CÀRMATI. – In the generic and improper sense, c. is one of the various names (ismailites, bāṭinites, etc.) by which, both in the East and in Europe, a sectarian tendency of the extreme R'ah is designated. In the more precise sense, they are the organizers and followers of the great revolt against the Sunni Islamic caliphate in the ninth–tenth centuries of our era, which had important repercussions on the Fāṭimid caliphate of Egypt.
The name of the sect of the c. derives from Ḥamdān, a fanatical proselyte of the Ismaili 'Abdallāh, who lived in the ninth century of our era and bore the nickname Qarmat, of uncertain etymology and meaning. In the c. movement, among other things, clear expression was given to the contrast between the indigenous peasant element (Qarmat was a peasant from Mesopotamia) and the Semitic rulers who had come from the deserts of Arabia. Significant
is the fact that Qarmat is said to have become convinced, for astrological reasons, that the Iranians would take their revenge and reconquer the empire of the Arabs.
The founder of the sect, whose headquarters were near Kufa, organized highly effective propaganda, especially among the masses of non-Arab peasants and artisans. Arabs also joined Carmatism, however.
It is not easy to grasp what, doctrinally, distinguishes the c. from other related religious movements (v. ISMAILITI, etc), also because what remains of their doctrines consists above all of the interested and malicious accounts given by their adversaries; nor are their relations with the Fāṭimids, who at a certain point seemed to fight them, entirely clear. Nevertheless, they are distinguished from the other extreme Shiites both by the more pronounced intellectualism of their doctrines and because they apparently held that, mahdi (v.), it was not necessary to be descended by blood from 'Alī. Their communist tendencies were characteristic and universally acknowledged: the Carmata head of state was a primus inter pares, assisted by a kind of senatorial body (the 'iqdānijjah). Heavy land taxes and tolls, in addition to the spoils of war, provided approximately 1,500,000 dīnār annually. Moreover, all the faithful handed over one fifth of their possessions to the community, which then redistributed them. The leaders generally did not withdraw from battles and were in the front line during the most difficult expeditions. Revolts such as those of the c. had, at least initially, a distinctly anti-Arab character. A tradition reported by Niẓām al-Mulk has an extremist Shiite “subversive” say: “Mazdak (the famous pre-Islamic Persian communist reformer) was a Shiite!”, while a c. is said to have declared: “Three people have ruined humanity: a shepherd (Moses), a physician (Jesus), and a camel driver (Muhammad). And the last was the worst of all.”
From the theological point of view, the doctrine of the c. is a mystical-emanationist doctrine not unlike that of other extreme Shiite sects, such as the Druze, the Assassins, the Nusajrī, etc., which are considered “heretical” even by the “orthodox” Twelver Shiites. For them, the universe is a great play of appearances that are repeated cyclically. The intellectual entities that are the actors in this continual drama are always the same and unchanging in number: these intelligences recognize themselves truly in their real essence only through the annihilation of the material veil that obscures them and at the same time apparently multiplies them; only then does intelligence truly come to life again (“second creation”) and conform to that pure and impersonal thought which is God. The c. thus logically deny every divine attribute and posit God as a statement of intelligibility empty of all content.
External worship, too, is thereby practically devalued: true worship consists in knowing how to trace backward through the various stages of emanationism that shatters God into the world, up to the precise and undifferentiated unity of the Divine. The divine sparks are temporarily particularized in two “hierarchical” series: the descending one of the initiators (nāṭiq, ṣāmit, bāb), and the ascending one of the initiates (dā'i, ḥuǧǧah, imām). These intelligences have only the appearance of personality, and it does not therefore follow that, in the subsequent cycles, parallel to the great astral cycles, when they reappear in the world, they will recover the same personality.
Compared with other extreme sects, the c. are more distinctly intellectual: for them there is not even the material and sometimes crudely conceived metempsychosis almost universally accepted by heretical Shiites, since one cannot speak of metempsychosis in the case of intelligences that are impersonal.
Among other things, the c. restore the primacy of the prophet Muhammad over 'Alī, which some Shiite sects denied him; they admit initiation for women as well and emphasize the idea of the fundamental equality of all religions.
One of the most interesting aspects of the c. movement is the great development they gave to workers’ and artisans’ associations; indeed, according to certain scholars such as Massignon, the medieval craft guilds and Freemasonry would derive from a c. influence.
The c., who regarded the shedding of the blood of their adversaries as legitimate, even when they were Muslims, constituted an extremely grave danger to orthodox Islam. In 899 they succeeded in founding an independent state on the western shore of the Persian Gulf, centered at al-Aḥṣā, from which they set out periodically to ravage the neighboring countries. In a. 903 the c. al-Ġannābī subdued the Jamāmāh and invaded 'Omān. The raids of the c. reached their peak when, in 930, they occupied Mecca and carried away Ka'bah (v.). Only in 951 was the Black Stone returned to Mecca by order of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Manṣūr. Even the distant Ḥorāsān became, through the work of Carmata propaganda, a dangerous hotbed of revolt. Only in 1077–78 could the Carmata state of al-Aḥṣā be overthrown.
But although Carmatism was politically destroyed, it was not destroyed spiritually, and the religious mentality that had been the essence of this singular movement lived on, with greater or lesser changes, in various other sects. Even bābism (v.) ultimately reconnects with conceptions proper to the extreme Shiism of all periods.
Carmatism also had a notable influence on the philosophical, dogmatic, and especially mystical development of Islam.