CARMATI. — In a generic and improper sense, the term *carmati* is one of the various names (Isma'ilis, Bāṭinis, etc.) by which, both in the East and in Europe, a sectarian tendency of the extreme *sharīʿah* is designated. More precisely, they are the organizers and followers of the great revolt against the Sunni Islamic caliphate in the 9th–10th centuries of our era, which had significant repercussions on the Fāṭimid caliphate of Egypt.
The name of the sect of the *carmati* derives from Hamdān, a fanatical proselytizer of the Isma'ili ʿAbdallāh, who lived in the 9th century of our era and bore the nickname *Qarmat*, of uncertain etymology and meaning. In the movement of the *carmati*, among other things, a clear expression was found for the contrast between the indigenous peasant element (Qarmat was a peasant from Mesopotamia) and the Semitic rulers who came from the deserts of Arabia. Significant is the fact that Qarmat allegedly became convinced, for astrological reasons, that the Iranians would take revenge and reconquer the empire of the Arabs.
The founder of the sect, whose headquarters were near Kufa, organized an extremely skillful propaganda, especially among the masses of non-Arab peasants and artisans. Some Arabs, however, also adhered to Carmati belief.
It is not easy to discern what, doctrinally, distinguishes the *carmati* from other related religious movements (cf. ISMAILITES, etc.), also because their doctrines survive mainly in the biased and hostile expositions made by their adversaries, nor are their relations with the Fāṭimids entirely clear, whom at one point they seemed to oppose. However, they differ from other extreme Shiʿite groups both in the more pronounced intellectualism of their doctrines and in their apparent belief that it was not necessary for the *mahdī* (cf.) to descend by blood from ʿAlī. Their communist tendencies are generally acknowledged: the head of the Carmati state was a *primus inter pares*, assisted by a kind of senatorial body (the *ʿiqdāniyyah*). Heavy land taxes and tithes, along with war booty, provided approximately 1,300,000 dinars annually. Moreover, all faithful members surrendered a fifth of their possessions to the community, which then redistributed them. The leaders generally did not exempt themselves from battle and were in the front lines of the most difficult expeditions. Revolts such as those of the *carmati* initially had a distinctly anti-Arab character. A tradition reported by Nizām al-Mulk attributes to a Shiʿite extremist "subversive" the words: "Mazdak (the well-known pre-Islamic Persian communist reformer) was a Shiʿite!" while a *carmati* is said to have declared: "Three men ruined humanity: a shepherd (Moses), a physician (Jesus), and a camel-driver (Muḥammad). And the last was the worst of all."
From a theological standpoint, the doctrine of the *carmati* is a mystical-emanationist doctrine not unlike that of other extreme Shiʿite sects, such as the Druzes, the Assassins, and the Nusayris, which are considered "heretical" even by the "orthodox" Twelver Shiʿites. For them, the universe is a great play of appearances that repeat cyclically. The intellectual entities that are the actors in this continuous drama are always the same and invariable in number: such intelligences are truly recognized in their real essence only through the annihilation of the material veil that obscures them and at the same time multiplies their apparent forms; only then does the intelligence truly "be reborn" ("second creation") and conform to that pure and impersonal thought which is God. The *carmati* thus logically deny every divine attribute and posit God as an empty intelligibility devoid of any content.
External worship is thus practically devalued: true worship consists in tracing back through the various stages of emanation, which fragments God into the world, to the punctual and undifferentiated unity of the Divine. Divine sparks are temporarily particularized into two "hierarchical" series: the descending series of initiators (*nāṭiq*, *sāmit*, *bāb*) and the ascending series of initiators (*dāʿī*, *ḥujjah*, *imām*). Such intelligences have only the appearance of personality, and it is not certain that in subsequent cycles, parallel to the great astral cycles, they will reappear in the world with the same personality.
Compared with other extreme sects, the *carmati* are more distinctly intellectualist: for them, there is not even the crudely material and sometimes grossly understood metempsychosis almost universally accepted by heretical Shiʿites, since one cannot speak of metempsychosis with intelligences that are impersonal.
Among other things, the *carmati* restore the primacy of the Prophet Muḥammad over ʿAlī, which some Shiʿite sects denied; they admit initiation even for women and emphasize the fundamental equality of all religions.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Carmati movement is the great development they gave to workers' and artisans' associations; indeed, according to some scholars, such as Massignon, medieval craft guilds and Freemasonry may trace their origins to a Carmati influence.
The *carmati*, who considered it legitimate to shed the blood of their adversaries, even if Muslim, constituted a grave danger to orthodox Islam. In 899, they succeeded in founding an independent state on the western shore of the Persian Gulf, with its center at al-Aḥsāʾ, from which they periodically devastated neighboring countries. In 903, the *carmati* leader al-Ghannābī subdued the Yamāmah and invaded Oman. The raids of the *carmati* reached their peak when, in 930, they occupied Mecca and carried off the Black Stone from the Kaʿbah (cf.). Only in 951 was the Black Stone returned to Mecca by order of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Manṣūr. Even distant Khurāsān became, through Carmati propaganda, a dangerous breeding ground for revolt. Only in 1077–78 was the Carmati state of al-Aḥsāʾ finally overthrown.
Though the Carmati movement was destroyed politically, it was not so 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. The Bābism (cf.) movement is ultimately connected to conceptions proper to extreme Shiʿism in all ages.
The Carmati movement also exerted a notable influence on the philosophical, dogmatic, and especially mystical development of Islam.