Qarmatians

Carmathians (also qarmathians or karmathians) was a Islamic sect named after Hamdan Qarmat, who accepted the teaching of the Ismailites from Hosain al-Ahwaz, a missionary of Ahmed, son of the Persian Abdallah ibn Maimtin, toward the close of the 9th century.

This was in the Sawgd of Iraq, which was inhabited by a people little attached to Islam. The object of Abdallah ibn Maimon had been to undermine Islam and the Arabian power by a secret society with various degrees, which offered inducements to all classes and creeds and led men on from an interpretation of Islam to a total rejection of its teaching and a strict personal submission to the head of the society.

In their religious teaching they claimed to be Shiites; i.e. they asserted that the imamate belonged by right to the descendants of Ali. Further, they were of the Ismailite branch of these, i.e. they acknowledged the claim to the imamate of Ismail the eldest son of the sixth Imam.

The claim of Ismail had been passed over by his father and many Shiites because he had been guilty of drinking wine. The Ismailites said that as the imam could do no wrong, his action only showed that wine-drinking was not sinful. Abdailah taught that from the creation of man there had always been an imam sometimes known, sometimes hidden.

Ismail was the last known; a new one was to be looked for. But while the imam was hidden, his doctrines were to be taught by his missionaries. Hamdan Qarmat was one of these, Ahmed ibn Abdallah being nominally the chief. The adherents of this party were initiated by degrees into the secrets of its doctrines and were divided into seven (afterwards nine) classes. In the first stage the convert was taught the existence of mystery in the Qur'an and made to feel the necessity of a teacher who could explain it. He took an oath of complete submission and paid a sum of money. In the second stage the earlier teachers of Islam were shown to be wrong in doctrine and the imams alone were proved to be infallible. In the third it was taught that there were only seven imams and that the other sects of the Shiites were in error. In the fourth the disciple learnt that each of the seven imams had a prophet, who was, to be obeyed in all things. The prophet of the last imam was Abdallah. The doctrine of Islam was that Muhammad was the last of the prophets. In the fifth stage the uselessness of tradition and the temporary nature of the precepts and practices of Mahomet were taught, while in the sixth the believer was induced to give up these practices (prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, etc). At this point the Carmathian had completely ceased to be a Moslem. In the remaining degrees there was more liberty of opinion allowed and much variety of belief and teaching existed.

The last contemporary mention of the Carmathians is that of Nasir ibn Khosrau, who visited them in 1050. In Arabia they ceased to exercise influence. In [[Persia] and Syria their work was taken up by the Assassins. Their doctrines are said, however, to exist still in parts of Syria, Persia, Arabia and India, and to be still propagated in Zanzibar.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)