Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

"The Nizari Ismailis were designated with a misnomer, Assassins in mediaeval Europe. This is an abusive term that had been given a wide currency by the Crusaders and their occidental chroniclers, who had first come into contact with the Syrian Ismailis in the Near East during the early decades of the 12th century. Charles E. Nowell writes in The Old Man of the Mountain that, "In the early years of the twelfth century, as the Christians spread their conquests in the holy land and Syria, they made the acquaintance of the Ismailis.