The Hashish Eaters: Cannabis on the Silk Road

“In the district of Tyre, also called Phoenicia, there is a people who hold ten strong fortresses. Their custom is to appoint a leader based on skill alone. Out of contempt for any other title of honor, they call him ‘The Old Man’... The leader gives a dagger to one or several of his followers. Anyone who receives an order sets out to fulfill his mission without considering the consequences or the possibility of escape... Our people, as well as the Arabs, call them Assissini. We do not know the origin of this name.”

“The secret of hashish elevates the spirit in a transformation of liberated contemplation... Only the chosen are permitted to taste it; hashish is void of sin. Their wine brings total forgetfulness; our herb echoes the mystery of divine beauty.”

Of all the intoxicating, transformative, soothing, and consciousness-altering substances the Good Lord created, none is more controversial than cannabis.

Oscillating between the social acceptability of wine and the maligned darkness of opium, the cannabis flower drifts between the worlds of gods and the grit of back alleys, between the dust of bare feet and palms stretched toward the heavens.

Cannabis comprises three species, two of which—Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica—hold immense historical, cultural, and commercial weight. Like many useful things, the plant originated in Central Asia and the western Himalayan frontier, where it drank from snowmelt and soaked up photons under a scorching sun.

Cannabis Sativa. Botanical illustration.

Cannabis was likely one of the first cultivated plants to accompany humans on the path toward civilization. We cannot say for certain which people first domesticated it or for what purpose, but the earliest evidence points to psychoactive use and the harnessing of its fibers no later than the third millennium BCE.

Tombs discovered in the Turpan Basin of Xinjiang, Western China, contained figures of horsemen with tails made of cannabis fibers, as well as a shaman’s grave containing nearly a kilogram of cannabis flowers. Lab tests confirmed high levels of THC, and the fact that the cache consisted only of flowers suggests medical or psychoactive use.

A “Shaman” grave where cannabis remains were discovered. Xinjiang, Western China.

These tombs likely belong to the Gushi culture, mentioned in Late Han literature as a fair-skinned, light-eyed people who:

“Lived in tents, following grass and water, and possessed great knowledge of agriculture. They kept cattle, horses, camels, sheep, and goats. They were well-trained in the use of bow and arrow.”

The descriptions of the Gushi’s Western appearance, their mixed economy, and their bows mirror Herodotus’s accounts of the Scythians on the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea. Herodotus also recorded their specific burial and mourning customs.

“After the burial, those involved must purify themselves... They set up a booth using three poles draped in felt... Inside, they place a brazier with glowing stones and add a handful of cannabis seeds... Cannabis grows in abundance in Scythia... The Scythians take a handful of seeds [likely flowers], crawl under the felt, and throw them onto the stones. They immediately give off smoke, and the Scythians howl with joy.”

(Herodotus: On the Scythians)

Nomads on the cannabis trails. A Scythian horseman.

Early cannabis use among Central Asian nomads was both practical and psychoactive. It is possible the culture of use was carried by Proto-Indo-European populations during their migration to the Indian subcontinent. In Hindustan, cannabis became woven into the Vedic tradition, appearing alongside Soma, the sacred drug corresponding to the Iranian Haoma. In various sources, cannabis (bhang) is considered the preferred food of Shiva—a fitting tribute to a god whose traditional seat is the high Himalayas, at whose feet the first cannabis plants sprouted.

Preparing bhang. Somewhere in Hindustan.

Lord Shiva concocting bhang.

Because it is easy to cultivate and requires little maintenance, cannabis spread rapidly East and West. In China, it appears in archaeological sites dating back 2,500 years and in texts from the first century CE. The Han Dynasty physician Hua Tuo (c. 140–208) performed the first documented use of cannabis (Má) as an anesthetic, mixing it with wine. To this day, the Chinese term for anesthesia is “cannabis intoxication” (Mázuì).

Chinese anesthesia. Hua Tuo, Han Dynasty.

Cannabis eventually reached the Middle East, even earning a mention in the Mishnah as a weaving material subject to the laws of shatnez (forbidden mixtures):

“Camel’s wool and sheep’s wool that were carded together—if the majority is from the camels, it is permitted; if the majority is from the sheep, it is forbidden... and so too with flax and hemp (kanbus) that were carded together.” (Mishnah Kilayim 9:1)

In the Islamic world, cannabis occupied a controversial space. Like wine before it and coffee after, hashish was at the center of a legal-religious polemic. The Quranic prohibition of intoxicants (khamr) led to intense debates over whether hashish fell under the same ban.

