QarĀmiṬah
QARᾹMIṬAH (sg., Qarmaṭī) is the name applied to a dissident Muslim group that broke away from the parent Ismāʿīlī movement. At first, this name referred to the followers of Ḥamdān al-Qarmaṭ, an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī (missionary) in the rural district of Kufa, who was given the surname Qarmaṭ (meaning either that he was short-legged or red-eyed). Later the term was used in a wider and derogatory sense to include all the Ismāʿīlīyah.
Background
The missionary activities of Ḥamdān, who was converted to the Ismāʿīlī cause by the dāʿī Ahwazi, began around 873. He was assisted by his deputy and brother-in-law, ʿAbdān. In 899, because of change in the central leadership of the Ismāʿīlī movement and the doctrinal issue involved in this change, Ḥamdān severed his relations with the leadership. Shortly thereafter he disappeared, and ʿAbdān was murdered by his subordinate dāʿī Zikrawayh, who at first showed loyalty to the central leadership. When Zikrawayh was threatened with revenge by ʿAbdān's followers he went into hiding. In 902 Zikrawayh's son succeeded in winning the support of tribes in the Syrian desert and attacked and pillaged several cities in Syria. Two years later he was captured and executed. After several unsuccessful attempts at organizing revolts, Zikrawayh himself came out of hiding in 906 and defeated the Abbasid army, but the following year he was routed and killed, and the Qarmaṭī revolts in Syria came to an end.
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