ONE CENTURY following the establishment of the Batiniyya, a new development of it arose. Abdallah's son and successor was Ahmad. His chief Dai or Missionary was his son (and successor) Husayn Al-Ahwazi. One of Husayn's chief Dais and successors was a Nabatean by the name of Hamdan Qarmat (Aramaic: "Esoteric Teacher".)
It is worth quoting at length another passage from the esteemed Mr. Grunebaum (Classical Islam, pp. 110-113):
"The Isma'iliyya never tried to become a mass movement nor to convert all the lower orders to its doctrine. The system allowed the inclusion of Hellenistic philosophy and science, thus appealed to the taste of the time, without compromising the basic hypothesis and thus one might say with a good conscience: the only Encyclopaedia of Knowledge which has survived from this period is from an Isma'ili Conventicle, The 'Pure Brethren' of Basra (probably started in the 970s, for it was certainly known outside in 983-4).
"With their strong stand against social abuses, the Isma'ili, shrouded in mystery though they were, were entirely up to date in their appeal, and manifold variants arose, born along by a feeling of youthful strength and with no inhibitions about traditional Islam, which they proposed to supplant. They became the most serious, not to say the only, real threat to orthodox Islam both Sunnite and Shiite: as totalitarian and theocratic as they, but still unweakened by the vicissitudes of history and alluring in the authoritative force of their teaching.
"However possible it may be trace the origin of this or that single theme to another source, it cannot be sufficiently stressed that the movement was entirely independent in its spirit and manner of expression, and was felt to be so by its contemporaries. Where else would they have heard such languages as that addressed to a leader of the Qarmatians, the 'emissary of the Messiah, who is Jesus, who is the Word, who is the Mahdi, who is Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Al-Hanafiyya, who is Gabriel': 'Thou art Emissary, Thou art the proof, thou art the she-camel (of the Prophet Salih, which, according to Koran 7:74-80, was hamstrung by the unbelievers), thou art the Beast (Koran 27:83, which God will bring forth out of the earth at the end of time), thou art the Holy Ghost, thou art JOHANNES, son of Zacharias.'? It is difficult now to recapture the stirring enthusiasm aroused by this play with time and the end of time, but it is all too clearly visible in its effect in the history of these centuries.
"The first political manifestation of the movement is connected with the name of Hamdan Qarmat (probably Aramaic: 'Esoteric Teacher') who set up a Dar-al-Hijra, an 'abode of emigration' near Kufa in 890. This being reminiscent of Medina, called the Dar-al-Hijra of the Prophet, is as much as to say 'Residence of the Mahdi, founding place of his religion'. The Nabatean peasants, of whom he himself was one, joined him and Arabs as well. Common ownership of cattle, furniture and jewels was introduced, revenues and earnings were handed over to the Community, the needy provided for out of communal foods; they were also said to hold women in common, but the reliability of the sources is not sufficient to put this beyond question. The government forced Qarmat to move to Syria, where he soon died, but the movement there flourished aggressively until the caliphate suppressed it in 903 after blood thirsty fighting. It did the same in South Mesopotamia in 906. The Qarmatian centre of Salamiyya in North Syria managed to survive. Meanwhile however the Qarmatians had begun in 894 to attach themselves in Al-Ahsa (Bahrain) to the propagandist Abu Sa'id al Jannabi. Only five years later he succeeded in bringing the whole country under his control and founding a state. Similar attempts in Khorasan and in the Yemen led rather to communities than to states; another Qarmatian state arose on Indian soil in Multan. Neither Hamdan nor Abu Sa'id or even Dhikrawah the leader of the Syrian uprising of 900 and like Abu Sa'id of Iranian origin, acted on their own authority; they were appointed by 'Fatimids', by the Sahib al-Khai (He with the Birth Mark). The common enemy was the Abbasids, and with them the representatives of the orthodox order. A generation later an opponent summarized their programme: 'They said: Truth has appeared, the Mahdi has arisen, the rule of the Abbasids, the jurists, the readers of the Koran and the teachers of Tradition is at an end. There is nothing more to wait for; we have not come to set up a government but to abolish a law.' (From the translation by W. Madelong.)
"The Bahrain Qarmatians had exceptional striking power. The caliph's army was inadequate to ensure the security of South Mesopotamia or the route to Syria, even of the Pilgrimage. Like so many heretics the Qarmatians looked on the unconverted Muslims as unbelievers, whose property and life were outside the law. The massacres of the Mecca pilgrims which they perpetrated more than once and the abduction of the Black Stone from the Ka'aba (930) were intended to demonstrate that God no longer upheld the orthodox, that the days of conventional Islam, from which the Lord had withdrawn its charisma, were numbered and the era of the Mahdi was close at hand. To all appearances the Bahrein Qarmatians gradually freed themselves of the dependence on the Fatimids. The story that the return of the Black Stone (951), and for a high ransom, was in obedience to Fatimid instructions probably originates in Fatimid propaganda; but the Sunnite world was convinced that the 'double plot' directed against it had a single leadership. They were none the less perfectly aware that the Qarmatians, particularly in their social structure, represented a relatively conventional and respectable version of the 'sevener' heresy.
"Shortly before 930 the Mahdist excitement reached its climax. There are stories of Kufans who hurriedly migrated to Bahrein in order to set foot in the country of the Mahdi before his appearance. In 931 the Qarmatian prince Abu Tahir handed over his government to a young Persian who had shown himself by secret signs to be the Mahdi. Abu Tahir also announced that the true religion, the religion of Adam, had now appeared; all faith until now had been false; the teachings of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed had been lies, and they nothing but deceivers [Note: Sounds like the Mandaean condemnation of the Big Three.] It is of course more than unlikely that Abu Tahir expressed himself thus. We can be sure that the extremely tenacious and polemically effective formula of the 'Three Deceivers' was invented by opponents of the Mahdi. The unislamic character of this whole episode cannot be denied; it was soon brought to an end by the cruelty of the Mahdi's regime."
