Sack of Mecca | |||||||
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Part of the wars between the Qarmatians and the Abbasid Caliphate | |||||||
Map of Arabia in 930. Qarmatian territory in orange | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Qarmatians of Bahrayn | Abbasid Caliphate | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Abu Tahir al-Jannabi | Muhammad ibn Isma'il † |
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.
The Qarmatians, a radical Isma'ili sect established in Bahrayn since the turn of the 9th century, had previously attacked the caravans of Hajj pilgrims and even invaded and raided Iraq, the heartland of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 927–928. In 928, the Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Jannabi became convinced that the long-awaited mahdi , the messiah who would usher in the end times and nullify existing religious law, had arrived in the person of a young Persian man, Abu'l-Fadl al-Isfahani. As a result, al-Jannabi led his men against Mecca in the Hajj season of winter 929–930.
The Qarmatians gained entry into the city ostensibly to perform their pilgrimage, but immediately turned to attacking the pilgrims. The city was plundered for eight to eleven days, many of the pilgrims were killed and left unburied, while even the Kaaba, the holiest site of Islam, was ransacked and all its decorations and relics were taken away to Bahrayn, including the Black Stone. This act was tantamount to a complete break between the Qarmatians and the Islamic world, and was followed in 931 by the revelation of al-Isfahani as God manifest before the Qarmatian faithful. However, it soon became apparent that the mahdi was nothing of the sort, and he was murdered. Islamic law was restored in Bahrayn, and the Qarmatians entered into negotiations with the Abbasid government, which resulted in the conclusion of a peace treaty in 939, and eventually the return of the Black Stone to Mecca in 951.
In the 880s and 890s, the Isma'ili Shi'a missionary Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi had established a strong following among the Bedouin tribes of Bahrayn. [1] In 899, the Isma'ili movement split between a branch that followed the leadership of the future Fatimid caliph, Abdallah al-Mahdi, and those who rejected his claims to the imamate, known as the "Qarmatians". Whether out of genuine conviction or political expediency, Abu Sa'id sided with the latter faction. [2] [3] Allied with the local Bedouin tribes of the Banu Kilab and Banu Uqayl, as well as with the Persian Gulf merchants, Abu Sa'id was able to capture the region's capital, and in 900 cemented its independence by defeating an Abbasid army sent to recover control of Bahrayn. [4]
Under Abu Sa'id's rule, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn remained uninvolved in the unsuccessful Isma'ili uprisings of the 900s against the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, or in the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya. Apart from a raid against Basra in 912, they also retained peace with the Abbasids, secured through donations of money and weapons sent by the Abbasid vizier, Ali ibn Isa ibn al-Jarrah. [5] Abu Sa'id was assassinated in 913/4, and succeeded, at least nominally, by all of his sons collectively. [6] The oldest, Abu'l-Qasim Sa'id al-Jannabi, was at first the pre-eminent, but his reign was brief; he was replaced by the more ambitious and warlike youngest son, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, in 923. [7] [8] [9]
Under the leadership of the 16-year-old Abu Tahir, the Qarmatians began raids against the Abbasid Caliphate with a surprise attack on Basra in August 923. The city was plundered for 17 days, until the Qarmatians left, unmolested, and with an enormous train of booty and slaves. [8] [10] In March 924, the Qarmatians destroyed the Hajj caravan making its way back from Mecca to Baghdad, taking many notables of the Abbasid court captive. [10] [11]
The Abbasid government's response to the Qarmatian attacks was ineffectual: the Qarmatian raiding parties were small, but highly mobile, ensuring that any Abbasid military response arrived too late. At the same time, the Qarmatian base in Bahrayn was safe from Abbasid retaliation. [12] Factional rivalries in the Abbasid court, most notably between the vizier, Ibn al-Furat, and the commander-in-chief, Mu'nis al-Muzaffar, further hampered an effective response. [13] [14]
The Hajj caravan of 925 was attacked on its way to Mecca, and despite an escort of 6,000 men had to turn back to Kufa pursued by the Qarmatians, taking heavy losses. [13] [15] The Qarmatians demanded the surrender of Basra and of Khuzistan, and when they were refused, they entered Kufa and pillaged it for seven days. The plunder was on such a level that even the city's iron gates were dismantled and taken back to Bahrayn. [13] [16]
In the next Hajj season, in January 926, a strong military escort ensured the safety of the pilgrims, but the authorities paid a hefty sum to the Qarmatians to be allowed through. During the following Hajj, the caravan had to be called off entirely as the Abbasid government lacked the funds to provide the escort, and panic spread in Mecca as its inhabitants deserted the city in anticipation of a Qarmatian attack that never came. [13]
