Eastern Arabia
Qarmatian Kingdom

At the end of the 3rd Hijri century, Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi led the Qarmatian Revolution, a rebellion by a messianic Ismaili sect originating in Kufa in present-day Iraq. Al-Jannabi took over the city of Hajr, Bahrain's capital at that time, and Al-Aḥsā, which he made the capital of his republic. Once in control of the state, he sought to create a utopian society.The Qarmatians' goal was to build a society based on reason and equality. The state was governed by a council of six with a chief who was primus inter pares. All property within the community was distributed evenly among all initiates. The Qarmatians were organized as an esoteric society but not as a secret one; their activities were public and openly propagated, but new members had to undergo an initiation ceremony involving seven stages.

For much of the 10th century the Qarmatians were the most powerful force in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, controlling the coast of Oman, and collecting tribute from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad and from the rival Ismaili Fatimid caliph in Cairo, whom they did not recognize. The land they ruled over was extremely wealthy, with a huge slave-based economy. According to academic Yitzhak Nakash:

The Qarmatian state had vast fruit and grain estates both on the islands and in Hasa and Qatif. Nasiri Khusru, who visited Hasa in 1051, recounted that these estates were cultivated by some thirty thousand Ethiopian slaves. He mentions that the people of Hasa were exempt from taxes. Those impoverished or in debt could obtain a loan until they put their affairs in order. No interest was taken on loans, and token lead money was used for all local transactions.

The Qarmatians were defeated in battle in 976 by the Abbasids, which precipitated the decline of the Qarmatian state. Around 1058, a revolt on the island of Bahrain led by two Shi'a members of the Abd al-Qays tribe, Abul-Bahlul al-'Awwam and Abu'l-Walid Muslim, heralded the collapse of Qarmatian power and eventually the ascendancy to power of the Uyunids, an Arab dynasty belonging to the Abdul Qays tribe.
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