This is the best account we have found. We have only to add the delineation of the degree system, and our comments. Clearly the Batini-Carmathian was where the survivors of the Gnosis congregated, at least in Mesopotamia and Syria, and perpetuated the Ancient Traditions. The whole political system attests to this. What the Carmathians did in the 10th Century c.e., the Templars and Assassins would do in the 12th and 13th Centuries, and the Illuminati and Jacobins would do, in the 18th Century; and the French Revival in the 19th. We could add, this is what the Shabbetean - Frankist movement also labored at. The doctrinal basis seems to bear some relation to the Sabaean, Yezidi, Nusairi, even some Mandaean ideas. The native Pagan cultus can be included in the list, since they never died out either. We shall first discuss the several degree systems of the Isma'ili / Carmathian / Assassin Orders. We shall wrap up the section with some more of Nesta Webster's opinions.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica article on tthe Carmathians gives us the breakdown of the degree system, plus some details on the doctrines they held. Because we want to compare degree systems we shall discuss the doctrinal information first.
The Carmathians were Shi'ites. They were a part of the Isma'ili faction of these Shi'ites. They, in turn, were descended from the Sect which 'Abdallah ibn Maimun organized. 'Abdallah taught that from the creation of man there had always been an Imam sometimes known, sometimes unknown. Isma'il was the last Imam. A new Imam was to be looked for. While the Imam was hidden, his doctrines were taught by his missionaries (Dais). Hamdan Qarmat was one of these, Ahmad ibn 'Abdallah being the chief. The last contemporary mention of the Carmathians is that of Nasir ibn Khusrau, who visited them in 1050 c.e. They ceased to exercise an influence in Arabia. In Persia and Syria, their work was taken up by the Assassins. Their doctrines are said to be in existence in parts of Syria, Persia, Arabia, India, and to be still propagated in Zanzibar (in 1958 time, when the article we used was written.).
As to the Initiatory schema, the adherents of this party were initiated by degrees into the secrets of its doctrines and were divided into seven (afterwards nine) classes. The analysis follows.
The convert was taught the existence of mystery in the Qur'an and made to feel the necessity of a teacher who could explain it.
The earlier teachers of Islam were shown to be wrong in doctrine and the Imams alone were proved to be infallible.
It was taught that there were only seven Imams and that the other sects of the Shi'ites were in error.
The disciple learnt that each of the seven Imams had a Prophet, who was to be obeyed in all things. The prophet of the last Imam was 'Abdallah.
The uselessness of tradition and the temporary nature of the precepts and practices of Muhammad were taught.
The believer was induced to give up these practices (prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, etc.).
At this point the Carmathian had completely ceased to be a Muslim. In the remaining degrees there was more liberty of opinion allowed and much variety of belief and teaching.
The Isma'ili system is delineated in MacKenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, p. 346.
Doubts were insinuated, and obscure hints were held out, that the Koran was not to be taken in a literal sense, but that great and important truths were hidden under the mysterious words of the book. The disciple, however, was taught nothing more unless he consented to be bound by terrible oaths to obedience and blind faith.
Inculcated the recognition of Imaums, or spiritual teachers, to whom it was given to instruct everyone in the true things to be believed, and whose authority was infallible.
Occupied with the mysteries of the number seven, and its special application to the number of Imaums.
Taught the initiate that Allah had sent into the world Seven legislators, each of whom had Seven immediate subordinates, called Mutes, while the legislators were called Speakers.
Informed him that each of these coadjutors had twelve apostles.
Occupied with disquisitions on the precepts of the Koran, and the subordination of religion to philosophy was maintained; the initiate was also brought to study the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
Comprehended an investigation of mystical pantheism.
Contained the principles of Mohammedan jurisprudence.
Summed up the teachings of the former, and taught that NOTHING WAS TO BE BELIEVED, AND THAT ALL THINGS WERE LAWFUL.
I. The Trial of Knowledge.
II. The Trial of persuasiveness; i.e., the talent for proselytism.
III. Denial of the Truth of the Koran, and of all other sacred scriptures.
IV. The Trial of silent and perfect obedience.
V. The disclosure of the names of the Great Brothers of the Order, royal, sacerdotal, and patrician, in all parts of the world.
VI. The Confirmation of all the preceding steps of Knowledge.
VII. The Allegorical interpretation of the Koran, and of all other scriptures. In this lodge, the divinity of all founders of religious systems was alike denied. Religion was shown to be a mere step to knowledge, its narratives merely allegorical and exhibiting the progress of civil society: Thus, man's fall signified political slavery; redemption his restoration to liberty and equality. [Compare the French Messianists of the late 18th early 19th Centuries c.e., like Junius Frey and Hoene Wronski.]
VIII. That all actions were indifferent, provided only they were done for the good of the Order; there being no such thing, absolutely, as vice or virtue...
I. The Grand Master, or Prince of the Mountain (Shaykh al Gebal).
II. The Dais-al-Khabir, or 3 great viceroys under him.
III. The Dais, or provincial masters.
IV. The Refek or Chaplains.
V. The Lazik or military body.
VI. The Fedaree, or death-devoted.
VII. The Batinee, or secret brethren, i.e., those affiliated to the Order.
So, that although there are some discrepancies in these systems, they can be pieced together as one. The resulting schema is the Order of the Temple, the Prieuré de Sion, the Illuminati, and can be seen in the system of the OTO, if one includes the XI°.