“Satan seeks to ignite resentment and hatred among you through wine (‘khamr’) and gambling, and to turn you away from the remembrance of God and from your prayers. Will you not then abstain?”

(Quran, 5:90).

In the Western imagination, however, hashish didn't arrive as a theological puzzle, but as a motif of exotic terror—a shadow carrying a hidden dagger. It tasted of dust and blood, of betrayal and death in disguise. It was the taste of the Hashishin.

“...They hire themselves out, thirsty for human blood... Like the devil, they disguise themselves as pure angels by imitating the movements, dress, language, and customs of various nations... They go toward their death as soon as they are exposed... To protect the king, it is recommended that for any service, however small, only people whose origin and personality are clearly known should be accepted.”

(The Monk Brocardus, 1332)

The “devils in sheep’s clothing” who so terrified the Crusaders were the Nizari.

The Shia Nizari are a branch of the Isma'ili movement that split from the Twelver stream over a succession crisis in the 8th century. They established themselves in Egypt and the Levant under the Fatimid Dynasty (909–1171), a period of significant cultural and architectural achievement. When the Fatimid state collapsed under internal strife and the pressure of Saladin’s conquests, the Nizari emerged from the wreckage.

Their most famous leader was the Persian Hassan-i Sabbah. Driven to spread Nizari doctrine, Sabbah wandered Iran until he managed to seize a high mountain fortress whose name has since become synonymous with mystery and danger: Alamut.

From Alamut, the Nizari dispatched assassins who struck terror into the lords of the Near East—Seljuk viziers, Ayyubid sultans, and Crusader nobles alike.

Remains of the legendary Alamut fortress, Daylam, Iran.

Nizari Isma'ilis—“Hashishin” as they are presented in popular culture.

“The Old Man of the Mountain... kept in his fortress young men... after first giving them a potion that cast them into a deep sleep... when they woke in such a charming place, they assumed they were in Paradise... In this way, he made them believe there was no order they were not willing to fulfill out of their intense desire to return. Thus did ‘The Old Man’ bring his men to murder anyone he wished to get rid of.”

(Marco Polo)

Today, it is clear that these stories of secret gardens and drug-induced hits are, at best, myths—likely based on a faulty etymology of Arabic terms. Yet the legend is perfectly preserved in the European word for murderers (Assassins) and in a few hair-raising stories that are simply too good to ruin.

Because the Mongols destroyed Alamut and its magnificent library in 1256, we mostly know the Nizari through the accounts of their sworn enemies. The Isma'ili side of the story remained hidden until the recovery of their own writings in recent years.

While deception and targeted assassination arouse loathing in those who prefer tales of mass slaughter and conventional heroism, these were the weapons of the underdog. For a small sect in isolated mountain forts, selective killing was the only way to survive the struggle for leadership in the medieval Islamic world.

Interestingly, the Pamiri fighters of Badakhshan—theological descendants of the Nizari—reportedly smoked hashish before operations during the Tajik civil war, doing so to honor their ancestors.

This “hashish cult” likely did nothing for their marksmanship, but it beautifully demonstrates how historical memory, even when distorted by outsiders, can inject new blood into an old myth and charge it with internal meaning.

To balance the image of stern Sharia pedants and heretical mountain dwellers, we should turn to our Sufi friends, who—as usual—save the day.

While many wandering dervishes used cannabis as a marginal custom on the edges of legitimacy, some Sufis turned hashish into a primary tool for spiritual insight, integrating it into the daily practice of their order.

One such teacher was Haydar of Nishapur, who one day left his followers for a walk.

At the foot of a hill, he found a cannabis plant whose flowers were swaying despite the windless desert heat. After tasting them, he returned with a light in his eyes. From then on, eating hashish became a staple for his followers, kept as an open secret among the Sufis of Khorasan:

“The secret of hashish elevates the spirit in a transformation of liberated contemplation... Only the chosen are permitted to taste it; hashish is void of sin. Their wine brings total forgetfulness; our herb echoes the mystery of divine beauty.”

“My friends asked me, when there wafted from him a scent that puts perfume to shame,

Is this musk?

It does not come from musk, I replied,

But from hashish.”

“Eating it awakens the dead.

In the name of God, hurrah, hashish!

It grants the fool, the inexperienced,

And the ignorant man,

The wisdom of the perfectly righteous.

I do not think I can escape its power.

In the name of God, hurrah hashish!”