It does not appear that Náṣir-i- Khusraw had embraced the Isma'ílí doctrine before he made his journey to Egypt and the West, and we may fairly assume that the admirable example presented to other governments of that period by the Fáṭimids had no inconsiderable effect in his conversion to those views of which, till the end of his long life, he was so faithful an adherent and so earnest an exponent. That he was familiar with the Gospels is proved by several passages in his poems; and no doubt he held that men cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, and that a doctrine capable of producing results which contrasted so favourably with the conditions prevalent under any other contemporary government had at any rate a strong primâ facie claim to serious and attentive consideration.

Before we proceed to speak of this doctrine, however, it is necessary to say something of a less orderly and well-conducted branch of the Ismá'ílís, whose relation to the Fáṭimid Caliphs still remains, in spite of the investigations of many eminent scholars, notably de Goeje, somewhat of a mystery. Mention has already been made of Ḥamdán Qarmaṭ, from whom the Carmathians (Qarámiṭa) derive their name. These Car-mathians, the followers of the above-named Qarmaṭ and his disciple 'Abdán (the most prolific writer of the early Ismá'ílís),* are much less intimately connected with Persian history than the Fáṭimid Ismá'ílís, and their power was of much shorter duration; but for about a hundred years (A.D. 890-990) they spread terror through the realms of the 'Abbásid Caliphs. Already, while the Zanj insurrection was in progress, we find Qarmaṭ interviewing the insurgent leader and endeavouring to arrive at an understanding with him, which, however, proved to be impossible.* Very shortly after this (A.D. 892) the increasing power of the Carmathians began to cause a lively anxiety at Baghdad.* About five years later they first rose in arms, but this insurrection, as well as those of A.D. 900, 901, and 902, was suppressed. Yet already we find them active, not only in Mesopotamia and Khuzistán, but in Baḥrayn, Yaman, and Syria; on the one hand we hear of them in the prison and on the scaffold; and on the other, led by their dá'ís Zikrawayh and Abú Sa'íd Ḥasan b. Bahrám al-Jannábí (both Persians, to judge by their names), we find them widely extending their power and obtaining absolute control of vast tracts of country. In A.D. 900 the Caliph's troops were utterly routed outside Baṣra, and only the general, al-'Abbás b. 'Amr al-Ghanawí, returned to tell the tale at Baghdad;* while a year or two later “the Master of the Camel” (Ṣáḥibu'n-náqa), and after his death his brother, “the Man with the Mole” (Ṣáḥibu'sh-Sháma, or Ṣáḥibu'l-Khál), were ravaging Syria up to the very gates of Damascus. The success of this last was, however, short-lived, for he was taken captive and put to death in December, A.D. 903, and the death of Zikrawayh in the defeat inflicted on him three or four years later saved Syria for the time being from further ravages. His last and most signal achieve­ment was his attack on the pilgrim-caravan returning from Mecca, in which fearful catastrophe no less than twenty thousand victims are said to have perished.

The Fáṭimid dynasty had been firmly established in North Africa for some years before we hear much more of the Carmathians;* but in A.D. 924 Abú Ṭáhir al-Jannábí (the son and successor of the Abú Sa'íd al-Jannábí mentioned above) raided Baṣra and carried off a rich booty; a few months later another pilgrim-caravan was attacked (2,200 men and 300 women were slain, and a somewhat greater number taken captive, together with a vast booty);* and soon afterwards Kúfa was looted for six days, during which the Carmathian leader quartered his guard in the great mosque. In the early spring of A.D. 926 the pilgrim-caravan was allowed to proceed on its way after payment of a heavy ransom, but during the three following years passage was absolutely barred to the pilgrims. But it was in January, 930, that the Carmathians performed their greatest exploit, for in the early days of that month Abú Ṭáhir, with an army of some six hundred horse­men and nine hundred unmounted soldiers, entered the sacred city of Mecca itself, slew, plundered, and took captive in the usual fashion, and—the greatest horror of all in the eyes of pious Muslims—carried off the Black Stone and other sacred relics. In this culminating catastrophe 30,000 Muslims are said to have been slain, of whom 1,900 met their death in the very precincts of the Ka'ba; the booty carried off was immense; and the scenes which accompanied these sacrilegious acts baffle description.

