Fate: Condemned as apostates by the Abbasid caliphate and virtually all Muslim authorities. Their state in eastern Arabia (al-Ahsa) was conquered in 1077 AD. Their most infamous act — stealing the Black Stone (Hajr al-Aswad) from the Kaaba in Mecca in 930 AD and holding it for ransom for 22 years — was a theological declaration that the outward pilgrimage was spiritually meaningless. Mainstream Islam never forgave this desecration.

The Qarmatians (Qaramita) were a revolutionary Ismaili movement founded by Hamdan Qarmat in southern Iraq (~874 AD) that established a radical communal state in eastern Arabia. Their theology combined Ismaili esotericism (the Quran has hidden meanings accessible only to initiates) with a revolutionary social program: common property, rejection of outward religious observance as spiritually inferior, and a messianic expectation of the Mahdi who would abolish the law. In practice, their state was organized around communal agriculture and radical equality — slaves were freed and integrated into the community. The Qarmatians represent the intersection of Ismaili theological radicalism and social revolution — the Islamic equivalent of the Münster Anabaptists or the Taborites, and equally terrifying to religious and political establishments.