Qarmatians

The Qarmatians (Arabic: قرامطة, romanized: Qarāmiṭa; Persian: قرمطیان, romanized: Qarmatiyān or Carmathians in 20th-century historical discourse in English) were a militant Isma'ili Shia movement centred in Al-Ahsa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religious state in 899 CE. Its members were part of a movement that adhered to a syncretic branch of Sevener Ismaili Shia Islam, and were ruled by a dynasty founded by Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi. They rejected the claim of Fatimid Caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah to imamate and clung to their belief in the coming of the Mahdi, and they revolted against the Fatimid and Abbasid Caliphates.

Mecca was sacked by a Qarmatian leader, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, 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 CE.

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 the Aramaic for "short-legged", "red-eyed" or "secret teacher". Other sources, however, say that the name comes from the Arabic verb قرمط (qarmaṭ), 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.

The Qarāmiṭah in Sawad (southern Iraq) were also known as "the Greengrocers" (al-Baqliyyah) because they followed the teachings of Abū Hātim al-Zutti, who in 908 forbade animal slaughter. He also forbade radishes and alliums such as garlic, onions, and leeks. By 928, it is uncertain whether the people still held on to those teachings.

Under the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE), various Shiite 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 Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) designated his second son, Isma'il ibn Ja'far (c. 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, Muhammad ibn Isma'il (746–809), as Imām. He remained in contact with the Mubārakiyyah group, most of whom resided in Kufa.

The split among the Mubārakiyyah came with the death of Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl (c. 813 CE). 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 Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the precursors to all modern groups.

The majority Ismā‘īlī missionary movement settled in Salamiyah (now in Syria) and had great success in Khuzestan (southwestern Iran), where the Ismā‘īlī leader al-Husayn al-Ahwāzī converted the Kūfan man Ḥamdān in 874 CE, 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 Eastern Arabia (Arabic Bahrayn) in 899, and in North Africa. They attracted many new Shi'i followers because of their activist and messianic teachings. The new proto-Qarmaṭī movement continued to spread into Greater Iran and then into Transoxiana.