During the rest of that year, and the year following, the Qarmatians were busy hunting for Zaqruya who was compelled to move from place to place, and finally retired to a subterranean retreat. When he went into the village near his hiding place a woman who lived in the house used to make bread on the stone which covered the entrance to the concealed cave so as to disarm suspicion.
In 288 the search seemed to be relaxed, and then Zaqruya sent his son Hasan to Syria with a companion named Hasan b. Ahmad, and told them to preach to the Arabs of the B. Kalb tribe, inviting them to recognise Muhammad b. Ismaʿil as the Imam. These two envoys obtained many followers. The envoy who had made plans with Zaqruya had meanwhile gone back to Talakan, and now, annoyed at Zaqruya’s silence, went to the Sawad and discovered his place of concealment. When Zaqruya told him of the success of his mission to the Arabs he was delighted and determined to join the envoys himself. Zaqruya approved this plan and sent with him his nephew Isa b. Mahwayh, surnamed Mudatthar, and another young man surnamed Mutawwak, at the same time writing a letter to his son bidding him render obedience to the leader of these new comers whom he termed Sahib al-Nakat. When they reached the B. Kalb they were welcomed and received with every profession of loyalty, and the tribe prepared for war. This took place in 289. The resulting conflict with the authorities was, however, unsuccessful: the sectaries were not able to repeat their brigandage which the weakness of the central authority had been unable to prevent about the Sawad, and the leader, the kinsman of the Mahdi at Salamiya, was killed, and the Arabs scattered.
Nuwayri says that this leader had struck money, both gold and silver, and that the coins were inscribed on one side: “Say, the truth has come and falsehood has disappeared” (Qur. 17, 83): and on the other: “There is no God but God; Say, ‘for this I ask no wage of you, save the love of my kindred’” (Qur. 42, 22).
After this leader’s death Hasan, son of Zaqruya, took command of the Qarmatians and assumed the name of Ahmad. The general Muhammad b. Sulayman had a great victory over him and, as he was unable to reconstruct his forces, he left for Baghdad where, he said, he had many followers, and put his son Kasam in charge as his deputy, promising to write to him. This was, however, only a pretext as he intended to seek safety in flight, but was caught by Mudatthar and Mutawwak and put to death.
This check caused the Arabs to keep quiet for some time. Then they received a letter from Zaqruya saying that he had heard of the death of Hasan and Isa by revelation, and that after their death the Imam was going to be revealed and would triumph with his followers. Kasam was now getting anxious, and thought it well to visit his grandfather Zaqruya in the Sawad; but Zaqruya disapproved the course of events and rebuked him severely, sending another disciple, an ex-schoolmaster named Muhammad b. Abdullah, to replace him. At first this new commander met with success, then came reverse and he was killed. At this news Zaqruya sent back Kasam to collect the remnants of the party which he did and brought them to ad-Derna, a village in the Sawad. Here they were joined by Zaqruya, who was hailed by the Arabs as their wali, and all the Qarmatians in the Sawad came out to join them. The rising in the Sawad was a mere jacquerie of Nabataean peasants, and the Qarmatian movement proper never rose much above this level. At the head of his men Zaqruya attacked the caravan of pilgrims on their way to Mecca in 294, plundered it, and slew twenty thousand pilgrims. The Khalif then sent out forces to put down these troublesome brigands, the Qarmatians were severely punished, Zaqruya was taken prisoner and sent in chains to the Khalif, but died of his wounds on the way (Abu l-Feda: Ann. Mosl., ii. 299).
In 295 a man named Abu Khatam founded a new sect of Qarmatians in the Sawad, and these were known as the Buraniyya after Burani, who was the most active daʿi in organising them. Abu Khatam forbade his followers to use garlic, leeks, or radishes, and prohibited the shedding of any animal’s blood; he made them abandon all the religious observances of Islam, and instituted rites of an entirely new character. We shall find these prohibitions of particular vegetables in the ordinances of the Fatimid Khalif Hakim later on, but there justified by certain Shiʿite theories. At the end of the year Abu Khatam drops out of sight entirely. The movement is of interest only in showing the tendency of the Ismaʿilians to form new schisms.
Another off-shoot of the Qarmatians established itself in the Bahrayn, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. In 281 Yahya, a son of the Mahdi, whom de Sacy supposes to have been the same individual who advised Zaqruya and who was killed near Damascus in 289, the one of whom we have already heard as the Sahib an-Nakat, although no mention of his real name is given in any account of Zaqruya’s rising, came to al-Katif and lodged in the house of a Shiʿite called ʿAli b. Maʿli b. Hamdan. He told his host that he had been sent by the Mahdi to invite the Shiʿites to recognise him, the representative of Ismaʿil, as the Imam, and to announce that the public appearance of the “concealed one” was near at hand. ʿAli gathered together the Shiʿites of the locality, and showed them the letter which Yahya had given him to be read to them: they promised obedience and declared themselves ready to take up arms as soon as the Mahdi’s representative appeared amongst them. Very soon all the villagers of the Bahrayn were induced to join in these undertakings. Yahya then went away and returned with a letter, which he stated that he had obtained from the Mahdi authorising him to act as their leader, and calling on them to pay him six pieces of gold and two-thirds for each man. This they did, and then Yahya brought a new letter bidding them give him a fifth of all their goods, and this they did also.
Ibn al-Athir says that Yahya went to the house of Abu Saʿid al-Jannabi, one of these Shiʿites, and that his host gave him food, and then told his wife to go in to Yahya and not refuse him her favours. News of this, however, came to the governor of the town, and he had Yahya beaten and his hair and beard shorn off as a punishment for the scandal caused. After this Abu Saʿid fled to his native town of Jannaba, and Yahya went out to the Arab tribes of Kalab, Oqayl, and Haras, who rallied round him, so that he found himself at the head of a considerable force in 286. It will be noted that the desert tribes, even though the most purely Arab, were always ready to join revolutionary movements, anti-Arab as well as other; in fact they were simply marauders, and fell in with any plans which offered promise of a period of successful brigandage, irrespective of any political or religious movements involved.
Nuwayri supposes either that Abu Saʿid had previously learned Qarmatian ideas in the Sawad, or had been initiated by Hamdan and appointed daʿi for the district of al-Katif. Most of his followers were drawn from the lowest classes, butchers, porters, and such like. The Sharif Abu l-Hasan says that Abu Saʿid regarded the daʿi Zaqruya as a rival and felt a jealousy towards him, so that, having contrived to get Zaqruya into a house belonging to him, he starved him to death.
When he had gathered a considerable following Abu Saʿid established himself at the town of al-ʾAhsa, besieged Hajar, the capital of the Bahrayn, for a matter of two years, during which his followers were considerably increased, and finally captured the town by cutting off its water supply. Some of the inhabitants escaped to the islands in the river near by, others embraced Abu Saʿid’s doctrines, whilst others were put to death. The town was pillaged and ruined, and thus al-ʾAhsa afterwards replaced it as the capital of the Bahrayn. According to Ibn Khallikan Abu Saʿid first appeared as kabir or “great man” of the Qarmatians in 286. In 287 they made an attempt on Basra, and though they defeated the forces sent by the Khalif to repel them, they were unable to take the city (Ibn Khall., i. 427).