# Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 9, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360 "2007-12-09T05:24:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/1 "2007-12-09T05:24:20Z")
Who said it? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/2 "2007-12-09T05:41:04Z")
According to legend, it was [this guy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan-i_Sabbah). ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/3 "2007-12-09T06:36:36Z")
It sounds like a bastardisation of Dostoyevsky. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/4 "2007-12-09T07:06:13Z")
My first thought was Aleister Crowley, but his eact words were “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/5 "2007-12-09T07:14:45Z")
I was thinking of the line: “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted” ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/6 "2007-12-09T08:11:05Z")
[QUOTE=BMax] My first thought was Aleister Crowley, but his eact words were “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” [/QUOTE] Crowley took that quote from Rabelais. It’s the inscription above the door of the Abbey of Theleme in Gargantua and Pantagruel. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/7 "2007-12-09T08:38:05Z")
The line is attributed (perhaps apocryphally) as the last words of Hassan ibn Sabbah, aka “The Old Man of the Mountain,” the legendary founder of a guerilla group called the _hashashins_ (supposedly the origin of the word “assassin,” so-called because they allegely used hashish before they went into battle). William Burroughs used the quote a lot in _Naked Lunch_. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/8 "2007-12-09T12:53:16Z")
Robert Anton Wilson also helped to spread the idea that Hasan-i Sabbah (d. 1124) said that. I remember reading that in the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy. Historical fact is less romantic. Hasan-i Sabbah was a strict observant of the Isma‘ili sect of Islam and enforced religious law among his followers, the Nizari Isma‘ilis (nicknamed the Assassins). The antinomian doctrine was actually the work of another Hasan who became the Nizari leader a few generations later. He proclaimed that the Day of Judgment (_Qiyamah_) had already [arrived](http://books.google.com/books?id=focLrox-frUC&pg=RA1-PA226&lpg=RA1-PA226&dq=%22hasan+ala+dhikrihi%22&source=web&ots=kykxnNr1o2&sig=34ClqSeP-Il85te5YrBsD7oKOF4#PRA1-PA226,M1), so there would be no more religious law. He made this proclamation in 1164 while breaking the fast of Ramadan at high noon by drinking wine. In Islamic law, you have to fast until sunset in Ramadan, and wine is forbidden. However, the antinomian Hasan was later followed by Hasan III, who reimposed Islamic law on the Nizaris. The confusion must have resulted because the proclaimer of Qiyamah was also named Hasan, and through retellings, like in the game of Telephone, the less famous one was forgotten and his sins attributed to his pious forebear, the famous Hasan. The second Hasan was, ironically, _assassinated_ in 1166. Cite: _New Encyclopedia of Islam_ by Cyril Glassé, p. 226. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/9 "2007-12-09T14:29:26Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] William Burroughs used the quote a lot in _Naked Lunch_. [/QUOTE] _That’s_ where I saw it! ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/10 "2007-12-09T15:01:05Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] Robert Anton Wilson also helped to spread the idea that Hasan-i Sabbah (d. 1124) said that. I remember reading that in the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy. Historical fact is less romantic. Hasan-i Sabbah was a strict observant of the Isma‘ili sect of Islam and enforced religious law among his followers, the Nizari Isma‘ilis (nicknamed the Assassins). The antinomian doctrine was actually the work of another Hasan who became the Nizari leader a few generations later. He proclaimed that the Day of Judgment (_Qiyamah_) had already [arrived](http://books.google.com/books?id=focLrox-frUC&pg=RA1-PA226&lpg=RA1-PA226&dq=%22hasan+ala+dhikrihi%22&source=web&ots=kykxnNr1o2&sig=34ClqSeP-Il85te5YrBsD7oKOF4#PRA1-PA226,M1), so there would be no more religious law. He made this proclamation in 1164 while breaking the fast of Ramadan at high noon by drinking wine. In Islamic law, you have to fast until sunset in Ramadan, and wine is forbidden. However, the antinomian Hasan was later followed by Hasan III, who reimposed Islamic law on the Nizaris. The confusion must have resulted because the proclaimer of Qiyamah was also named Hasan, and through retellings, like in the game of Telephone, the less famous one was forgotten and his sins attributed to his pious forebear, the famous Hasan. The second Hasan was, ironically, _assassinated_ in 1166. Cite: _New Encyclopedia of Islam_ by Cyril Glassé, p. 226. [/QUOTE] Yay! Information! I love disambiguation and popping of overly convenient and sexy historical factoids. Good Johanna. ---
**Author:** ![xiix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/d6d6ee/32.png) [@xiix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xiix)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2007, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted/429360/11 "2007-12-09T19:11:58Z")
fnord. hail eris. that is all.