Instead, in October/November 927 the Qarmatians under Abu Tahir invaded Iraq: Kufa was captured and local Shi'a sympathizers declared the end of the Abbasid dynasty and the imminent arrival of the Islamic messiah, the mahdi . [17] [16] [18] The Qarmatians at the time expected the arrival of the mahdi, and the start of the final age of the world, in 928, when the planets Saturn and Jupiter would be in conjunction. [16]
The Qarmatian march on Baghdad was stopped when the Abbasids breached the canals, flooding the fields, and tearing down the bridges leading to the Abbasid capital. [19] [20] The Qarmatians withdrew back across the Euphrates, but continued north along the river into Upper Mesopotamia, raiding as they went and extracting ransoms from the local cities. [21] [22]
Finally, in the summer of 928, the Qarmatians retreated to their homes in Bahrayn, with Abu Tahir leaving behind a poem in which he promised to return, and describing himself as the herald of the mahdi. [23] The preparations for the return of the mahdi gathered pace: a fortified dar al-hijra was built at the Al-Ahsa Oasis, and many Shi'a sympathizers joined the Qarmatians on their return, eager to be present at the mahdi's arrival. [16] [24]
Among the captives taken in the invasion was a young Persian named Abu'l-Fadl al-Isfahani, taken at Qasr Ibn Hubayra; this boy, about twenty years old and of haughty demeanor, was recognized by Abu Tahir as the awaited mahdi. [25] [26]
In 929, after several years of interruption, the Hajj caravans were resumed under military escort, arriving in Mecca in December 929. [23] [27] On 11 January, the day when the Hajj rites were to begin, a Qarmatian army under Abu Tahir appeared before the city. The local garrison initially tried to stop them, but Abu Tahir claimed his right of entry as a Muslim and gave a pledge of safety for the city and everyone in it. [23]
Once Abu Tahir and his men were in the city, however, they began killing the pilgrims assembled for the ritual circling of the Kaaba, while their leaders mockingly exclaimed Quranic verses promising divine protection through the Kaaba (3:97, 106:3–4). [23] The corpses were left untended and unburied, while some were thrown into the sacred Zamzam Well. [23] The governor of Mecca, Muhammad ibn Isma'il, known as Ibn Muharib, was among those killed. [27]
The Qarmatians plundered the Kaaba, emptying it of its relics and stripping it of its precious objects and decorations; even the doors were taken away, and only the gold waterspout on the roof was left in place. [28] Finally, the Black Stone was dislodged and carried off. [27] [29] Abu Tahir is said to have composed a poem proclaiming that "This house [the Kaaba] does not belong to God, for God never chooses a house for Himself". [27]
One report, considered exaggerated by modern scholars, suggests that the plunder from the Kaaba alone was so enormous that it required fifty camels to be transported back to Bahrayn. [27] Of the relics kept in Mecca, only the Maqam Ibrahim was rescued, being smuggled out of the city. [27] According to at least one account, some of the city's inhabitants joined in the massacre, attacking pilgrims. [27] The Qarmatians continued their killing and plundering for eight to eleven days, retiring to their camp outside the city each night, and returning the next day. [27] On their return journey, the Qarmatians were ambushed by the Banu Hudhayl tribe as part of the a larger conflict between both parties, the latter was able to liberate many of the prisoners and recovered much of the loot before the Qarmatians managed to escape. [27]
The motivation of the Qarmatians for this attack, and for the stealing of the Black Stone, remains somewhat unclear. [7] According to the historian Hugh N. Kennedy, "They must certainly have hoped for concessions from the government in exchange for [the Black Stone's] return and may even have hoped to divert the Hajj, with the trading opportunities it presented, to their own capital at [al-Ahsa]". [30] However, the supposition that the Qarmatians intended to divert the Hajj to al-Ahsa has been challenged by several historians, including one of the first modern scholars of Isma'ilism, Michael Jan de Goeje. [27]
As the historian Heinz Halm points out, the attack was not a mere raid against 'unbelievers' or the Abbasids, who were considered usurpers by the Qarmatians: the sack of the Kaaba was an act of sacrilege that effectively broke the ties between the Qarmatians and Islam. [29] Qarmatian doctrine preached that all previous revealed religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam itself—and their scriptures were but veils: they imposed outer ( zahir ) forms and rules that were meant to conceal the inner ( batin ), true religion as it had been practiced in Paradise. The coming of the mahdi would not only herald the end times, but would also reveal these esoteric truths (haqa'iq) and release mankind from the outward strictures of religious law ( shari'a ). [31] The mocking recitation of suras is explained by Halm as the apparent desire of the Qarmatians to "prove the Quranic revelation wrong", [23] and the sack of Mecca is consistent with their belief that with the coming of the mahdi as God manifest on Earth, all previous religions were shown as false, so that they and their symbols had to be abjured. [32] According to the historian Farhad Daftary, the transfer of the Black Stone to al-Ahsa was "presumably to symbolize the end of the era of Islam" and the start of the new messianic age. [16] While al-Isfahani was not publicly revealed until 931, Halm argues that the events of 930 are likely linked with the messianic expectations placed in him by Abu Tahir and were meant to set the stage for the emergence of the mahdi. [33]
