OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 49 in the fulness of time, would reveal a still more perfect and permanent law. In the two hundred and seventy-seventh year of the Hegira, and in the neighbourhood of Cufa, an Arabian preacher, of the name of Carmath,^^^ assumed the lofty andg^^danitn incomprehensible style of the Guide, the Director, the De- monstration, the Word, the Holy Ghost, the Camel, the Herald of the Messiah, who had conversed with him in a human shape, and the representative of Mohainmed the son of Ali, of St. John the Baptist, and of the angel Gabriel. In his mystic volume, the precepts of the Koran were refined to a more spiritual sense ; he relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting, and pilgrimage ; allowed the indiscriminate use of wine and for- bidden food ; and nourished the fervour of his disciples by the daily repetition of fifty prayers. The idleness and ferment of the rustic crowd awakened the attention of the magistrates of Cufa ; a timid persecution assisted the progress of the new sect ; and the name of the prophet became more revered after his person had been withdrawn from the world. His twelve apostles dispersed themselves among the Bedo weens, "a race of men," says Abulfeda, " equally devoid of reason and of religion ; " and the success of their preaching seemed to threaten Arabia with a new revolution. The Carmathians were ripe for rebellion, since they disclaimed the title of the house of Abbas and abhorred the worldly pomp of the caliphs of Bagdad. They were susceptible of discipline, since they vowed a blind and absolute submission to their imam, who was called to the prophetic office by the voice of God and the people. Instead of the legal tithes, he claimed the fifth of their sub- stance and spoil ; the most flagitious sins were no more than the type of disobedience ; and the brethren were united and concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict, they Their mili- tary ex- ploits. A.D. 11** [The " Carmathian " movement has received its name, not from its origina- **• ^ tors, but from the man who placed himself at its head and organized it at Kufa — Hamdan ibn Ashath, called Carmath. The true founder of the Carmathian move- ment was Abd Allah ibn Maimun al-Kaddah, the active missionary of the Ismail- ite doctrine. This doctrine was that Ismail son of Jafar al-Sadik was the seventh imam from Ali ; and that Ismail's son Mohammad was the seventh prophet of the world (of the other six, Adam, &c., are mentioned above, in the te.xt) — the Mahdi (or Messiah). Mohammad had lived in the second half of the eighth century, but he would come again. Abd Allah and his missionaries propagated their doctrines far and wide ; they sought to convert Sunnites as well as Shiites, and even Jews and Christians. To the Jews they represented the Mahdi as Messias ; to the Christians as the Paraclete. Abd Allah's son Ahmad continued his work, and it was one of his missionaries who converted Carmath. The new interpretations of the Koran mentioned in the text were due not to Carmath, but to Abd Allah. See Weil's account, o/>. cit., ii. p. 4985^^.] VOL. VI. 4
