Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭalḥa ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muktafī bi'Llāh, better known by his regnal name al-Muktafī bi-Llāh, was the caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 902 to 908. More liberal and sedentary than his militaristic father al-Mu'tadid, al-Muktafi essentially continued his policies, although most of the actual conduct of government was left to his viziers and officials. His reign saw the defeat of the Qarmatians of the Syrian Desert, and the reincorporation of Egypt and the parts of Syria ruled by the Tulunid dynasty. The war with the Byzantine Empire continued with alternating success, although the Arabs scored a major victory in the Sack of Thessalonica in 904. His death in 908 opened the way for the installation of a weak ruler, al-Muqtadir, by the palace bureaucracy, and began the terminal decline of the Abbasid Caliphate that ended in 946 with the caliphs becoming puppet rulers under the Buyid dynasty.
Abū’l-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭalḥa ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn Al-Muqtadir bi'Llāh, better known by his regnal name al-Muqtadir bi'Llāh, was the eighteenth caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 908 to 932 AD, with the exception of a brief deposition in favour of al-Qahir in 929.
The Qarmatians were a militant Isma'ili Shia movement centred in Al-Ahsa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religious—and, as some scholars have claimed, proto-socialist or utopian socialist—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, a Persian from Jannaba in coastal Fars. 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.
Bakr ibn 'Abd Manat also known as Banu Bakr ibn 'Abd Manat or simply Banu Bakr is an Arab tribe located in the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula. They are maternal cousins of the Quraysh tribal confederation and were rivals to them before the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE. Bakr ibn 'Abd Manat is also divided into four clans, all of which are now predominantly Muslim.
Abu Tahir Sulayman al-Jannabi was a Persian warlord and the ruler of the Qarmatian state in Bahrayn. He became leader of the state in 923, after ousting his older brother Abu'l-Qasim Sa'id. He immediately began an expansionist phase, raiding Basra that year. He raided Kufa in 927, defeating an Abbasid army in the process, and threatened the Abbasid capital Baghdad in 928 before pillaging much of Iraq when he could not gain entry to the city.
Banu Hudhayl is an Arab tribe that originated in the Hejaz. The tribe mainly inhabits Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt. The tribe was one of the tribes in contact with the Islamic prophet Muhammad and they are known throughout history for their talented poets and intellectuals, as well as their help in repelling the Qarmatians in the 10th-century Sack of Mecca.
Abu Sa'id Hasan ibn Bahram al-Jannabi was a Persian Shia and the founder of the Qarmatian state in Bahrayn. By 899, his followers controlled large parts of the region, and in 900, he scored a major victory over an Abbasid army sent to subdue him. He captured the local capital, Hajar, in 903, and extended his rule south and east into Oman. He was assassinated in 913, and succeeded by his eldest son Sa'id.
Al-'Abbas ibn 'Amr al-Ghanawi was an Arab military commander and provincial governor for the Abbasid dynasty. He is known for his defeat and capture at the hands of the Qarmatians in 900.
Ibn Banu was the nominal governor of al-Bahrain for the Abbasid dynasty, serving there in 903.
Husayn ibn Hamdan ibn Hamdun ibn al-Harith al-Taghlibi was an early member of the Hamdanid family, who distinguished himself as a general for the Abbasid Caliphate and played a major role in the Hamdanids' rise to power among the Arab tribes in the Jazira.
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan al-Aʿsam ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Bahrām al-Jannābī, was a Qarmatian leader, chiefly known as the military commander of the Qarmatian invasions of Syria in 968–977. Already in 968, he led attacks on the Ikhshidids, capturing Damascus and Ramla and extracting pledges of tribute. Following the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and the overthrow of the Ikhshidids, in 971–974 al-A'sam led attacks against the Fatimid Caliphate, who began to expand into Syria. The Qarmatians repeatedly evicted the Fatimids from Syria and invaded Egypt itself twice, in 971 and 974, before being defeated at the gates of Cairo and driven back. Al-A'sam continued fighting against the Fatimids, now alongside the Turkish general Alptakin, until his death in March 977. In the next year, the Fatimids managed to overcome the allies, and concluded a treaty with the Qarmatians that signalled the end of their invasions of Syria.
The First Qarmatian invasion of Egypt took place in 971, when the Qarmatians of Bahrayn unsuccessfully invaded Egypt, which had recently been conquered by the Fatimid Caliphate. Both the Qarmatians and the Fatimids were offshoots of the Isma'ili sect of Shi'a Islam, but belonged to different and rival branches. Following the takeover of Egypt under the general Jawhar in 969, the Fatimids began their expansion into the Levant. There they confronted the Qarmatians, who in previous years had raided and extracted tribute from the regional potentates. In order to stop the Fatimid advance, the Qarmatians, led by al-Hasan al-A'sam, joined in a league with other regional powers, including the Sunni Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. After defeating and killing the Fatimid commander Ja'far ibn Fallah at Damascus in August 971, the Qarmatians and their Bedouin allies marched south. A Fatimid relief army marching to assist Ibn Fallah withdrew to Jaffa where it was blockaded, while the main Qarmatian army invaded Egypt. The diversion of the Qarmatian forces into the Nile Delta in support of local revolts gave Jawhar the time to mobilize his remaining forces and prepare defences in the form of a trench and wall at Ayn Shams, just north of Cairo, then still under construction as the new Fatimid capital. At a battle north of the city on 22 and 24 December, Jawhar defeated the Qarmatians and forced them to withdraw from Egypt in disorder. After the Qarmatians quarreled with their Bedouin allies, the Fatimids were able to reoccupy Ramla, but this was short-lived; by the summer of 972, Palestine was again under Qarmatian control. On the other hand, the rebellions in Egypt were suppressed, and the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz was able to move his capital from Ifriqiya to Cairo in June 973. A second invasion followed in 974, which was also defeated, ending the Qarmatian threat for good, and paving the way for the Fatimid expansion into the Levant.
The Sack of Mecca occurred on 11 January 930, when the Qarmatians of Bahrayn sacked the Muslim holy city amidst the rituals of the Hajj pilgrimage.
Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdūs al-Jahshiyārī was a prominent Abbasid bureaucrat and scholar. He authored Kitab al-wuzara wa'l-kuttab.
The Qarmatian invasion of Iraq was a large-scale raid by the Qarmatians of Bahrayn against the Abbasid Caliphate's metropolitan region of Iraq, that began in autumn of 927 and continued until the summer of 928.
The Sack of Basra was the capture and looting of the Abbasid city of Basra by the Qarmatians of Bahrayn, and took place in August 923. It was the first of a series of Qarmatian attacks, that culminated in an invasion of Iraq in 927–928.
In March 924, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn attacked and looted a caravan of Hajj pilgrims making their way back from Mecca to Iraq. The Qarmatians overcame the caravan's armed escort and took many pilgrims prisoner, along with the escort commander, Abu'l-Hayja al-Hamdani, before releasing them for ransom. The raid, along with a failure to prevent a sack of Basra a few months before led to popular unrest in Baghdad, and the deposition and execution of the Abbasid Caliphate's vizier, Ibn al-Furat.
The shamsa was a ceremonial crown that formed part of the regalia of the Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates.
Ilyas ibn Mudar also spelled al-Yas was a pre-Islamic Arabian tribal chief and an ancestor of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He is the progenitor of the Khindifite tribes, such as the Quraysh. A pioneer of pre-Islamic monotheism, Ilyas ibn Mudar lead a period of religious reform during his rule over the Hijaz to eradicate the worship of idols.