Because historical fact has rarely been respected by writers and dogmatists alike, it is not surprising to find people like Nesta Webster, and the later copycats (it is really necessary to go back as far as Webster, to get the material, newer stuff all relies on her, at least in the hack writer camp.) -- afraid and fearful. And, it is precisely because of the pretensions of dogmatic mainline religions that movements like those of Abdallah ibn Maimun, Hamdan Qarmat, Jakob Frank, Adam Weishaupt, Aleister Crowley and others are important. Indeed, these seemingly isolated movements are connected together more tightly in both a doctrinal and a historical context than any of the orthodox mainstream social control mechanisms we have been conditioned and expected to regard as religions. All "history" that we are expected to take as literally true, as an act of "faith" such as the Flood or the Resurrection -- while it may have happened, it is highly unlikely that it happened in King's English, or in the cheap paraphrased versions that followed. When archaeology comes in and verifies and/or changes the accepted story of the past, those of us who accept these more factual and "faithful" representations are called "secular humanists" and worse. Well, let them call us all these things, because at least we don't have to be identified with them!
It must be an absolutely horrific state of being to shut oneself in a box and not allow oneself to venture outside. And to call it the one true way, to call it religion, and in some cases to call it Thelema, as some pikers have been attempting to do, and to call those who actually identify with the practices, rites, beliefs, cults and sects, and deities of humankind's earliest ancestors, the Nephilim, is reprehensible. In the "Good Book" itself, these people are regarded with nothing but condemnations, as practitioners of the dead letter, as false and fraudulent charlatans who dress in sheep's clothing and deceive millions upon millions of people.
Psychological Warfare is a term that was coined in the 1940s c.e., during World War II. The practice was not invented by the tactitians of the Office of War Information, or by Sefton Delmer! The practice, at least in the West, was developed by the Christian Church as early as the apostolic age, in order to silence and get rid of any authentic groups which competed with this fraudulent soup kitchen outfit.
The Psy-Ops used by the Isma'ili cannot in any way be construed as evil. They were a reaction against the negative impact of hive-oriented orthodoxies -- Islam at first, and then, Christianity. It is true that the survivors of the original (i.e., authentic) movements which spawned Christianity constituted the earliest adherents to the Batiniyya. So, now, we turn to Nesta Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, pp. 38-40:
"...Karmath, who was a born intriguer and believed in nothing, became the leader of the Karmathites in Arabia, where a number of Arabs were soon enlisted in the society. With extraordinary skill he succeeded in persuading these dupes to make over all their money to him, first by means of small contributions, later by larger sums, until at last he convinced them of the advantages of abolishing all property, and establishing the system of the community of goods and wives. This principle was enforced by the passage of the Koran: 'Remember the grace of God in that whilst you were enemies, He has united your hearts, so that by His grace you have become brothers...' De Sacy thus transcribes the methods employed as given by the historian Nowairi:
"'When Karmath had succeeded in establishing all this, and everyone had agreed to conform to it, he ordered the Dais to assemble all the women on a certain night so that they should mingle promiscuously with all the men. This, he said, was perfection and the last degree of friendship and fraternal union. Often a husband led his wife and presented her himself to one of his brothers when that gave him pleasure. When he (Karmath) saw that he had become absolute master of their minds, had assured himself of their obedience, and found out the degree of their intelligence and discernment, he began to lead them quite astray. He put before them arguments borrowed from the doctrines of the Dualists. They fell in easily with all that he proposed, and then he took away from them all religion and released them from all those duties of piety, devotion, and the fear of God that he prescribed for them in the beginning. He permitted them to throw off the yoke of prayer, fasting, and other precepts. He taught them that they were held by no obligations, and that they could pillage the goods and shed the blood of their adversaries with impunity, that the knowledge of the master of truth to whom he had called them took the place of everything else, and that with this knowledge they need no longer fear sin or punishment.'
"As the result of these teachings the Karmathites rapidly became a band of brigands, pillaging and massacring all those who opposed them and spreading terror throughout all the surrounding districts.
"Peaceful fraternity was thus turned into a wild lust for conquest; the Karmathites succeeded in dominating a great part of Arabia and the mouth of the Euphrates, and in A. D. 920 extended their ravages Westwards. They took possession of the holy city of Mecca, in the defence of which 30,000 Moslems fell. 'For a whole century,' says von Hammer, 'the pernicious doctrines of Karmath raged with fire and sword in the very bosom of Islamism, until the widespread conflagration was extinguished in blood.'
"But in proclaiming themselves revolutionaries, the Karmathites had departed from the plan laid down by the originator of their creed, Abdullah ibn Maymun, which had consisted not in acts of open violence, but in a secret doctrine which should lead to the gradual undermining of all religious faith and a condition of mental anarchy rather than of material chaos. For violence, as always, had produced counter-violence, and it was thus that while the Karmathites were rushing to their own destruction through a series of bloody conflicts, another branch of Isma'ilis were quietly reorganizing their forces more in conformity with the original method of their founder. These were the Fatimites, so-called from their professed belief that the doctrine of the Prophet had descended from ALI, husband of Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. Whilst less extreme than the Karmathites, or than their predecessor Abdullah ibn Maymun, the Fatimites, according to the historian Makrizi, adopted the method of instilling doubts into the minds of believers and aimed at the substitution of a natural for a revealed religion. [Note: A chief heresy, according to these hack writers.] Indeed, after the establishment of their power in Egypt, it is difficult to distinguish any appreciable degree of difference in the character of their teaching from the anarchic code of Abdullah and his more violent exponent Karmath."
