Qarmatians
The Qarmatians (also Karmatians , Arabic قرامطة, DMG Qarāmiṭa ) were a messianic and radical Shiite group of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries who, like the Fatimids, belong to the Ismailites and go back to Hamdan Qarmat (890-906).
Origins and Lessons
Together with his brother Abdan, Hamdan Qarmat, presumably a Nabatean peasant, began as an Ismaili missionary ( dāʿī ) in Iraq to gather Arabs and Nabataeans in the late 870s, positioning himself politically and religiously both against the Abbasids and against the simultaneous emerging movement of the Fatimids.
The community received great support from peasants, small artisans and the urban proletariat. Although she upheld tolerance and equality, black slaves ( Zanj ) were kept in community slavery . Fasting and prayer were not part of the religious practice. In their beliefs, a dualism and sun cult from ancient Iranian religions merged with Islam, from which the mystical-philosophical brotherhood of Ichwan as-Safa ("Brothers of Purity") arose. Because of this, but also because of their Mahdi belief, most Muslims consider the Qarmatians to be unbelievers.
After several uprisings in Iraq, Hamdan Qarmat had to emigrate to Syria and the Abbasid caliphate began to oppress the Qarmatians militarily. In 906 the Qarmatians were defeated by the Abbasids and driven out of northern Iraq and Syria. Only Salamiyya in northern Syria was able to hold its own.
The Bahrain-Qarmatian state
Around 894 the Qarmats settled in Bahrain and al-Ahsa under their leader Abu Said al-Jannabi (ruled until 913) . By around 899 they had brought the entire north-east of the Arabian Peninsula under their control and founded their own state, which from 977 was led by a council of six men. This “Qarmatian Republic” was based on the principle of equality and extensive community of property.
Meanwhile, the clashes with the Abbasids did not end. The Qarmatians, who raised their own counter-caliph, undertook several campaigns in southern Iraq ( Kufa , Basra ) and Yemen , on the coast of Fars , to Syria, Palestine, western Arabia and Oman , at times occupying large areas (Oman from 931 to 934). In 930 even Mecca was conquered by Abu Tahir Sulayman ibn Abi Said (r. 917-944) and the black stone of the Kaaba was kidnapped. This was only brought back to Mecca in 951 for a large ransom. The Qarmatians repeatedly attacked pilgrims on their way to Mecca and caused massacres.
The struggle with the Fatimids for Palestine and Syria
In 968 the Qarmatian military leader Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Asam (d. 977) conquered Ramla and Damascus and ousted the governor of the Ichschididen there , but the Qarmatians soon lost control of this area again, because the new one left in 970 Fatimid governor of Egypt, Dschauhar as-Siqillī , occupy the area up to the Gulf of Iskenderun from his troops. Al-Hasan then advanced against the Fatimids with Abbasid support. In August 971 he defeated the Fatimid Syrian army, occupied Damascus again and preached against the Fatimids there from the pulpit. In the same year the Qarmatian troops advanced to the Nile. It was only through a surprising failure from Cairo , which was then under construction, that Dschauhar was able to ward off a defeat of the Fatimids and put the Qarmatians to flight. The Fatimids took possession of Ramla again, but in the summer of the following year 972 they were ousted from there by the Qarmatians. Al-Hasan and his Qarmatian troops were again in front of Cairo in March 974, but this time he was so devastated by Abdallah, the son of the caliph Abu Tamim al-Muizz , that he hurriedly withdrew from Egypt.
The Fatimid troops that followed him were able to take Ramla in May 974, but they did not succeed in bringing Damascus under their control. The Turkish officer Alp-Tegin , who had fled from the Buyid army and was allied with the Qarmatians, set up here.
When Dschauhar and his troops appeared outside Damascus in July 976, Alp-Tegin al-Hasan called for help. His arrival in December 976 forced Jawhar to retreat to Egypt. Only when the new Fatimid caliph al-ʿAzīz took over command of the army himself in the summer of 978 did the tide finally turn in favor of the Fatimids. Al-Aziz was able to defeat Alp-Tegin at Ramla; the Qarmatians withdrew from Syria for an annual payment of 30,000 dinars and henceforth recognized the supremacy of the Fatimids.
The end
It was not until the late 11th century that the Abbasids succeeded in breaking up the independent Qarmatian state in Bahrain and al-Ahsa, where the Uyunid dynasty took over power in 1078 . The importance of the Qarmatians now largely declined; most of the followers turned to other currents of Islam.
literature
- Essays
- Michael Jan de Goeje : La fin de l'empire des Carmathes. In: Journal Asiatique / 9e série , Vol. 5 (1859), pp. 5-30, ISSN 0021-762X
- Vladimir Ivanov : Ismailis and Qarmatians . In: Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , Vol. 16 (1940), pp. 43-85, ISSN 0970-2237
- Wilferd Madelung: Fatimids and Baḥrainqarmaṭen . In: Islam. Journal for the History and Culture of the Islamic Orient , Vol. 34 (1958), pp. 34-88, ISSN 0021-1818
- Wilferd Madelung: Ḳarmaṭī . In: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition . Brill Online, 2012
- George T. Scanlon: Leadership in the Qarmaian Sect . In: Bulletin de l'institut français d'archeologie orientale (BIFAO), Vol. 59 (1960), pp. 29-48, ISSN 0255-0962
- Samuel Miklos Stern: Ismāʿīlīs and Qarmaṭians . In: L'élaboration de l'Islam. Colloque de Strasbourg, 12-13-14 June 1959 . PUF, Paris 1961, pp. 99-108.
- Books
- Moez Dridi: La rive orientale du Golfe arabo-persique de la conquête arabe jusqu'à la fin du mouvement de Qaramita . Dissertation, University of Paris 2000.
- Michael Jan de Goeje: Mémoire sur les Carmathes du Bahraïn et les Fatimides . Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1978, ISBN 3-7648-0349-5 (reprint of the Leiden 1886 edition)
- Heinz Halm : The Caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids in Egypt 973-1074 . Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-48654-1 .
- Peter Priskil : The Karmatians or what Arab merchants and craftsmen knew over 1000 years ago. Religion does not have to be (unwanted books on church history; 10). Ahriman Verlag, Freiburg / B. 2007, ISBN 978-3-89484-606-0 .
- Kamal Ramahl: Qarmaen and Iwn a-af. Justice Movements among the Abbasids and the Universalist Theory of History . Theory & Practice Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-921866-97-9 (plus dissertation, University of Bremen 2003).