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The Qarmatians (; or Carmathians in 20th-century historical discourse in English"The Völkerwanderung which overran the domain of the Caliphate of at its fall proceeded from the Turkish and the Mongol Nomads of the Eurasian Steppe, the Berber Nomads of the Sahara and highlanders of the Atlas, and the Arab Nomads from the Arabian Peninsula who raided 'Irāq under the leadership of the Carmathians and also flooded over North-West Africa — meeting and overcoming the corresponding movement of the Berbers — in the migration of the Banu Hilāl and the associated tribes of Arab badu" (Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 67-68.) were a militant Isma'ili Shia Islam movement centred in Al-Ahsa Oasis in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religion state in 899 CE. Its members were part of a movement that adhered to a syncretism 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, Mecca's History, from Encyclopædia Britannica. 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 Qarāmiṭah in Sawad (southern Iraq) were also known as "the Greengrocers" ( Baqliyya) because they followed the teachings of Abū Hātim al-Zutti, who in 908 forbade animal slaughter. He also forbade and such as garlic, onions, and leeks. By 928, it is uncertain whether the people still held on to those teachings.
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 (). 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.
Nonetheless, the dissident group retained the name Qarmaṭī. Its greatest stronghold remained in Bahrain, which then 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 the Zanj Rebellion in Basra disrupted the power of Baghdad. The Qarmaṭians seized their opportunity under their leader, Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, a Persians who hailed from Bandar Ganaveh in coastal Fars province. Eventually, from Qatar, he captured Bahrain's capital Hajr and Al-Ahsa Oasis in 899, which he made the capital of his state and once in control of the state he sought to set up a Utopia
The Qarmaṭians instigated what one scholar termed a "century of terror" in Kufa. They considered the pilgrimage to Mecca a superstition, and once in control of the Bahrayni 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.John Joseph Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam, Routledge 1978 p. 130
Under al-Jannabi (ruled 923–944), the Qarmaṭians came close to capturing Baghdad in 927, and sacked Mecca in 930, The Qarmatians also sacked Medina. 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 Ain Al Kuayba in Qatif.Houari Touati, Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages, transl. Lydia G. Cochrane, (University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 60. The Qarmatians in Bahrain, Ismaili Net Holding the Black Stone to ransom, they forced the Abbasids to pay a huge sum for its return in 952, They also besieged Damascus and devastated many of the cities to the north. They took opportunity to sack Salamiyya, as well as Tiberias, before the Abbasid authorities were able to regain control.
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 and controlled the coast of Oman and collecting tribute from the caliph in Baghdad as well as from a rival Isma'ili imam in Cairo, the head of the Fatimid Caliphate, whose power they did not recognize.
Al-Isfahani lasted as leader only 80 days before his execution but greatly weakened the credibility of Qarmatians within the Muslim community in general and heralded the beginning of the end of their revolutionary movements.
After their 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 severe consequences for the Qarmatians' ability to extract tribute from the region; according to Arabist historian Curtis Larsen:
In Bahrain and eastern Arabia, the Qarmatian state was replaced by the Uyunid dynasty, and it is believed that by the mid-11th century, Qarmatian communities in Iraq, Iran, and Transoxiana had either been integrated by Fatimid proselytism or disintegrated.Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis, IB Tauris, 1994, p. 20
By the mid-10th century, persecution forced the Qarmatians to leave what is now Egypt and Iraq and move to the city of Multan, now in Pakistan. However, prejudice against the Qarmatians did not dwindle, as Mahmud of Ghazni led an expedition against Multan's Qarmatian ruler Fateh Daud in 1005. The city was surrendered, and Fateh Daud was permitted to retain control over the city with the condition that he adhere to Sunnism. (1980). 9788120706170, Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd. ISBN 9788120706170
According to the maritime historian Dionisius A. Agius, the Qarmatians finally disappeared in 1067, after they lost their fleet at Bahrain Island and were expelled from Al-Ahsa Oasis near the Arabian coast by the chief of Banu Murra ibn Amir.
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