Qarmatians

The Qarmatians (Arabic: قرامطة‎‎ Qarāmita; also transliterated Carmathians, Qarmathians, Karmathians) were a syncretic religious group that combined elements of the Ismaili Shi'i branch of Islam with Persian mysticism centered in Al-Hasa (Eastern Arabia), where they established a religious utopian republic in 899 AD. They are most famed for their revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate. Mecca was sacked by the sect’s leader Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī, outraging the Muslim world, particularly with their theft of the Black Stone and desecration of the Zamzam Well with corpses during the Hajj season of 930 AD.

The Qarāmiṭah were also known as "the Greengrocers" (al-Baqliyyah) because of their strict vegetarian habits.

Name

The origin of the name "Qarmatian" is uncertain. According to some sources, the name derives from the surname of the sect's founder, Hamdan Qarmat. The name qarmat probably comes from Aramaic, and means either "short-legged," "red-eyed," or "secret teacher". Other sources, however, say that the name comes from the Arabic verb قرمط (qarmat), which means "to make the lines close together in writing" or "to walk with short steps." The word "Qarmatian" can also refer to a type of Arabic script.

History

Early developments

Under the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 AD), various Shia groups organised in secret opposition to their rule. Among them were the supporters of the proto-Ismā‘īlī community, of whom the most prominent group were called the Mubārakiyyah.

According to the Ismaili school of thought, Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (702–765) designated his second son, Isma'il ibn Jafar (ca. 721–755), as heir to the Imamate. However, Ismā‘īl predeceased his father. Some claimed he had gone into hiding, but the proto-Ismā‘īlī group accepted his death and therefore accordingly recognized Ismā‘īl's eldest son, Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl (746–809), as Imām. He remained in contact with the Mubārakiyyah group, most of whom resided in Kūfah.

The split among the Mubārakiyyah came with the death of Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl (ca. 813 AD). The majority of the group denied his death; they recognized him as the Mahdi. The minority believed in his death and would eventually emerge in later times as the Fāṭimid Ismā‘īlī, the precursors to all modern groups.

The majority Ismā‘īlī missionary movement settled in Salamiyah (in present-day Syria) and had great success in Khuzestan (Southwestern Persia), where the Ismā‘īlī leader al-Husayn al-Ahwāzī converted the Kūfan man Ḥamdān in 874 AD, who took the name Qarmaṭ after his new faith. Qarmaṭ and his theologian brother-in-law ‘Abdān prepared southern Iraq for the coming of the Mahdi by creating a military and religious stronghold. Other such locations grew up in Yemen, in Bahrain in 899 AD and in North Africa. These attracted many new Shī‘ī followers due to their activist and messianic teachings. This new proto-Qarmaṭī movement continued to spread into Greater Iran and then into Transoxiana.

The Qarmatian Revolution

A change in leadership in as-Salamiyah in 899 led to a split in the movement. The minority Ismā‘īlīs, whose leader had taken control of the Salamiyyah centre, began to proclaim their teachings - that Imām Muḥammad had died, and that the new leader in Salamiyyah was in fact his descendant come out of hiding. Qarmaṭ and his brother-in-law opposed this and openly broke with the Salamiyyids; when ‘Abdān was assassinated, he went into hiding and subsequently repented. Qarmaṭ became a missionary of the new Imām, Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah (873–934), who founded the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa in 909.

Nonetheless, the dissident group retained the name Qarmaṭī. Their greatest stronghold remained in Bahrain, which at this period included much of eastern Arabia as well as the islands that comprise the present state. It was under Abbasid control at the end of the ninth century, but a slave rebellion in Basra disrupted the power of Baghdad. The Qarmaṭians seized their opportunity under their leader, Abū Saʿīd Jannābī, who captured Bahrain’s capital Hajr and al-Hasa in 899, which he made the capital of his republic and once in control of the state he sought to set up a utopian society.

The Qarmaṭians instigated what one scholar termed a "century of terrorism" in Kufa. They considered the pilgrimage to Mecca a superstition and once in control of the Bahraini state they launched raids along the pilgrim routes crossing the Arabian Peninsula: in 906 they ambushed the pilgrim caravan returning from Mecca and massacred 20,000 pilgrims.

Under Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī (ruled 923–944), the Qarmaṭians came close to raiding Baghdad in 927, and sacked Mecca and Medina in 930. In their attack on Islam's holiest sites, the Qarmatians desecrated the Zamzam Well with corpses of Hajj pilgrims and took the Black Stone from Mecca to Al-Hasa. Holding the Black Stone to ransom they forced the Abbasids to pay a huge sum for its return in 952.

The revolution and desecration shocked the Muslim world and humiliated the Abbasids. But little could be done; for much of the tenth century the Qarmatians were the most powerful force in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, controlling the coast of Oman and collecting tribute from the caliph in Baghdad as well as from a rival Ismaili imam in Cairo, whom they did not recognize.

Qarmatian society

The land they ruled over was extremely wealthy with a huge slave-based economy according to academic Yitzhak Nakash:

The Qarmatian state had vast fruit and grain estates both on the islands and in Hasa and Qatif. Nasir Khusraw, who visited Hasa in 1051, recounted that these estates were cultivated by some thirty thousand Ethiopian slaves. He mentions that the people of Hasa were exempt from taxes. Those impoverished or in debt could obtain a loan until they put their affairs in order. No interest was taken on loans, and token lead money was used for all local transactions. The Qarmathian state had a powerful and long-lasting legacy. This is evidenced by a coin known as Tawila, minted around 920 by one of the Qarmathian rulers, and which was still in circulation in Hasa early in the twentieth century.

