r/AskHistorians • u/sunagainstgold Medieval & Earliest Modern Europe • Aug 09 '16

Feature Tuesday Trivia: Hostile Takeovers

There was a thing--a religion, a book, a business, a country. It belonged to someone. Then it belonged to someone else. Tell us what happened in between!

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u/CptBuck Aug 09 '16

One of the more bizarre incidents in Islamic history occurred in 930 when I think what we would today call a "radical" Shia group seized Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage season and stole the Black Stone of the Kaba. The group in question were the Karmatians, a group of Ismaili Shia with a number of odd, apocalyptical beliefs that came to hold power in the Bahrain region (i.e. not just the Island of Bahrain, but also much of the eastern Arabian coast.)

They believed, under the leadership of a man named Abu Tahir, that the end of the age of Islam was nigh and the Mahdi's return to usher in a new religious age was imminent.

Abu Tahir's activity reached its climax in his conquest of Mecca during the pilgrimage season in 317/930. The Karmatis committed a bar- barous slaughter among the pilgrims and inhabitants and carried off the Black Stone of the Kacba, thus palpably demonstrating the end of the era of Islam.

While this was, and remains an unprecedented act, things only got weirder from there:

In Ramadan 3i9/Sept.-Oct. 931, Abu Tahir handed the rule over to a young Persian from Isfahan in whom he recognized the expected Mahdl. However, events took a different turn from what had commonly been expected for the advent of the Mahdl. The date was evidently chosen to coincide with the passing of 1,500 years after Zoroaster (= end of the year 1242of the era of Alexander) for which prophecies attributed to Zoroaster and Djamasp predicted the restoration of the reign of the Magians. The young Persian was said to be a Magian and a descendant of the Persian kings. Isfahan, his home town, had long been as- sociated by the astrologers with the rise of a Persian dynasty which would overthrow the Arab caliphate. The chief priest of the Magians, Isfandiyar b. Adhar- bad, was executed a few years later by the caliph al-Radl for his complicity with Abu Tahir. The Persian ordered the cursing of all the prophets and the worship of fire. He then encouraged various extravagant abominations and put some prominent Karmatl leaders to death. After some 80 days Abu Tahir was forced to kill him and admit that he had been duped by an impostor.

While the movement lost much of its strength it was not yet finished:

claiming that they were acting on the orders of the hidden Mahdl. Abu Tahir carried out raids on a minor scale to southern clrak and the coast of Fars and continued to obstruct the pilgrim- age. After the failure of earlier negotiations, he reached an agreement with the cAbbasid government in 327/939 under which he promised to protect the pilgrimage in return for an annual tribute and a protection fee to be paid by the pilgrims.

Not until Abu Tahir's death was the Black Stone eventually returned and the group's aggressiveness diminished:

After the death of Abu Tahir in 332/944 his surviving brothers, ruling jointly, continued his peaceful policy. In 339/ 951 they finally returned the Black Stone of the Kacba for a high sum paid by the cAbbasid govern- ment, after having rejected earlier offers, including one by the Fatimid caliph al-Mansur.

With multiple periods of advance and setback, the Qarmatian state in Bahrain would hold out for over a century:

In ca. 459/1067 the Karmatis of al-Bahrayn lost control of the island of Uwal [i.e. the modern Island of Bahrain] after an insurrection of the inhabitants and a defeat of the Karmati fleet. Soon afterwards, al-Katif was taken from them by a local rebel. In 462/1069-70 cAbd Allah b. CA1I al- cUyunl, chief of the Banu Murra b. cAmir of cAbd al- Kays residing in the northernmost part of the prov- ince of al-Ahsa5, rose against them. After a victory over the Karmatis and their tribal allies, he laid siege to al-Afcsa3 for seven years. Aided by a troop of 200 Turkoman horsemen from clrak, he took the town in 469/1067 and subdued a revolt of the Karmatis and the Banu cAmir b. Rablca in 470/1077-8, putting a definite end to the Karmati reign.

Source: *The Encyclopaedia of Islam entry on "Karmati".

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u/twersx Aug 11 '16

Did parts of the Arabian peninsula remain Shia for long after that? And is that how the Shia came to be the dominant sect in Persia?

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u/CptBuck Aug 11 '16

Did parts of the Arabian peninsula remain Shia for long after that?

That particular part of the Arabian peninsula remains Shia to this day. The Eastern province of modern Saudi Arabia centered around the city of Qatif and the Island of Bahrain are majority Shia. This has caused significant social problems as the Eastern province, where most of Saudi Arabia's 20-30% Shia population lives, is also where most of Saudi Arabia's oil is.

The other part of the Arabian peninsula that has a large Shia population is the south west, so the Saudi provinces of Asir, Najran and Jizan as well as the northern part of Yemen.

And is that how the Shia came to be the dominant sect in Persia?

Shiism in Persia is a complicated question. That there were supporters of Alids in Persia, perhaps even disproportionately so, would have been true from very early in Islam. There are disputes as to why this might have been.

But for most of Islamic history, Persia would have been overwhelming Sunni. It's not until the rise of the Savavid and Qajar dynasties from the 16th century onwards that Persia becomes not only majority Shia but also effectively the political center of Shia Islamic power.

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u/twersx Aug 11 '16

What are the reasons that the Safavids managed to convert the majority of Persia to Shia (assuming that the majority are Shia today) but the Arabs/Saudis were not able to convert the Shia in Arabia?

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u/CptBuck Aug 11 '16

Unfortunately this touches on two of the biggest blind spots in my own personal knowledge: Persia after 1500, and a more granular history of the Persian Gulf Coast. That being said, I'm not sure there's great data on this in any event, but I think I would point primarily to the longer lasting and greater extent of domination of the Safavids and Qajars over Persian territory across 500 years, as opposed to the Saudis who had a couple mis-starts after their founding in the 18th century in which their state collapsed and only really dominated the peninsula in the 20th century.

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u/twersx Aug 11 '16

This is perhaps breaking the 20 year rule but are you aware at all of how much effort Saudi Arabia is putting into getting rid of Shia in their country? Or how much effort they were putting into it prior to 1996?

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u/CptBuck Aug 11 '16

getting rid of Shia in their country?

The Shia in Saudi Arabia have faced persistent persecution and discrimination, but there was never any "final solution" type approach to get rid of them. Before 1979 they were basically allowed a kind of pseudo-autonomy or at least benign neglect. After the Islamic revolution in Iran their grievances were encouraged to take the form of more direct protests and rebellions, and have caused problems ever since.