Sandjar, who had despatched some troops against the castles of the Ismailites in Kuhistan, was the more fearful, after this warning, of prosecuting the siege; as his brother Mohammed, who had caused the two strongest fortresses of the Ismailites in Irak, Alamut and Lamsir, to be invested by the Atabeg Nushteghin Shirghir, for more than a year, died at the very moment when, being reduced to extremities, they were on the point of surrendering.[84] This death was too favourable to the Assassins, not to be considered less the work of accident than of their policy, which, though trusting to the dagger, did not neglect the use of poison. Admonished by this, Sandjar offered to make peace with the Ismailites on three conditions:—1st. They should erect no new fortifications about their castles; 2nd. They should purchase no arms nor ammunition; and, 3rd. That they should make no more proselytes. As, however, the jurists, who had thundered the ban of general condemnation and persecution against the impiety of the order, would hear of no compromise or peace with them, the sultan fell under the popular suspicion of being a secret partisan of their impious doctrines. Peace was, however, concluded between Hassan and Sandjar; and the latter not only exempted the Ismailites from all duties and imposts in the district of Kirdkuh, but even assigned them a certain portion of the revenues of Kumis, as the annual pension of the order. Thus, this society of murderers increased daily in power and authority. It was not, however, merely since his accession, but twelve or fourteen years earlier, that the Sultan Sandjar had exhibited tokens of forbearance towards the Assassins; for on his journey from Khorassan to Irak, he visited at Damaghan the Reis Mosaffer, venerable both on account of his age and influence, who, as we have already seen, had declared himself an adherent of Hassan Sabah, and had obtained for him, by stratagem, the treasures of the Emir David Habeshi. Some officers proposed to demand them back, but on Mosaffer’s representation, that he had always loaded the inhabitants of the place with favours, as the proper subjects of the sultan, the latter lavished honours upon him. Thus died Reis Mosaffer,[85] respected and honoured as the patriarch of the new doctrine, at the age of one hundred and one.[86]