Alamut

Alamut was a mountain fortress in the Alborz range of northern Iran that, from 1090, became the headquarters of the Nizari Ismaili state founded by Hasan-i Sabbah (d. 1124); the Nizaris held a network of such castles until the Mongols destroyed Alamut in 1256. The scholar Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274) spent years at Alamut under Nizari patronage before the conquest.