Hamdan Qarmat

Originally the chief Isma'ili missionary (dā'ī) 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 (the future first Fatimid Caliph), and with his followers broke off from them.

[4] His most prominent disciple and aide was his brother-in-law Abu Muhammad Abdan, who "enjoyed a high degree of independence" (Daftary) and appointed his own dā'īs in Iraq, Bahrayn and southern Persia.

[6] According to the 11th-century Sunni heresiologist Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi, al-Ma'mun, a dā'ī active in southern Persia, was a brother of Hamdan.

Thus in 880 his numbers were large enough to make overtures for an alliance with the leader of the Zanj, Ali ibn Muhammad, who rebuffed the offer.

As this group was the first to come to the attention of the Abbasid authorities, the label of "Qarmatians" soon came to be applied by Sunni sources to Ismai'li populations in general, including those were not proselytized by Hamdan.

[1][8] No direct information on the doctrine preached by Hamdan and Abu Muhammad is known, but modern scholars like Farhad Daftary consider it to have been, in all likelihood, the same as that propagated at the time from Salamiya, and described in the writings of al-Nawbakhti and Ibn Babawayh.

This caused a major rift in the movement, as Hamdan denounced the leadership in Salamiya, gathered the Iraqi dā'īs and ordered them to cease the missionary effort.

According to Wilferd Madelung, given Ibn Hawqal's Fatimid sympathies and friendship with Abu Ali's son, "his information may well be reliable".

From there he attempted to regain the support of Hamdan's followers, but those in Iraq and Bahrayn refused; Ibn Hawshab in Yemen and Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i in Ifriqiya, however, accepted his authority, and used him as an intermediary with Sa'id in Salamiya.

[6] After Hamdan's disappearance, the term "Qarmatians" was retained by all Isma'ilis who refused to recognize the claims of Sa'id, and subsequently of the Fatimid dynasty.

[15] A Qarmatian movement (the so-called Baqliyya) survived in lower Iraq for several decades thereafter, with their teachings ascribed largely to Abu Muhammad.

Zakarawayh himself emerged into the open in 906, claiming to be the mahdī, to lead the last Qarmatian attacks on the Abbasids in Iraq, before being defeated and captured early in the next year.