Abbasid
After the Qarmatian Raid on Makkah
The empty place of the Black Stone, 317 AH
Dhul Hijja 317 AH / 930 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
The sanctuary at Makkah, around the Kaaba
21.4225, 39.8262 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
During the Hajj of 317 AH (930 CE) the sanctuary at Makkah suffered one of the gravest violations in its history. The Qarmatians, a militant heterodox sect of Isma'ili origin based in eastern Arabia (the region of al-Ahsa) under their leader Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, fell upon the city while it was full of pilgrims. They massacred great numbers, the sources say the dead were thrown into the well of Zamzam, stripped the Kaaba, and prised the Black Stone from its corner and carried it away to their own country. The Qarmatians held a doctrine far outside both Sunni and mainstream Shia Islam, and the raid horrified the whole Muslim world; the Abbasid caliphate, already weakening, could not prevent or quickly avenge it. The Black Stone remained in the Qarmatians' hands for roughly two decades before it was at last returned, by tradition around 339 AH (950-951 CE), and restored to its place in the Kaaba. The episode is recorded with horror by the Sunni historians, among them Ibn al-Athir, al-Dhahabi, and Ibn Kathir, and by the contemporary administrator-historian Miskawayh. This scene does not depict the attack; it depicts the stillness afterward, the holiest place of Islam violated and emptied. The Kaaba stands in the open court of the early-medieval sanctuary, but the eastern corner is a bare socket where the Black Stone has been torn out; the well of Zamzam is covered over; the belongings of pilgrims lie abandoned across the ground; and there are no people. The framing is grave and sober, a sanctuary in the silence after sacrilege, with the bare granite hills of the Makkan valley closing it in. The scene is set deliberately in the open Haram of the age, before the arcaded galleries, minarets, and domes of the later mosque existed.
What you see
The Kaaba stands bare in an open court, but the eastern corner where the Black Stone should sit is empty: a raw socket in the masonry where the stone has been prised out and carried away, the single most shocking detail of the scene.
The mouth of the well of Zamzam is boarded over and sealed, the violated well of the sanctuary covered after the raid rather than open for the pilgrims who would normally crowd it.
Pilgrims' belongings lie scattered and abandoned across the court: dropped ihram cloths, water-skins, sandals, a fallen staff, the debris of a Hajj broken off in the middle, with no people anywhere.
This is the stillness of aftermath, not a depicted attack. The pilgrimage season has been violated and emptied; the holiest place of Islam stands silent in the days after raiders fell upon it during the Hajj.
The raiders were the Qarmatians, a militant heterodox sect out of eastern Arabia, condemned across the Muslim world; the Black Stone they carried off would be held in their country for some twenty years before it was at last returned.
The sanctuary around the Kaaba is the open early-medieval Haram: a low enclosing wall and the stone houses of Makkah pressing close, with none of the arcaded galleries, minarets, or domes of the later Ottoman and modern mosque.
Bare granite hills ring a narrow dry valley with no greenery and no river, the arid basin of Makkah in the Hijaz, the unmistakable setting of the sanctuary.
Primary sources
Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh (early 13th c.): Sunni historical synthesis. A principal narrative source for the Qarmatian raid of 317 AH, the massacre, the taking of the Black Stone, and its eventual return. Confidence high for the sequence.
al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam (14th c.): Major Sunni historical compendium. Used for the dating and for the condemnation of the Qarmatians across the Muslim world. Confidence high.
Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya (14th c.): Sunni historical synthesis. Consolidates the accounts of the raid and the return of the Black Stone. Confidence high.
Further reading & cross-references
Miskawayh, Tajarib al-Umam (late 10th c.): Near-contemporary Sunni administrator-historian. Used for the Qarmatian threat to Iraq and the Hijaz and the weakness of the Abbasid response. Confidence high.
Wilferd Madelung, studies on the Qarmatians (modern): Modern non-confessional academic scholarship. Used as a cross-reference for the Qarmatian movement's origins and aims and the chronology of the raid and the stone's return. Confidence high for the framework.
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