Hamdan Qarmat聽b. al-As鈥榓t (d. 321 AH / 933 CE), was an Ismaili聽da鈥榠聽and founder of the Ismaili movement in Iraq. He came from a village in the tassuj of Badaqla, east of Kufa, and is described as working as a carter when he was converted by the Ismaili聽da鈥榠聽Husayn Ahwazi sometime between the years 260/873-74 and 264/877-78.
The name聽Qarmat聽is variously explained as having been derived from Nabataean 鈥淜armita鈥 (red-eyed), or as meaning short in stature, short-legged. After the death or departure of Ahwazi, he became the organiser of the Ismaili movement in the Sawad (a district in the countryside surrounding Kufa) and soon took up residence in the town of Kalwada south of Baghdad. His partner and chief propagandist was his brother-in-law 鈥楢bdan.
Besides appointing the da鈥榠s throughout the districts of the Sawad, Hamdan and 鈥楢bdan also trained da鈥榠s for missions abroad. Thus they sent Abu Sa鈥榠d Jannabi first to the coastal regions of聽Fars聽and later to Bahrain, and Ibn Hawsab and 鈥楢li b. al-Fazl to the Yemen.
Later Hamdan sent 鈥楢bu Abd-Allah al-Shi鈥榠 to the Yemen for training, from where he proceeded to the聽Maghrib. There he converted the KutamaA Berber tribe in North Africa who became key supporters of the Fatimids in the 10th century. Berbers to the Ismaili cause. According to 鈥楢bd al-Qahir Baghdadi (p. 267), al-Ma鈥檓un, the聽da鈥榠聽of聽FarsA province in southwestern Persia, the capital of which is Shiraz., was a brother of Hamdan.
Author
Professor Wilferd Madelung
A leading contemporary Islamicist, Professor Wilferd Madelung has made significant contributions to modern scholarship on mediaeval Islamic communities and movements, including Twelver Shi’ism, Zaydism and Ismailism. Educated at the Universities of Cairo and Hamburg, he became Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago in 1969 and the Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford from 1978.
Among his recent publications are聽Religious Schools and Sects in Mediaeval Islam聽(London, 1985),聽Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran聽(Albany, NY, 1988),聽Religious and Ethnic Movements in Mediaeval Islam聽(Hampshire, 1992),聽The Succession to Muhammad: A 久久久福利国产 of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, 1997), and with Paul E. Walker聽An Ismaili Heresiography聽(Leiden, 1998). He has contributed extensively to聽The Encyclopaedia of Islam,聽Encycopaedia Iranica聽of which he is also a Consulting Editor, and learned journals.
