to the lands of Ifriqiyyah, where he claimed to be a Fatimid sharif. A large number of Berbers and other ignorant folk believed him, and he soon possessed a state of his own. He seized the city of Sijilmāsah (1); afterwards he founded a new city which he called al-Mahdiyyah, making it the seat of his rule. The Qarmatians kept up a correspondence with him, preached on his behalf, and rallied to his side. It is said, however, that they did so purely for political gain and worldly power, with no true conviction behind it (2).

Ibn al-Athīr relates that al-Mahdī wrote to Abū Ṭāhir the Qarmatian, reproaching him for what he had done in Mecca. His deed, he said, had given people free rein to slander them and had exposed the secrets they had long concealed through that vile act. He ordered him to restore what he had taken and to return to Mecca. Abū Ṭāhir replied with full submission and obedience, declaring that he accepted the order in its entirety (3).

One of the hadith scholars was once taken captive by these Qarmatians—may Allah curse them (4)—but Allah later delivered him. He used to relate (5) that his captor put him to the hardest and most exhausting tasks (6) and would rave at him whenever he was drunk.

He said to me one night while in a drunken stupor:
“What do you say about your Muhammad?”
I replied, “I do not know.”
He retorted, “He was only a wily politician.”
Then he asked, “And what do you say about Abū Bakr?”
I replied, “I do not know.”
He said, “He was weak and contemptible; ʿUmar was harsh and coarse; ʿUthmān was ignorant and stupid; and ʿAlī was a charlatan (7). Was there no one with him to learn the knowledge he claimed lay within his breast? Could he not have taught this man a word and that man a word?”
He concluded, “It is all sheer fraud.”
When morning came he said to me, “Do not tell anyone what I said to you.” Ibn al-Jawzī recorded this in his al-Muntaẓam (8).

It is also related from one of them (9) who said: “I was in the Sacred Mosque the day the Black Stone was uprooted (10) when a man entered, drunk, riding a horse. He whistled at the animal until it urinated inside the Sacred Mosque, right in the place of ṭawāf; then he charged at a man standing beside me and killed him. After that he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘You donkeys (11)! Did you not say about this House of yours, “Whoever enters it shall be safe” (Āl ʿImrān 3:97)? So where is the safety?’ I said to him, ‘Do you hear—