Quoted: Hashish Hashshasun Assasin
Shiite Muslims who operated in Iran and Syria from the 11th to 13th centuries
The Hashshasuns would smoke Hashish prior to their assasination attempts or becoming martyrs
Nothing new here
How about the Mew York Slimes do 46 Front Page News Stories ( like Abu Ghraib ) featuring the fact that the Terrorists (insurgents) in Iraq are using these drugs ( who is providing them I wonder ? ) to whip themselves up to attack Coalition Forces and Innocent Iraqis
It was also reported that the Terrorists who attacked teh schoolchildren in Beslan were High on Drugs
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According to Marco Polo, the source of this legend, it wasn't smoked before their deeds, it was used as a reward afterwards. The reason is simple enough -- people who have taken either opium or hashish are not likely to be in the mood for violence.
The guy who ran the group would drug recruits until they passed out and then they would wake up in a beautiful garden surrounded by women. They were told that this was heaven and, if they followed him they could go back there. Here is Marco Polo's description:
"Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to be his ASHISHIN. There was a fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong enough to resist all the world, and there was no other way to get in. He kept at his Court a number of the youths of the country, from twelve to twenty years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering... Then he would introduce them into his Garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they awoke they found themselves in the Garden.
"When therefore they awoke, and found themselves in a place so charming, they deemed that it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied with them to their hearts' content...
"So when the Old Man would have any prince slain, he would say to such a youth: 'Go thou and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into Paradise.'"
(from 'The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian', translated by Henry Yule, London, 1875.)