[The first appearance of the Qarmatians in the year 278 AH]
(1) Ibn al-Jawzi (2) said: In this year the Qarmatians—may Allah disfigure them—were set in motion. They are a faction of godless heretics, disciples of the Persian “philosophers” who believe in the prophethood of Zoroaster and Mazdak, both of whom declared the forbidden to be lawful. Thereafter they became (3) the followers of every screeching imposter who called them to falsehood, and most of their recruits come through the Rāfiḍah (4), for, in their own eyes and in the eyes of others, the Rāfiḍah are the people of the weakest intellects.
They are called the Ismāʿīliyyah because they trace themselves to Ismāʿīl al-Aʿraj b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq.
They are also called the Qarmatians; some say the name derives from Qirmiṭ b. al-Ashʿath al-Bakkār (5).
Another view holds that, at the outset of his preaching, their leader required each follower to perform fifty (6) prayers every day and night, keeping them so occupied that they could not perceive the stratagem he was devising. He then appointed twelve naqībs (wardens), laid down for his adherents a daʿwah (mission) and a path, and summoned them to an imām from the Prophet’s Household.
They are likewise termed the bāṭiniyyah, because they manifest rejection while concealing unmixed unbelief; the Khurramiyyah and Bābakiyyah, in reference to Bābak al-Khurramī who rose in the days of al-Muʿtaṣim—armies were dispatched against him until he was brought in chains and killed, as noted earlier (7).
They are called the Muḥammirah because they adopted the colour red as their emblem, imitating the black ensign of the Abbasids;
and the Taʿlīmiyyah, because they insist on learning (8) only from an infallible imām, abandoning independent judgement and the demands (9) of reason.
They are further known as the Sabʿiyyah, on account of their claim that the seven discrete, wandering planets govern this world—may Allah curse them: the moon in the first sphere, Mercury in the second, Venus in the third, the sun in the fourth, Mars in the fifth, Jupiter in the sixth, and Saturn in the seventh.