Radical Islam, then, was the breeding ground for the esoteric groups.
The sects of interest to us sprung from the "Seveners" who regarded Ismail as the last Imam. Then again, though, we can also include those who regard Ali as the last Imam. From the former sprang the Shi'ites, the Isma'ili, the Batinis of Abd-allah ibn Maymun al-Qaddah, the Qarmatians, and the Fatimites, which became a ruling dynasty in Egypt. From the Fatimites came al-Hakim, the 6th Caliph in Egypt. Al Hakim founds the Dar al-Hikmat in Cairo, from whence sprang both the Assassins and the Druzes. Eventually, these sects would be located in Syria, along with the Yezidis, the Nusairi, et cetera.
This is where "The Order of the East" was located, and it is from here that the "Johannites" initiated Hugues de Paien and Geoffrey de Saint Omer.
As the reader can surmise, the History of the Middle East, especially during this period, is a very confusing history. The proliferation of sects throughout the Islamic world was commonplace. The chief sect from which most sprang, the Isma'ilis, formed the basis for most.
The coming of Al-Hakim was the cause of a cottage industry of prophecy-mongers. He was to be the last of the revealed Prophets. This frenzy re-emerged in Europe circa 1260 when Joachim of Fiore had similar predictions about the return of Frederic II and Celestine V wrote his book of contrived prophetic sayings which formed the basis for the Celestine Order. This is written of in a story pertaining to our own ancestor's try at prophecy-mongering: Johann Stöffler von Jüstingen.
Hakim's vizier, Ad-Darazi, formed in the Lebanon, the sect known today as the Druzes, which we shall write of later on in this work.
Now, we present a collection of readings pertaining to some of the sects we have been covering.
"On . . . [Abdallah ibn Maymun al-Qaddah] . . . an associate of Isma'il ibn Ja'far al-Sadiq (disappeared ca. 755-762), is fathered the whole complex development of the Isma'ili religion and organization up to Fatimid times. He is variously described as a Jew, as a follower of the Mesopotamian Christian heretic Bardaisan, and, most commonly, an Iranian dualist; like his predecessor, he is alleged to have sought to destroy Islam from within in the interests of his previous religion." -- Bernard Lewis, Islam in History, pp. 276-6 (Chicago: Open Court, 1993).
DIVERSITY WITHIN SHIITE ISLAM: THE TWELVER, ISMAILI, AND NUSAIRI-ALAWITE TRADITIONS.
The Shiites, pp. 40-6.
The Mughiriyah cosmogony is a good example of how towering an imaginitive superstructure could be erected on the smallest of Quranic foundations. It is understandable that many orthodox Muslims profoundly distrusted the Ghulat and the exercise of TA'WIL; for in the hands of the undisciplined, TA'WIL seemed to grant free reign to extravagant and self-indulgent speculations while encouraging disregard for the letter of Scripture and its ritual and moral injunctions. Such disregard constituted a threat that could not be ignored, for Quranic injunctions furnished the basis of the legal system which held Islamic society together.
As part of their effort to maintain a rapprochement with the dominant caliphal powers, the ulama of Twelver Shiism upheld the validity of the Zahir and the regulations of Shari'ah as manifested in the Quran. These are to remain in effect until Judgment Day and the Resurrection, when the Occulted Imam returns as the Mahdi to administer and enforce the law directly and fill the earth with justice. At the same time twelver jurisconsults held to the reality of the Quranic Batin, knowledge of which had been conveyed by the Prophet to Ali. Through a chain of initiation each Imam in turn had privately instructed his successor in the science of Ta'wil, so that today the twelfth and last Imam is the living heir of the esoteric knowledge underlying each chapter of scripture. Access to this wisdom is controlled by the Imam's representatives, the Ulama, who become qualified to undertake Ta'wil through their study of Shari'ah and the Imam's teachings, coupled with the intense veneration they cultivate for Ahl - e - Bayt. The Ulama in return impart as much of this knowledge as they deem good in their dealings with common believers. The result in Twelver Shiite theology was an equilibrium between the Zahir and Batin, in which the Ulama as religious leaders preserved good relations with Muslim society at large while maintaining a hierarchy of initiation and spiritual privilege within the Shiite community.
The balance struck between the exegetical Batin and Zahir is one of the traits which distinguishes Twelver Shiism from the other major Shiite denomination surviving today, the Ismailis or Seveners. Numerically, Ismailis comprise only a small minority of the world Shiite population, but they have had a disproportionately large role to play in Islamic history.
This community arose as the result of an eighth century dispute within Shiite ranks over the succession to the Sixth Imam, Ja'far al-Saddiq. Apparently, Ja'far had originally designated his elder son Ismail to succeed him; when Ismail predeceased his father, however, Ja'far then selected Ismail's younger brother Musa al-Kazim as spiritual heir. This transfer of designation created much controversy among Shiites. The majority accepted Ja'far's younger son Musa as the rightful successor; this group (later to be termed Twelvers) believed that the imamate passed to Musa's descendants and terminated with the Twelfth Imam, who is alive but in occultation till the Day of Judgment. A minority, however, contended that since Ja'far had originally designated his elder son Ismail as successor, the imamate was now hereditary among Ismail's offspring.
