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Order of Assassins: what Wikipedia removed

The Order of Assassins was a Nizari Isma’ili sect active from 1090 to 1275, known for targeted political killings across the medieval Middle East. Through the 2005 snapshot the opening described them as ‘a mystic secret society specialising in terrorising the Abbasid elite with fearlessly executed, political’ killings. Today the opening instead says they posed ‘a substantial strategic threat’ to Fatimid, Abbasid and Seljuk authority, and terror survives once elsewhere in the article. A reader arriving now learns they posed a strategic threat, and not that Wikipedia’s own opening once described their tactics as terrorising a ruling elite.

The word “terror” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”
word20052010201520206 October 20232025
terror100000
militant100000

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

What was taken out

Section titled “What was taken out”
  • The description of the group as specializing in terrorising the Abbasid elite through political killings is gone from the opening; the word terror survives once elsewhere in the article.

How it opened then, and now

Section titled “How it opened then, and now”

2005 (revision 15941622):

The Hashshashin (also Hashishin ), or Assassins were a religious group (some would say a cult ) of Ismaili Muslims from the Nizari sub-sect with a militant basis, thought to be active in the 8th to 14th centuries as a mystic secret society specialising in terrorising the Abbasid elite with fearlessly executed, politically motivated assassinations . Their own name for the sect was al-da’wa al-jadīda (الدعوة الجديدة) which means the new doctrine and they called themselves fedayeen from the Arabic fidā’ī which means one who is ready to sacrifice their life for a cause — that term has the modern connotation of ” freedom fighter ”. The name Hashshashin was given to them by their Muslim enemies. T…

2025 (revision 1297955883):

1090–1275 Nizari Isma’ili religious sect Masyaf Castle in Hama . It was the headquarters of the Assassins in the Levant. Picture taken in 2017 Remains of the Alamut Castle in Qazvin , Iran Hassan al-Sabbah (right) depicted with his followers, in the first edition of The Travels of Marco Polo , c. 1310 The Order of Assassins ( Arabic : حَشّاشِین , romanized : Ḥashshāshīyīn ; Persian : حشاشين , romanized : Ḥaššāšīn ) were a Nizari Isma’ili order that existed between 1090 and 1275 AD, founded by Hasan al-Sabbah . During that time, they lived in the mountain castles in Persia and the Levant , and held a strict subterfuge policy throughout the Middle East , posing a substantial strategic threat t…

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