Steve Tibble’s Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood revisits two of the most mysterious movements of the medieval world: the Islamic Nizari Isma‘ilis (popularly known as the “Assassins”) and the Christian military order of the Templars. Both groups, he argues, were far less exotic than legend suggests yet far more central to the history of medieval warfare, diplomacy, and ideology. What they shared was their religous background bound by faith and a readiness to die. Some reviews.
According to Kirkus Reviews, Tibble’s book explores the turbulent 12th-century Middle East, when Crusaders suddenly invaded and established four fragile Christian states. He highlights that both Islam and Christianity were internally divided: Islam split between Sunni and Shia, and Christendom fractured by politics. Amid this chaos, the Assassins emerged in Shiite Persia. Recently conquered by Sunni Turks, Persia bred resentment that fueled a radical sect led by a charismatic figure who claimed divine favor. Though small in number, the Assassins used targeted killings to eliminate opponents, believing martyrdom ensured eternal reward. Their notoriety and endurance made a spectacular impression and lasted until the Mongol invasions two centuries later.
Tibble parallels them with the Knights Templar, a Christian military order, formed to protect pilgrims after most Crusaders returned home after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099). The Templars’ devotion and bravery won them wealth and power, eventually rivaling monarchs. Yet their influence provoked envy, and in the early 1300s, France’s King Philip IV destroyed the order, seizing its riches and executing its leaders.
Tibble concludes by connecting these medieval zealots to modern pop culture through Assassin’s Creed, a game inspired by their conflict. Though historically inaccurate, it reflects enduring fascination with faith, power, and sacrifice in the name of God.
Engelsberg Ideas, in a review by medieval historian Nicholas Morton, indicates that during the Crusades (1097–1291), the Middle East was a complex mosaic of empires, city-states, tribes, and religious factions—far from the simple clash of Islam and Christianity often imagined. Amid this chaos emerged two remarkable groups: the Assassins and the Knights Templar.
The Assassins, or Nizaris, were a small Shiite sect from Persia that carved out a few mountain fortresses in Syria, including Masyaf and Qadmus. Surrounded by hostile powers, they survived through strategic assassinations of key political and military leaders—Arab, Turkish, Frankish, or Kurdish alike—turning fear into their strongest defense.
Meanwhile, the Knights Templar, a Catholic military order steeped in the ideology of crusading, arose to defend the Crusader States and protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. They grew into a powerful force, commanding wealth, influence, and fortresses across the region. Despite their opposing faiths, both groups shared striking similarities: fierce ideological devotion, disciplined organization, and a belief in martyrdom as a sacred duty.
Tibble’s Assassins and Templars traces their intertwined histories, from early encounters in Syria to episodes of cooperation, conflict, and mutual hostility. He also highlights the myths and conspiracies that have kept both orders alive in popular imagination, showing how their legacies continue to shape perceptions of faith, violence, and power in the medieval Middle East.
Tibble contextualizes the Templars alongside the Nizari Assassins, both based on a "common “martyrdom ideology” - "promise of death” tactic" that gave them enormous influence, death -for themselves or their enemies- being at the core of these extraordinary organisations. Tibble's work offers a comparative approach absent in earlier canonical works in an accessible style that sometines feels like that of a novel. He builds on foundational scholarship synthesizing Islamic and Christian sources in parallel and, at the same time, engages myths critically.
This blog is original work by TemplarsNow. It combines insights from the Kirkus Reviews and Engelsberg Ideas reviews, with some additions from reader reviews on historymedieval.com and Amazon, of Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood by Steve Tibble (Yale University Press, 2024). The illustration shows a section of a detailed map of the Crusader states at the time of maximum territorial extent. The map shows identified medieval Crusader, Armenian and Muslim fortified sites in the Holy Land. By MapKlimantas - Own work, CC BY 4.0, source Wikipedia.
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