The latter contention was no more than a starting point for the formation of a distinctive Shiite theology. Over the next few centuries Ismailis quarrelled repeatedly with each other over issues of communal leadership and the claims of various individuals to be the rightful designated successor to the line of Imams, so that the Seveners proliferated into numerous subsects. From the 9th to 13th Century, during a period when Twelver Ulama defined Shiite doctrine in a way that made possible a peaceful entente with the Sunni majority, Ismailism in its various branches, like the 'doctrinal extremists' of the Ghulat (with whom the Ismailis shared certain affinities in world view), attracted the discontented outlaws and would-be revolutionaries who, unhappy with the caliphal order, hoped for a more equitable society. Given the heterogeneity within its own ranks, Ismailism in the medieval era never experienced a concensual standardization of dogma to the degree achieved by the Twelvers; nevertheless, certain generalizations can be made about Ismaili doctrine.
Every Ismaili speculation described Ismail's son Muhammad as a prophet, with his advent and the imminent approach of Judgment Day, the Shari'ah binding common Muslims no longer held priority. The Batin underlying the law is eternal and changeless; but the legal codes derived from the mere Zahir are mutable, varying from one age of humankind to the next. Within Ismailism the belief gradually developed that there will always exist among us a succession of visible and manifest Imams, descended from the Prophet's family and Ismail's progeny, to guide the Shiite community. This concept is in opposition to the Twelver belief in an occulted Imam who has been kept alive but hidden from human view in God's custody since the 9th century. For Ismailis today the line of Imams has continued in the person of leaders endowed with the honorific title of Aga Khan. Absolute obedience is to be given to the Ismaili Imams, each of whom is known as a 'Speaking Quran': it is the Imam who makes available to believers the Batin concealed within the scriptural text. For such Muslims it becomes possible to attain direct Knowledge of the Divine Will by contact with the Speaking Quran. As a consequence, the written text of scripture, the Hadith, and the law are relegated to a subordinate status; nor need one necessarily consult the Ulama who act as guardians of the scriptural tradition. Ismailism thus earned the hostility of Sunni and Twelver jurisconsults alike. [1]
In the Middle Ages the Ismailis were feared for their militant defiance of the dominant caliphal establishment. The Ismaili onslaught worked at two levels. First, the sect's leaders dispatched DA'IS ('callers' or 'summoners', a word derived from the Quranic term Da'wah -- 'summons' -- used to describe Muhammad's prophetic mission) [[OUR NOTE: cf. the Insinuating Brothers in the Illuminati...]] to tunnel away at the foundations of Sunni society from within. Disguised as a merchant or Sufi dervish, a DA'I would wander from town to town, loitering at mosques and bazaar stalls to engage men in conversation. Those he judged susceptible he would question concerning obscure verses from Scripture until he succeeded in sowing doubts as to the proper understanding of the Quran. Gradually then he would initiate chosen novices into an alternative understanding of the Quran. During the heights of orthodox fear of the Ismailis, any DA'I caught at such covert missionizing risked immediate imprisonment or death. Interestingly the treatises written by an Ismaili confraternity known as the IKHWAN AL-SAFA' (Brethren of Purity) describe the life of Jesus in such a way as to make him look very much like an Ismaili DA'I. Christ is said to have known that he could not manifest himself openly to humans, given their state of ignorance, imprisoned as they are in Nature and the material world. Hence he took the disguise of a physician and healer and wandered from town to town, preaching, mingling with men, and piquing their curiosity with parables so as to stimulate a new understanding of Scripture. [2]
The second approach favored by medieval Ismaili leaders was direct action in the form of violence. The militant Ismailis were often referred to collectively as the Batiniyah, 'adherents of the Hidden Dimension.' Two sects in particular were notorious, the Qarmatians and the Nizaris. The Qarmatians declared all Muslims who did not heed their Da'wah to be Kafirs, unbelievers, with their lives and property not to be respected. Acts of public worship undertaken by the orthodox were seen as attempts at resistance against the esoteric message. Armed with this ideological justification, Qarmatian DA'Is gained adherents among several Bedouin tribes; together they raided caravans of pilgrims journeying on the Hajj. In the year 930 they attacked Mecca itself -- bastion of the old worship superseded by the new Da'wah -- killed pilgrims on the streets of the city, and pried loose from the wall of the Kaaba the venerated Black Stone. They kept the Stone for 21 years, finally extorting a large sum from the caliph in exchange for its return to Mecca.
More dreaded even than the Qarmatians were the Nizari Ismailis, known pejoratively to their opponents as the Hashishiyin (hashish users), better known in the West as the Assassins. The Nizaris were far more selective than the Qarmatians in their violence, targeting orthodox Ulama and Sunni government officials for political murder. The assassinations were carried out by Nizari initiates called Fedayeen (plural of Fedayee / Fida'i, 'one who offers his own life as a sacrificial ransom'). The Fedayeen were dispatched from inaccessible mountain fortresses in northern Iran (where they held a castle in the Elburz mountains known as Alamujt or the 'Eagle's Nest') and in Syria. The master of the Assassin Order was nicknamed Shaykh-al-Jabal, the 'Old Man of the Mountain,' word of whom reached Europe via the Crusaders and travellers such as Marco Polo. Saladin, the great champion of orthodox Islam during the Crusades, waged war against the Nizaris, besieging their Syrian fastnesses and in turn eluding several Fedayeen attempts at assassination.
It was at Alamut during Ramadan of the year 1164 that the master of the Nizaris proclaimed the 'Great Resurrection': THE NEW AGE WAS AT HAND, the Zahir abrogated, the Batin made manifest for initiates. In token of the old law's passing, wine was served from the fortress pulpit and the Ramadan fast solemnly violated. Orthodox chroniclers of the time registered horror. [3]
The terror of the Nizaris receded only in 1256 with the Mongol invasions, when the warlord Hulagu Khan overthrew the Eagle's Nest and scattered the Assassins. Within a generation the orthodox Mamluk sultan Baybars likewise subdued the Syrian fortresses of the Order. The Ruins of Assassin citadels survive in a number of remote sites in the mountain highlands of Syria, including Masyaf, where a Nizari castle dominates the heights above a village populated today by Ismailis. The Ismaili watchman who unlocks the fortress gate will tell you stories without prompting of the Assassins and of sultan Saladin's unsuccessful attempts to take their Syrian strongholds.
