Its members were part of a movement that adhered to a syncretic branch of Sevener Ismaili Shia Islam,[2] and were ruled by a dynasty founded by Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi[8][9].

[10][2] Mecca was sacked by a Qarmatian leader, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi,[11] outraging the Muslim world, particularly with their theft of the Black Stone and desecration of the Zamzam Well with corpses during the Hajj season of 930 CE.

[16][17][18] Other sources, however, say that the name comes from the Arabic verb قرمط (qarmaṭ), which means "to make the lines close together in writing" or "to walk with short steps".

[20] The Qarāmiṭah in Sawad (southern Iraq) were also known as "the Greengrocers" (al-Baqliyyah) because they followed the teachings of Abū Hātim al-Zutti, who in 908 forbade animal slaughter.

Some claimed he had gone into hiding, but the proto-Ismā‘īlī group accepted his death and therefore accordingly recognized Ismā‘īl's eldest son, Muhammad ibn Isma'il (746–809), as Imām.

The minority Ismā‘īlīs, whose leader had taken control of the Salamiyah centre, began to proclaim their teachings that Imām Muḥammad had died and that the new leader in Salamiyah (Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah) was in fact his descendant come out of hiding and was the Mahdi (a Messianic figure who will appear on Earth before the Day of Judgment and rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny).

[25] They considered the pilgrimage to Mecca a superstition, and once in control of the Bahrayni state, they launched raids along the pilgrim routes crossing the Arabian Peninsula.

[27] In their attack on Islam's holiest sites, the Qarmatians desecrated the Zamzam Well with corpses of Hajj pilgrims and took the Black Stone from Mecca to Ain Al Kuayba[28] in Qatif.

[29][30] Holding the Black Stone to ransom, they forced the Abbasids to pay a huge sum for its return in 952, They also besieged Damascus and devastated many of the cities to the north.

[33] The land over which they ruled was extremely wealthy with a huge slave-based economy according to academic Yitzhak Nakash: The Qarmatian state had vast fruit and grain estates both on the islands and in Hasa and Qatif.

However, Abu Tahir soon realized al-Isfahani's appointment was a disastrous mistake, after the "Mahdi" executed some nobles and insulted Muhammad and the other prophets.

[35] Al-Isfahani lasted as leader only 80 days before his execution but greatly weakened the credibility of Qarmatians within the Muslim community in general and heralded the beginning of the end of their revolutionary movements.

[39] According to the maritime historian Dionisius A. Agius, the Qarmatians finally disappeared in 1067, after they lost their fleet at Bahrain Island and were expelled from Hasa near the Arabian coast by the chief of Banu, Murra ibn Amir.

These groups considers Muhammad ibn Isma'il to be the messenger – prophet (Rasūl), Imām al-Qā'im and Mahdi to be preserved in hiding, which is referred to as Occultation.

Farhad Daftary writes about the fate of the successors of Abu Tahir al-Jannabi: It may be noted that at the time the Qarmaṭī state was still being ruled jointly by Abū Ṭāhir’s brothers.

Abū Ṭāhir’s eldest son Sābūr (Shāpūr), who aspired to a ruling position and the command of the army, rebelled against his uncles in 358/969, but he was captured and executed in the same year.