الحوادث التي أحدثها القرامطة بمكة

الحوادث التي أحدثها القرامطة بمكة

316 ھ

In 316 the Qarmatian al-Janabi entered Mecca as the pilgrims gathered for the season; he killed Muslims in the Sacred Mosque, pulled out the Black Stone and took whatever ornaments and treasures were there. The stone was returned years later. At the same time Qarmatians ravaged the countryside of the Euphrates ¹. Al-Mas'udi, in his register of the pilgrimage commanders, notes that in the season of 317 no pilgrimage was completed because of the Qarmatian incident, except for a small group who went out as a raiding party; their pilgrimage was held without an imam, and they were on foot ². According to Ibn al-Athir, in 317 Mansur al-Daylami led the pilgrims, and Abu Tahir reached them in Mecca on the day of Tarwiya. He plundered the pilgrims' property and killed them, even within the Sacred Mosque and inside the House itself, and pulled out the Black Stone and carried it to Hajar. The governor of Mecca, Ibn Makhlad, went out with a group of the ashraf who asked him for their property; they were not granted it, they fought him, and he killed them all. They tore off the Ka'ba's door and sent a man up to pull out the spout, who fell and died; the dead were thrown into the well of Zamzam and the rest buried where they had been killed in the Sacred Mosque, without shroud, washing or prayer. They took the Ka'ba's covering and divided it among their companions. When al-Mahdi Abu Muhammad Ubayd Allah in Ifriqiya heard of this, he wrote to rebuke and curse him: 'You have attached the name of unbelief and apostasy to our Shi'a and the propagandists of our dynasty. Unless you return to the people of Mecca and the pilgrims what you took from them, and restore the Black Stone to its place with the Ka'ba's covering, I am innocent of you in this world and the next.' When the letter reached him he put the stone back as described and recovered what money he could ³