Abu Tahir Sulayman al-Qarmati

Abu Tahir Sulayman al-Qarmati, son of Abu Said al-Qarmati. He became known for his attack on the pilgrims at Mecca and for taking the Black Stone. ²

Al-Suyuti relates that he attacked the pilgrims' caravan in the Sacred Mosque on the day of Tarwiya in 317 AH. He killed the pilgrims and threw the dead into the Zamzam well. He broke the Black Stone with a mace and pulled it out; it stayed with them for more than twenty years, until it was returned in the caliphate of al-Muti. ²

Al-Suyuti relates that he climbed to the door of the Ka'ba saying words attributed to him about creation and annihilation, and that he did not prosper afterwards, and his body was consumed by smallpox. ²

Ibn al-Athir says that he came upon the pilgrims at Mecca on the day of Tarwiya in 317 AH, plundered and killed them, even inside the House itself, and took out the Black Stone and the door of the Ka'ba. When al-Mahdi Ubayd Allah in Ifriqiya objected to this and disavowed him, he returned the stone. ³

In Ibn al-Athir he entered Kufa in 312 AH, after he had asked for Basra and al-Ahwaz and had not been answered. He defeated Ja'far ibn Warqa' and stayed outside Kufa for six days. He defeated Yusuf ibn Abi al-Saj in 315 AH and took him captive, then crossed to al-Anbar, seized it and built its bridge. ⁴

In Ibn al-Jawzi he entered Basra in Rabi al-Akhir 311 AH before dawn with about seventeen hundred men, using ladders on its walls. He put the sword to its people, burned the al-Mirbad, demolished the mosque, and stayed there seventeen days. ⁵

• The sources differ on the year of the attack on Basra and the year he entered Kufa. Each account is attributed to its author here. A second source is needed.