*

It is unnecessary to follow in detail the further achievements of the Carmathians, who continued to raid, plunder, massacre, and levy taxes on the pilgrims until the death of Abú Ṭáhir in A.D. 944. Six years later the Black Stone, having been kept by the Carmathians of al-Aḥsá for nearly twenty-two years, was voluntarily restored by them to its place in the Ka'ba of Mecca. “We took it by formal command (of our Imám), and we will only restore it by a command (from him)” had been their unvarying reply to all the attempts of the Muslims to persuade them to yield it up in return for enormous ransoms; but at length the order was issued by the Fáṭimid Caliph al-Qá'im or al-Manṣúr,* and the stone was once more set in its place, to the infinite joy and relief of all pious Muhammadans. Very soon after the Fáṭimids had obtained possession of Egypt (A.D. 969) a quarrel arose between them and their Carmathian co-religionists,* and a year or two later we actually find some of the latter fighting on the side of the 'Abbásids against their ancient masters.

The exact relations which existed between the apparently antinomian, democratic, and predatory Carmathians and the theocratic Fáṭimids, whose just and beneficent rule has been already described,* are, as has been said, somewhat obscure. But de Goeje has conclusively proved, in the able and learned treatise so frequently quoted in this chapter, that these relations were of the closest; that the Carmathians recognised to the full (save in some exceptional cases) the authority, temporal and spiritual, of the Fáṭimid Caliphs, even though it often seemed expedient to the latter to deny or veil the connection;* and that the doctrines of both were the same, due allowance being made for the ruder and grosser under­standings of the Bedouin Arabs from whom were chiefly recruited* the ranks of the Carmathians, who were, as de Goeje observes, “as was only natural, absolute strangers to the highest grade of initiation in which the return of Muḥammad b. Isma'íl was spiritually explained.”

Of what is known concerning the internal organisation of the Carmathians; of their Supreme Council, the white-robed 'Iqdániyya, to whom was given power to loose and to bind; of their disregard of the ritual and formal prescriptions of Islám, their contempt for the “asses” who offered adoration to shrines and stones, and their indulgence in meats held unlawful by the orthodox; and of their revenues, commerce, and treatment of strangers, full details will be found in de Goeje's monograph. Of the many interesting passages cited in that little volume (a model of scholarly research and clear exposi­tion) the reader's attention is specially directed to the narrative of a woman who visited the Carmathian camp in search of her son (pp. 51-56); the poems composed by Abú Ṭáhir al-Jannábí after the sack of Mecca (p. 110) and Kúfa (pp. 113-115); the scathing satire composed in Yaman agaisnt the Carmathian chief (pp. 160-161); the narrative of a traditionist who was for a time a captive and a slave in the hands of the Carmathians (pp. 175-6); and the replies made by a Carmathian prisoner to the Caliph al-Mu'taḍid (pp. 25-6). That morally they were by no means so black as their Muslim foes have painted them is certainly true, but of the terrible bloodshed heralded by their ominous and oft-repeated formula “Purify them” (by the sword) there is unfortunately no doubt whatever.

We must now pass to an examination of the Isma'ílí doctrine —a doctrine typically Persian, typically Shí'ité, and possessed of an extraordinary charm for minds of a certain type, and that by no means an ignoble or ignorant one.* And here I will cite first of all the concluding paragraphs of an article which I contributed in January, 1898, to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurúfí Sect (pp. 88-9):—

“The truth is, that there is a profound difference between the Persian idea of Religion and that which obtains in the West. Here it is the ideas of Faith and Righteousness (in different proportions, it is true) which are regarded as the essentials of Religion; there it is Knowledge and Mystery. Here Religion is regarded as a rule by which to live and a hope wherein to die; there as a Key to unlock the Secrets of the Spiritual and Material Universe. Here it is associated with Work and Charity; there with Rest and Wisdom. Here a creed is admired for its simplicity; there for its complexity. To Europeans these speculations about ‘Names’ and ‘Numbers’ and ‘Letters’; this talk of Essences, Quiddities, and Theophanies; these far-fetched analogies and wondrous hair-splittings, appear, as a rule, not merely barren and unattractive, but absurd and incom­prehensible; and consequently, when great self-devotion and fearlessness of death and torture are witnessed amongst the adherents of such a creed, attempts are instinctively made by Europeans to attribute to that creed some ethical or political aim. Such aim may or may not exist, but, even if it does, it is, I believe, as a rule, of quite secondary and subordinate importance in the eyes of those who have evolved and those who have accepted the doctrine…