Day Trip To Balk-i-Sharif Continued

I see a water viaduct and we are heading right into it. I pray and gun the engine hoping the rear tires will catch as we hit and propel us over this obstical. BAM! Crucnh! Damn! We did it, we got over it and at least onto solid land and I still had a brain! Life was still in me.

(The English word assasin is from the Arabic Hashishin.)

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines assasin as: “1 … other
enemies by secret murder committed under the influence of hashish

1256 A.D. In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, recruits followers to commit assassinations…legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of Cannabis and the supposed use of Hashish. 1256 Alamut falls (links)
1155 A.D. – 1221 A.D. Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haidar’s of Khorasan’s personal discovery of Cannabis and it’s subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the earliest written narratives of the use of Cannabis as an inebriant. (link)
Early 12th Century Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.
12th Century A.D. Cannabis introduced in Egypt during the reign of the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic devotees coming from Syria (M.K. Hussein 1957 – Soueif 1972)
1231 A.D. Hashish introduced to Iraq in the reign of Caliph Mustansir (Rosenthal 1971)
1271 A.D. -1295 A.D. Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his “assassins” using hashish. (link)