Then the year 316 AH commenced.
In it Abū Ṭāhir the Qarmaṭian—his name was Sulaymān ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Jannābī, may Allah curse him—rampaged through the land sowing corruption. He laid siege to al-Raḥbah ⦗1⦘, stormed it by force, and slaughtered many of its inhabitants. The people of Qarqīsiyā sought a guarantee of safety from him, so he granted it. He next dispatched raiding parties against the surrounding Bedouin, killing large numbers of them as well, until they would flee at the mere mention of his name. He imposed on those Bedouin a yearly tribute ⦗2⦘ of two dinars per head, to be delivered to Hajar.
He wrought havoc in the districts of Mosul, Sinjār, and the neighboring regions ⦗3⦘, killing, taking captives ⦗4⦘, and plundering. Muʾnis al-Khādim marched out against him, but the two armies never met; Abū Ṭāhir then withdrew to his homeland, Hajar ⦗5⦘. There he built a residence that he named “The House of Hijrah,” and he began calling people to the Mahdī who was in the Maghrib, the founder ⦗6⦘ of al-Mahdiyyah. His power grew, his followers multiplied, and they launched night raids on the villages of the Sawād, killing their inhabitants and seizing their wealth. He resolved to enter Kūfah and capture it, but was unable—Allah preserved it from him.
When the vizier ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā saw what this Qarmaṭian from Hajar was doing in the Muslim lands, and perceived that the caliph and his army were too weak to resist him, he requested to be relieved of the vizierate and resigned. Abū ʿAlī ibn Muqla, the famed calligrapher-scribe ⦗7⦘, then sought the post and obtained it through the mediation of Naṣr the chamberlain and Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Barīdī—spelled with a bāʾ, from barīd (the postal service); some say “al-Yazīdī” because of his ancestor Yazīd ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥimyarī ⦗8⦘.
The caliph subsequently equipped a large army under Muʾnis al-Khādim. They engaged the Qarmaṭians, killed great numbers of them, and captured many of their notables. They then entered Baghdad with Muʾnis al-Khādim, the captives paraded before him, while several of the enemy’s white standards were borne upside-down bearing the words: “And We desired to show favor to those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders and to make them the inheritors” (Q. 28:5).
The Muslims rejoiced immensely; the people of Baghdad found relief, and the mischief of the Qarmaṭians—who had risen, multiplied, and shown their heads in Iraq, plundering many villages—was broken. They had entrusted their affairs to a man called Ḥurayth ibn Masʿūd—may Allah grant him no happiness—and they continued to summon people to the Mahdī who had appeared in the Maghrib and built al-Mahdiyyah, the ancestor of the Fāṭimid caliphs. They are impostors in the claims they advance.