Ismaili violence is a thing of the medieval past. Under the progressive-minded leadership of the Aga Khans, the Ismailis in the 20th Century have become the most forward-looking of all Muslim denominations, sponsoring numerous humanitarian and educational projects. As in the past, both Shari'ah and Quranic scripture are subject to the interpretation of the living and present Imam, who still commands devoted obedience among his follers. Thus Ismailism today retains its emphasis on the primacy of the Batin. Ismailis are everywhere a minority; in Pakistan they have frequently been harassed by Sunni Fundamentalists. The latter accuse the Ismailis of heterodoxy and of unpatriotic disloyalty to the Shari'ah which has shaped the legal codes of Pakistan as an Islamic Nation. In response the Ismailia Association of Pakistan issued a document entitled 'Fundamentals of Ismaili Faith' which attempts to align Ismaili doctrine with Twelver Shiism (the latter is acknowledged as Orthodox in Pakistan). Thus, for example, the Ismailia Association asserts unequivocally that the 'Holy Prophet Muhammad is the last and final Prophet.' [4] Nevertheless some Muslim scholars judge Ismailism today only on the basis of its Medieval past. The eminent Twelver Shii teacher Muhammad Husain Tabutaba'i states that 'the difference between Twelve Imam Shiism and Ismailism lies in that for the latter the Imamate revolves around the number 7 and prophecy does not terminate with the Holy Prophet Muhammad.' [5] Fazlur Rahman in his textbook survey of Islam is harsh with the Ismailis:
"The Ismaili interpretation offers itself not merely as authoritative but as absolutely authoritarian, emanating from the infallible Imam. Add to this the subterranean character of the movement, the resort to terrorism, subversion, and assassination by the Qarmatians and the Assassins and the strict taboos on social intercourse with non-Ismailis and the picture of historic Ismailism is complete." [6]
Rahman passes over in silence Ismailism's reorientation in modern times and its commitment to humanitarian efforts under the Aga Khans.
The case of the Ismailis illustrates a trend at work in late 20th Century Islam. With secularism on the defensive in many Muslim countries, Islamic credentials have increasingly become revalidated as a means to political power and as a litmus test of popular credibility. In this atmosphere religious minority groups of dubious status have attempted to establish their orthodoxy. As with the Ismailis in Pakistan, so too with the Nusayris in Syria, a sect whose veneration of the First Imam is so extreme that they have been spurned as Ghulat by Sunni and Twelver Shiites alike, on the grounds that they deify the Imam Ali. Their name is derived from Muhammad ibn Nusair (d. A. D. 883), who (according to the heresiographers) claimed divine lordship for Ali and the rank of Prophet for himself. Nusairis themselves today prefer the title "Alawite" in order to emphasize their devotion to Ali rather than their historical derivation from a doctrinal extremist. Their belief in Tanasukh (transmigration of souls) is linked to a moral system of rewards and punishments: the evil are reincarnated as dogs and snakes; the souls of the good are lifted up to the heavens and granted a place among the stars. Syrian Alawites whom I met in Tartous and Hosn Suleiman in 1990 described God as 'Unknowable and invisible, a great secret.'; they added that 'Ali is the means by which God manifests Himself to us.' My informants acknowledged, too, in conversation with me that their liturgies include the ritual drinking of wine. So it is understantable if the Alawites' status within Islam has been problematic. Even Mustafa Ghalib, a Muslim scholar whose writings display a sympathetic interest in Batini thought, criticizes the Alawites for their citation of traditions concerning miracles wrought by Ali and the other Imams as proof of the divine rank of the Ma'Sumin:
"If we translate the Nusairi technical vocabulary and doctrinal symbols we will find that their intention is to demonstrate that for every action and every word there is a special Ta'wil which none know save those shaykhs who have been instructed by the Imams. This Batini Ta'wil is that which distinguishes them from their brothers the Shiites, for the Nusairis go beyond the permissible limits of doctrine in their Ta'wil. Their extremism lies in their attribution of special virtues and exalted sacred attributes to the Imam Ali ibn Ali Talib (May God be pleased with him!)... We do not disavow the miracles and wonder-working with which Nusairi books are filled but we do object to the abusive exploitation of these deeds as proof of the Imams' occupying the rank of gods." [7]
For their part the Alawites have fought for acceptance as Muslims within the Twelver Shiite tradition. The modern Alawite author Muhammad Amin Ghalib al-Tawil (d. 1932) concludes his Ta'rikh al-alawyn (History of the Alawites) with an essay entitled "Means for achieving the advancement of the Alawites":
"Despite what some people think, the Alawites constitute neither a separate distinctive religion nor a separate distinctive denomination. Rather, the Alawites are Ja'fari Shiite Muslims... Alawites believe that the Twelve Imams are Ma'sum, preserved from sin and error, and that the words of the Imams serve as definitive authoritative guides. Alawites also believe that it is impossible for the Imam to contradict the Quran and the Hadith.
