the most efficient means of destroying a vampire (as the light of Allah, they claim, cleanses all inequity). They know that placing a wooden stake through its heart and cutting off its head can also destroy a vampire. (They traditionally utilize blessed stakes made of aspen trees and their kukris to complete their grim task.)
Most hunters come to understand that vampires divide themselves into several social groups, and two have become particularly loathed within the sect. The first, the Lancea Sanctum, seems to exult in all of the worst excesses of Christianity, going out of their way to inflict harm upon the mortal populace. The second, the Daeva, work to lead the faithful to sin, making them drunk without alcohol and inflicting every form of abuse upon their body and spirit. Such monsters rarely earn a Martyr’s mercy.
Organization[]
The Ahl al-Jabal largely adhere to the Nazari Ismaili faith. They practice a form of Islam that largely disregards the importance of the ritual and law of the religion(though most continue to practice such rites) in favor of a deeper philosophical understanding of the faith.Furthermore, they include in their studies Greek philosophy, mysticism and Gnosticism, as well as mathematics, astrology and various natural sciences. The Ahl al-Jabal tend to be fiercely loyal to their teachers, the dai, willing to perform murder or die at their orders. After all, the dai hold the secrets of spiritual understanding; the future of one’s soul is reliant upon them, and dying in their service is a sacred honor.
The primary tenet of the Ahl al-Jabal that separates them not only from the Nazari Ismaili but also from the Hashshashin, is the understanding that monsters haunt the world. Such creatures, the dai teach, are the offspring of Satan, and they perform his work by crushing joy, learning and creativity among the mortal masses. It is the duty of each Martyr to fight back that darkness so that humanity may shine more brightly in Allah’s image.
Reference[]
- VTR: Ancient Bloodlines, p. 141-144