Assassination (Jubair al Hakim)

Assassination was a virtual representation of one of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's genetic memories, relived by Desmond Miles in 2012 through the Animus.

Description

Altaïr made his way inside the Madrasah Al-Kallāsah to assassinate Jubair al Hakim.

Dialogue

Altaïr entered the Madrasah, and observed Jubair's argument with one of his scholars.

• Jubair: Every single text in this city must be destroyed!
• Scholar: My friend, you must not do this. Much knowledge rests within these parchments. Put there by our ancestors for good reason.
• Jubair: And what reason is this?
• Scholar: They are beacons, meant to guide us. To save us from the darkness that is ignorance.
• Jubair: No! These bits of paper are covered in lies! They poison your minds, and so long as they exist, you cannot hope to see the world the way it truly is!

A scholar arguing with Jubair

• Scholar: How can you accuse these scrolls of being weapons? They are tools of learning!
• Jubair: You turn to them for answers and salvation. You rely more upon them than yourselves. This makes you weak and stupid. You trust in words, drops of ink. Do you ever stop to think of who put them there? Or why? No, you simply accept their words without question, and what if those words speak falsely, as they often do? This is dangerous.
• Scholar: You are wrong! These texts give the gift of knowledge. We need them!
• Jubair: You love your precious writings? You'd do anything for them?
• Scholar: Yes, uh... yes, of course.
• Jubair: Then join them!

Jubair shoved the scholar into the bonfire, and watched as the man burned to death.

• Jubair: Any man who speaks as he, is just as much a threat. Do any else among you wish to challenge me?

There was silence among the scholars.

• Jubair: Good. Your orders are simple enough. Go out into the city, collect any remaining writings and add them to the piles in the streets. When you're done, we'll send a cart to collect them, that they may be destroyed.

Altaïr eventually located Jubair in a garden, overseeing one of the burnings and speaking to the citizens.

• Jubair: Good people of Damascus! You are doing the right thing! Let us cleanse this city of its poisoned past. This is a righteous act, and from the flames shall be born a new era, one of truth and unity, governed by a singular wisdom.

If Altaïr was detected by Jubair, he would threaten the Assassin while fleeing.

• Jubair: You must be made to see the truth!

While Jubair was distracted with the crowd, Altaïr snuck up behind and assassinated him.

• Jubair: Why? Why have you done this?
• Altaïr: Men must be free to do what they believe. It is not our right to punish one for thinking what they do, no matter how much we disagree.
• Jubair: Then what?
• Altaïr: You of all people should know the answer. Educate them. Teach them right from wrong. It must be knowledge that frees them, not force.
• Jubair: They do not learn, fixed in their ways as they are. You are naive to think otherwise. It's an illness, for which there is but one cure.
• Altaïr: You're wrong. And that's why you must be put to rest.
• Jubair: Am I not unlike those precious books you seek to save? A source of knowledge with which you disagree? Yet you're rather quick to steal my life.
• Altaïr: A small sacrifice to save many. It is necessary.
• Jubair: Is it not ancient scrolls that inspire the Crusaders? That fill Salāḥ ad-Dīn and his men with a sense of righteous fury? Their texts endanger others, bring death in their wake. I too, was making a small sacrifice. It matters little now. Your deed is done, and so am I.

Altaïr then escaped the area, and returned to the Bureau.

Altaïr presenting the bloodstained feather to the Rafiq

• Rafiq: Altaïr! Tell me you've met with success.
• Altaïr: Yes. Jubair's fires are extinguished. His life as well.
• Rafiq: Excellent news! I had no doubt you'd succeed!
• Altaïr: You should have seen it. The scholars followed him so readily. It wasn't just books they fed to fire either, but any man who opposed them.
• Rafiq: Such ignorance breeds only evil. You've done good thing this day.
• Altaïr: As with my other targets, he believed he was doing the right thing. Clearing a path to a better future.
• Rafiq: Of course he would. Such is the landscape of a madman's mind.
• Altaïr: The things I've seen these past few weeks, it's as if all the land has gone mad.
• Rafiq: And this is why we fight to end the war. That sanity might return. The people are desperate for direction. It's easy for men like Jubair to prey on this, and turn them towards evil. You should go, Altaïr, return to Al Mualim. Tell him what you saw, let him know the good you've done this day.
• Altaïr: Safety and peace, Rafiq.
• Rafiq: Upon you as well.

Altaïr then left the Bureau and returned to Masyaf.

• Al Mualim: Come in, my student, we have much to discuss. We are close, Altaïr. Robert de Sablé is now all that stands between us and victory. It is his mouth gives the orders. His hand pays the gold. With him dies the knowledge of the Templar treasure, and any threat it might pose.
• Altaïr: I still don't understand how a simple bit of treasure could cause so much chaos.
• Al Mualim: The Piece of Eden is temptation given form. Merely look at what it's done to Robert. Once he tasted of its power, the thing consumed him. He saw not a dangerous weapon to be destroyed, but a tool. One that would help him realize his life's ambition.
• Altaïr: He dreamed of power then?
• Al Mualim: Yes and no. He dreamed and still dreams, like us, of peace.
• Altaïr: But this is a man who sought to see the Holy Land consumed by war!
• Al Mualim: No, Altaïr. How can you not see, when you're the one that opened my eyes to this?
• Altaïr: What do you mean?

Altaïr speaking with Al Mualim

• Al Mualim: What do he and his followers want? A world in which all men are united. I do not despise his goal, I share it. But I take issue with the means. Peace is something to be learned, to be understood, to be embraced.
• Altaïr: He would force it.
• Al Mualim: And rob us of our free will in the process.
• Altaïr: Strange, to think of him in this way...
• Al Mualim: Never harbor hate for your victims, Altaïr. Such thoughts are poison, and will cloud your judgment.
• Altaïr: Could he not be convinced, then? To end his mad quest?
• Al Mualim: I spoke to him in my way, through you. What was each killing if not a message? But he has chosen to ignore us.
• Altaïr: Then there's only one thing left to do.
• Al Mualim: Jerusalem is where you faced him first. It's where you'll find him now. Let this final offering lend you strength.

Al Mualim dispatched a pigeon to Jerusalem.

• Al Mualim: Go, Altaïr. It's time to finish this.

Outcome

Altaïr assassinated Jubair al Hakim, and returned to Masyaf for further instructions.

Gallery

• 
  Scholars burning books inside the Madrasah
• 
  Altaïr observing Jubair and his followers
• 
  Jubair pushing the scholar into a bonfire
• 
  Altaïr assassinating Jubair
• 
  Jubair's final moments
• 
  Al Mualim dispatching a pigeon to Jerusalem

References

• Assassin's Creed