"Thus there remains no distinction whatsoever among Muslims in this part of the world, except for the recognition of equality between Sunnis and Shiites. This is not too much to ask of enlightened people in this day and age, when reason prevails, which is the best determinant of the public interest. The tie of nationalism is the greatest and strongest of ties." [8]
The question of Alawite recognition has an important political dimension today as well, for the president of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, and the government officials and military officers on whom he relies to maintain power are from Syria's Alawite minority. It is understandable that al-Assad, as a member of a community rejected by other Muslims as heterodox, embraced Baathist ideology, with its emphasis on pan-Arab secularism rather than Islamic identity as a means of achieving national unity. Nevertheless al-Assad has remained conscious of the stigma of Ghuluww that still adheres to the Alawites. Hence in 1943 he requested a Fatwa from Musa al-Sadr, a prestigious Twelver Mullah and the head of Lebanon's Higher Shiite Council, concerning the denominational status of the Alawites. Musa al-Sadr replied with a Fatwa to the effect that the Alawites do in fact constitute an orthodox community within Shiite Islam. Much was at stake in this ruling: religious legitimacy within Syria for al-Assad; Syrian military and political support for Twelver Shiites in Lebanon's Civil Strife. Recognition benefitted both parties. [9]
NOTES
[1. Wilfred Madelung, s.v. 'Isma'iliya,' Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd. Ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), vol. 4, 203-206; Bruce Borthwick, 'The Ismailis and Islamization in Pakistan,' American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies Newsletter 1 (August 1990), 4-6; Sami Nasib Makarem, The Doctrine of the Ismailis (Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1972), 35-47.]
[2. R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 272-273; for the portrait of Jesus as an Ismaili da'i see David Pinault, 'Images of Christ in Arabic Literature,' Die Welt des Islams 27 (1987), 110 n. 5 and the sources cited therein.]
[3. Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (Oxford University Press, 1967), 72-73.]
[4. Makarem, op. cit., 73-75.]
[5. Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Shiite Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977), 83.]
[6. Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2nd. Ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1979), 177-8.]
[7. Mustafa Ghalib, Al-Karakat Al-Batiniyya fi al-Islam (Beirut: Dar al-Andalus, 1992) 273-4.]
[8. Muhammad Amia Ghalib al Tawil, Ta'rikh al-Alawiiyin (Beirut: Dar al-Andalus, 1966), 535-7.]
[9. Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 174.]
NATIONS OF THE MODERN WORLD: SYRIA, by Tabitha Petran, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972. Pages 26-8.
Differing religious loyalties produced diversity within Syria's overall cultural unity. The self-administered religious community as the basis of social organization goes far back in Syrian history. Islam reinforced this institution. Since Islamic law, the Shari'ah, which until the last century regulated every aspect of Muslim life, does not apply to non-Muslims, Islam from the beginning allowed Christian and Jewish authorities to manage the affairs of their own communities, in effect granting them autonomy in the legal, religious, administrative, social, and educational fields. These religious communities often acquired a political, national consciousness under the Ottoman system rended to become states within a state. The entanglement of politics with religious differences produced factionalism and conflict between communities. It also created veritable sacerdotal theocracies which made politics an affair of clan chieftains and prevented the individual from acquiring political rights and fulfilling a political function. Specialization of economic function along religious lines strengthened the particularist identity and tendencies of each community.
Syria was the cradle not only of great religions but also -- in particular during the Byzantine period and the social ferment of the early centuries of Islam -- of a profusion of heresies, schisms, and jealous sects. Some of these sects survived, especially in mountain fastnesses and isolated rural areas.
In the 10th and 11th Centuries Shiah Muslim sects found in Syria a favorable terrain. Shi'ism derived from the split that developed over the succession to Muhammad soon after his death. Shiah means partisan or follower and came to denote the 'partisan of Ali', Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. The Shi'a claimed the succession for Ali and his line by divine right in opposition to the main body of Muslims, the Sunnis (followers of the Sunna or traditions) who held that the Muslim community must elect the Caliph (Khalifa: successor) from the members of Muhammad's tribe, the Quraysh. The Shi'a schism in part expressed social tensions and the discontent of the down-trodden. Shi'a movements often raised the banner of social religious revolt. As Shi'ite beliefs merged with local cults and creeds, Shi'ism split into a number of sects, but all had in common a belief in Ali and his line either as Imams -- divinely inspired Messiahs -- or as incarnations of the deity. The last Imam (literally 'one who leads the caravan'), who was still in hiding, would return to earth as the Mahdi, the 'God-guided one', to restore justice in the world. The most revolutionary of the Shi'a movements was the Isma'ili.
Three esoteric offshoots of the Ismaili movement survived in the mountains of Syria and developed distinctive social and cultural traditions. They are the Isma'ilis, the remnants of a neo-Isma'ili movement (the Assassins) which terrorized the rulers of Syria in the 12th and 13th Centuries from its stronghold in the Nusayriyah mountains; the Nusayris or, as they are commonly known today, the Alawis (because they worship Ali); and the Druzes.
In the Syrian Arab Republic today the Isma'ilis (whose main centres are in India and Pakistan) are a tiny minority. In the 19th Century most of them moved to the Salamiyah district near Hama, where the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II granted them land. (Salamiyah was a great Isma'ili centre during the movement's early centuries.) Isma'ilis in the Salamiyah district advanced economically and socially after the Second World War, while those still in the Nusayriyah mountains remained poor and backward.
The Alawis are descendants of the old indigenous inhabitants of the Nusayriyah mountains where Shi'ite doctrine fused with earlier pagan nature worship of sacred springs and trees. The Alawi religion, in which women have no part, divides its followers into an initiated elite and an uninitiated majority. Reflecting the persecution it has suffered, this religion -- like the Druzes -- permits religious dissimulation (Taqih). Alawi society is still tribal, organized in five confederations embracing tribes and sub-tribes. Tribal chieftains and notables, who are often at the same time religious leaders, have traditionally exercised great power.