The sack of Mecca and the desecration of the most holy Muslim sites caused immense shock and outrage in the Muslim world, [27] [16] and exposed the weakness of the Abbasid government. [34] Both the Abbasids and the Fatimid caliph, Abdallah al-Mahdi, sent letters to Abu Tahir in reproach, and urged the immediate return of the Black Stone. [16] [35] The letters were disregarded, and Abu Tahir proceeded to expand his power: after conquering Oman, he seemed poised to repeat his invasion of Iraq, but although his men captured and plundered Kufa for 25 days in 931, he suddenly turned back to Bahrayn. [27] [36]
The reason was likely the increasingly bizarre and autocratic behaviour of al-Isfahani, who was worshipped as a living god and had several leading Qarmatians executed. This aroused resistance, including from Abu Tahir's own mother; the supposed mahdi was put to the test, revealed to be incapable of performing miracles, and was murdered. [37] [24] Abu Tahir was able to retain power over Bahrayn, and the Qarmatian leadership denounced the entire episode as an error and reverted to its previous adherence to Islamic law. [38] [39] The affair of the false Mahdi damaged the reputation of Abu Tahir and shattered the morale of the Qarmatians, many of whom abandoned Bahrayn to seek service in the armies of various regional warlords. [38]
Over the following years, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn entered into negotiations with the Abbasid government, resulting in the conclusion of a peace treaty in 939, and eventually the return of the Black Stone to Mecca in 951. These events marked, in the words of Hugh Kennedy, "the assimilation of the Qarmati state into the Muslim political order". [38] [40] As the dominant power in the eastern and northern Arabian peninsula, the Qarmatians even began offering their services as—well paid—guards of the Hajj caravans; [41] when the Bedouin tribe of the Banu Sulaym raided the caravans in 966, the Qarmatians forced them to return their plunder. [42] When the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and the subsequent Fatimid invasion of the Levant threatened to disrupt this profitable enterprise, the Qarmatian leader al-Hasan al-A'sam did not hesitate to make common cause with the Abbasids against the rival Isma'ili empire; in the cities taken from the Fatimids, the Qarmatians even had the Friday sermon read in the name of the Abbasid caliph al-Muti. [43] In the end, the Fatimids prevailed, and by 975 Qarmatian power in the region was broken for good. [44]
The Fatimid dynasty was an Arab dynasty that ruled the Fatimid Caliphate, between 909 and 1171 CE. Claiming to be descended from Fatima and Ali and adhering to Isma'ili Shi'ism, they held the Isma'ili imamate and considered themselves the rightful leaders of the Muslim community. The line of Nizari Isma'ili imams, represented today by the Aga Khans, claims descent from a branch of the Fatimids. The Alavi Bohras, predominantly based in Vadodara, also claim descent from the Fatimids.
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn, better known by his regnal name al-Mahdī biʾllāh, was the founder of the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the only major Shi'a caliphate in Islamic history, and the eleventh Imam of the Isma'ili branch of Shi'ism.
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.
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.
Abu Sa'id Hasan ibn Bahram al-Jannabi was a 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.
The Battle of Hama was fought some 24 km (15 mi) from the city of Hama in Syria on 29 November 903 between the forces of the Abbasid Caliphate and pro-Isma'ili Bedouin. The Abbasids were victorious, resulting in the capture and execution of the Isma'ili leadership. This removed the Isma'ili presence in northern Syria, and was followed by the suppression of another revolt in Iraq in 906. More importantly, it paved the way for the Abbasid attack on the autonomous Tulunid dynasty and the reincorporation of the Tulunid domains in southern Syria and Egypt into the Abbasid Caliphate.
Abu'l-Fadl al-Isfahani, also known as the Isfahani Mahdi, was a young Persian man who in 931 CE was declared to be "God incarnate" by the Qarmatian leader of Bahrayn, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi. This new apocalyptic leader, however, caused great disruption by rejecting traditional aspects of Islam, and promoting ties to Zoroastrianism.