The sack of Mecca followed millenarian fervour among the Qaramata (as well as in Greater Iran) over the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in 928—an event which the Qarmati leader Abū-Tāhir al-Jannābī believed indicated the end of the epoch of Islam and the beginning of the final religious era. The year 931 was also highly important for the Qarmatians' mahdi fervor, as it was 1,500 years after the prophet Zoroaster's death and the end of the epoch of Alexander, which predicted the reign of the Magians. Therefore, in 931 Abu Tahir handed over power to a young Persian man, Abu'l-Fadl al-Isfahani. whom he believed to be the awaited mahdi. This new Persian Qarmatian leader acted unexpectedly, forbidding Islamic law and prayer, ordering the cursing of many imams and Muslim prophets, supporting the worship of fire, killing prominent Qarmati leaders, and proclaiming a religion centered on Adam, the first man. Abu'l-Fadl ruled only 80 days; Abū-Tāhir had no choice but to kill him, though his bizarre rule severely destabilized the Qarmatian movement.

Collapse

After defeat by the Abbasids in 976 the Qarmatians began to look inwards and their status was reduced to that of a local power. This had important repercussions for the Qarmatians' ability to extract tribute from the region; according to Arabist historian Curtis Larsen:

As tribute payments were progressively cut off, either by the subsequent government in Iraq or by rival Arab tribes, the Carmathian state shrank to local dimensions. Bahrain broke away in AD 1058 under the leadership of Abu al-Bahlul al-Awwam who re-established orthodox Islam on the islands. Similar revolts removed Qatif from Carmathian control at about the same time. Deprived of all outside income and control of the coasts, the Carmathians retreated to their stronghold at the Hofuf Oasis. Their dynasty was finally dealt a final blow in 1067 by the combined forces of Abdullah bin Ali Al Uyuni, who with the help of Seljuk army contingents from Iraq, laid siege to Hofuf for seven years and finally forced the Carmathians to surrender.

In Bahrain and eastern Arabia the Qarmatian state was replaced by the Uyunid dynasty, while it is believed that by the middle of the eleventh century Qarmatian communities in Iraq, Iran, and Transoxiana had either been won over by Fatimid proselytising or had disintegrated. The last contemporary mention of the Qarmatians is that of Nasir ibn Khosrau, who visited them in 1050, although Ibn Battuta, visiting Qatif in 1331, found it inhabited by Arab tribes whom he described as "extremist Shi'as" (rafidhiyya ghulat), which historian Juan Cole has suggested is how a 14th Century Sunni would describe Ismailis.

Qarmatian-Imamate of Seven Imams

Imām	Qarmatian-Ismā'īlī Imām	Period
1	Ali, first Ismā'īlī Imām	(632–661)
2	Hasan ibn Ali, second Ismā'īlī Imām	(661–669)
3	Husayn ibn Ali, third Ismā'īlī Imām	(669–680)
4	Ali ibn Husayn Zayn al-Abidin, fourth Ismā'īlī Imām	(680–713)
5	Muhammad al-Baqir, fifth Ismā'īlī Imām	(713–733)
6	Ja'far al-Sadiq, sixth Ismā'īlī Imām	(733–765)
7	Isma'il ibn Jafar, seventh Ismā'īlī Imām	(765–775)
Mahdi	Muħammad ibn Ismā'īl al-Maktum, the founder of Ismā'īlīsm	(775–813)

Ismaili imams who were not accepted as legitimate by Sevener Qarmatians

The following Ismaili imams after Mahdi had been considered as heretics of dubious origins by certain Qarmatian groups who refused to acknowledge the imamate of the Fatimids and clung to their belief in the coming of the Mahdi.

• Ahmad al-Wafi (Abadullah) (813-829)
• Muhammad at-Taqi (Ahmed ibn Abadullah) (829-840)
• Rabi Abdullah (840-881)
• Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah (881-934) (Founder of Fatimid Caliphate)

Qarmatian rulers in Eastern Arabia

• Abu-Sa'id Jannabi (894-914)
• Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī (914-944)
• Ahmad Abu Tahir (944-970)
• Abul Kassim Sa'id (970-972)
• Abu Yaqub Yousuf (972-977)
• Descendants of Abu Yaqub Yousuf ruled till 1077

See also

• Shanga, in the Lamu Archipelago, Kenya
• History of Bahrain
• List of extinct Shia sects
• List of Shi'a Muslim dynasties

References

• Kathryn Babayan 2002: Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran, ISBN 0-932885-28-4
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

External links

• Ismaili Net, The origin of the Qarmatians
• Ismaili Net, Qarmatians in Bahrain
• Encyclopedia Iranica, CARMATIANS
• Encyclopedia Iranica, ḤAMDĀN QARMAṬ
• Women and the Fatimids in the world of Islam
• Encyclopaedia of the Orient
• The New Encyclopedia of Islam, p 369
• Maymūn’āl-Qaddāh
• Encyclopaedia Iranica, "ʿAbdallāh B. Maymūn Al-Qaddāḥ"