The dismemberment of Syria after World War I left the largest Alawi concentration in what is now Latakia province of the Syrian Arab Republic. Alawi peasants, however, have been driven by rural overpopulation to seek work in the plains of Homs, Hama, and Aleppo. Many Alawis fled from Alexandretta when it was annexed by Turkey in the late 1930s to join their co-religionists in the Nusayriyah mountains. Non-Alawis, mainly Sunni Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians, have until very recently dominated the city of Latakia and the towns of the coastal plains. The economic and social position of the largely rural Alawi population has been that of a subjected minority, although it constitutes the bulk of the population of Latakia province. The Alawis are the Syrian Arab Republic's largest minority, numbering between 600,000 and 700,000 or about 11% of the population. Traditionally they have been the poorest, most backward, and oppressed section of Syrian society.
The Druze sect originated early in the 11th Century, when the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, Al-Hakim, claimed to be the incarnation of the deity and a Persian, Isma'il al-Darazi, converted mountaineers of the southern Lebanon to this belief. Bloody Qays-Yaman conflicts among the Druzes early in the 18th Century and conflicts with the Maronite Christians in the mid-19th Century provoked waves of Druze migration to the Hawran. The Jebel Hawran then came to be known as the Jebel Druze. In the Druze Religion, in which God's will is revealed only to a few, a religious hierarchy is based on the degree of initiation into the secrets of the doctrine, of which the majority remain in ignorance.
Today the Druze account for 90% of the population in the Jebel Druze and about 3% of the total population of the Syrian Arab Republic. Druze society is traditionally organized around ruling families or clans, but it does not have a hierarchy of families or chieftains. Many Druzes are mountain peasants with small holdings. The Druzes have played an important role in modern Syrian political and cultural life.
We must expand this to include more on the Fatimites, in the next section.
Wassermann, in The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven, states that Mansur al-Hallaj hailed from Carmathian circles. In an article on the Isma'ilis and the Qarmatians, posted on the internet, we find:
"It must be known that some historians have tried to establish as fact that the Qarmatians and the Ismailis constituted one and the same movement, and some have tried to prove the contrary. Ibn Rizam, an anti-Ismaili pamphleteer of the first half of the fourth/tenth century had wrongly woven stories of the Ismailis and Qarmatians, to which S. M. Stern writes in "Studies in Early Ismailism" (Jerusalem, 1983, p. 295) that, 'One might regard this account which derives after all from a pamphleteer whose aim was to blacken the reputation of the Fatimid, with some suspicion.' Historian Nuwayri (d. 732/1332) also poured unbelievable stuff, whose primary purpose was to provide entertaining reading and cared less than anything for the truth. It is however curious to note a general tendency in the Sunnite and Shiite sources, when referring to the Ismailis, often erroneously call them Qarmatians without perception of the distinction between them. The Qarmatians have been discredited invariably as the extremist and opportunistically nihilist, and their extreme activities have been wrongly conflated with the Ismailis. Syed Abid Ali writes in 'Political Theory of the Shiites' (cf. A History of Muslim Philosophy, edited by M. M. Sharif, Germany, 1963, 1st vol., p. 738) that, 'The Carmathian sect is not confused with the Ismailites, as the latest research has established beyond any doubt: it is the term 'Ismailite' which is indicative of the true origin of the sect, other applications being either misleading or based on hostility to this sect in general and to orthodox Shiites in particular.' He also writes, 'At this juncture, it is perhaps expedient to state in the most explicit terms that the Carmathians were not associated with the Ismailis, nor were they identical with them as it is sometimes wrongly supposed.' (ibid., p. 741). S. M. Stern also writes in 'Studies in Early Ismailism' (Jerusalem, 1983, pp 289-290) that, 'It is true that the movement to which both names (Ismailis and Qarmatians) are applied was at one moment in its history broken by a schism, and that the name 'Qarmatian' was predominantly used in respect of the Qarmatians in Bahrayn, who were at variance with the main body of the Ismaili movement; yet even then the term 'Qarmatian' was not exclusively reserved for them and was often used -- usually in a derogatory sense -- to denote any Ismaili..... The early Ismailis were seldom so denominated by their contemporaries, being called instead by such names as Qarmatians or Batinis. They themselves seem to have designated their movement simply by the name 'the mission', al-dawa, or more formally 'the right-guided mission', al-dawa al-hadiya; thus 'to be converted to Ismailism' would be rendered by them as 'to enter the mission', dakhala'l0dawa. (Ibid., pp. 289-90)."
The real heresy of these groups is not their violence against other people. If that were the case, the Roman Catholic Church would have to be placed at the top of the heap. No, the real heresy is the tradition underlying the external characteristics of the sects. Natural versus Revealed religion. The religion of No-Religion, as Alan Watts called it. And, too, the fact that these groups constituted a real threat to the orthodoxy everywhere it surfaced.
A similar problem erupted within Jewry when Maimonides started quoting Averroes and Aristotle. "Secular Philosophy is destroying the traditions of the fathers!" cried the Rabbins. Oy vey! The self-same destructive (so-called) philosophies originated with the same people who provided the purveyors of revealed religion with the stories which they plagiarized quite brazenly and inaccurately.
The religious people of Sumer and elsewhere held to no revelation as a means of grace. They invoked the Deities without shame or fear. And when the Deities visited occasionally, if they were pleased, then their worshippers were rewarded. Natural religion (and Magick) is in accordance with Deity, and with Scientific fact. Revealed religion is an insidious form of social control.
Next, we shall look at the Fatimites, and their cousins, the Assassins.
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