Hamdan Qarmat ibn al-Ash'ath was the eponymous founder of the Qarmatian sect of Isma'ilism. Originally the chief Isma'ili missionary in lower Iraq, in 899 he quarreled with the movement's leadership at Salamiya after it was taken over by Sa'id ibn al-Husayn, and with his followers broke off from them. Hamdan then disappeared, but his followers continued in existence in the Syrian Desert and al-Bahrayn for several decades.
Zakarawayh ibn Mihrawayh, often misspelled as Zikrawayh in modern sources, was an Isma'ili and Qarmatian leader in Iraq who led a series of revolts against the Abbasid Caliphate in the 900s, until his defeat and death in January 907.
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 Second Qarmatian invasion of Egypt occurred in 974, when Qarmatians of Bahrayn unsuccessfully invaded Egypt, the seat of the Fatimid Caliphate. The Qarmatian attack followed upon a failed invasion in 971, which had nevertheless succeeded in evicting the Fatimids from their initial conquests in the Levant. The Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz was hard put to contain the Qarmatian threat, as his treasury was empty and the populace resentful at the high taxation. His efforts to bring the Qarmatians, who belonged to a different branch of the same Isma'ili sect of Shi'a Islam that had given birth to the Fatimid dynasty, into recognizing his authority as imam, were brusquely rebuffed by the Qarmatian leader, al-Hasan al-A'sam. In late 973, the Alid notable Akhu Muslim entered Egypt and led a rebellion against the Fatimids and their tax collectors, leading other disaffected Alid ashraf to flock to his cause. The main attack was launched in spring 974. The Qarmatian army entered Egypt and occupied the Nile Delta before turning south towards Cairo, but was defeated by the Fatimid heir apparent, Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz, in battle north of Ayn Shams, close to where the 971 invasion had also been turned back. The Qarmatians retreated to their home territory in Bahrayn, and despite al-A'sam's urgings, reached an accommodation with the Fatimids and largely withdrew from interference in the affairs of the Levant thereafter. The rebellions in Egypt were quickly stamped out by the Fatimid forces. Akhu Muslim managed to evade capture and flee to Arabia, but was poisoned by his former Qarmatian allies. The failure of the Qarmatian invasion opened the way for the Fatimid conquest of Syria over the following years.
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.
Abu'l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan ibn Faraj ibn Ḥawshab ibn Zādān al-Najjār al-Kūfī, better known simply as Ibn Ḥawshab, or by his honorific of Manṣūr al-Yaman, was a senior Isma'ili missionary from the environs of Kufa. In cooperation with Ali ibn al-Fadl al-Jayshani, he established the Isma'ili creed in Yemen and conquered much of that country in the 890s and 900s in the name of the Isma'ili imam, Abdallah al-Mahdi, who at the time was still in hiding. After al-Mahdi proclaimed himself publicly in Ifriqiya in 909 and established the Fatimid Caliphate, Ibn al-Fadl turned against him and forced Ibn Hawshab to a subordinate position. Ibn Hawshab's life is known from an autobiography he wrote, while later Isma'ili tradition ascribes two theological treatises to him.
ʿAlī ibn al-Faḍl al-Jayshānī was a senior Isma'ili missionary from Yemen. In cooperation with Ibn Hawshab, he established the Isma'ili creed in his home country and conquered much of it in the 890s and 900s in the name of the hidden Isma'ili imam, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah. After the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909, and the public proclamation of al-Mahdi Billah as caliph, Ibn al-Fadl denounced al-Mahdi as false, and instead declared himself to be the awaited messiah. His erstwhile colleague, Ibn Hawshab, refused to follow him, so Ibn al-Fadl turned against him and forced him to capitulate. Ibn al-Fadl's dominion collapsed swiftly after his death in October 915. In January 917, his stronghold of Mudhaykhira was seized by the Yu'firids, his children captured, and his two sons executed.
The term dār al-hijra was originally applied to Medina, the city where Muhammad an his followers sought refuge when exiled from Mecca in 622 (Hijrah). The term was accordingly later adopted by radical Islamic sects, most notably the Isma'ilis, for their strongholds, which were to serve both as bases of operations and as nuclei of 'true' Islamic communities.
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.
The Qarmatian-Hudhayl conflicts were a series of two military confrontations between the Banu Hudhayl tribe and the armies of the Qarmatians of Bahrain which took place in the 10th century CE. The conflicts, instigated by the earlier Sack of Mecca, ended with Abu Tahir al-Jannabi fleeing from the Hijaz and returning to Bahrain.