A literary history of Persia

'ABDU'LLAH B. MA YMtfN AL-QADDAH 397chief propagandists of the sect, besides givingits membersone of the names (Carmathians ; Ar. Airmail or Qirmitiypi. QarAmita} by which they were subsequently known. 1 jOne of Hamdan's chief lieutenants was his brother-in-law /'Abdan T jhe author of a number of (presumably controversial) /books, who organised the propaganda in Chaldaea, while IHamdan resided at Kalwadha, maintaining a correspondence Iwith one of the sons of 'Abdu'lldh b.Maymun al-Qadddh whoabode at Taliqdn in Khurdsdn.About this time 'Abdu'llah b. 1\d>ymun.died (AiH-^6i=A.D. 874-5) and was succeeded first by his son Muhammad,secondly by a certain Ahmed (variouslydescribed as the son orthe brother of him lastnamed) called Abu Shala c la',andthirdly by Sa'fd b. al-Husaynb. Abdu'lldh b.Maymunal-Qadddh, who was born in A.M. 260 at Salamiyya in Syria, ayear before the death of his grandfather. To him at lengthwas itgranted to reap the fruits of the ambitious schemesdevised and matured by his predecessors. In A.H. 297(A.D. 909), learning from his d^l Abu 'Abdi'llah that theBerbers in North Africa were impregnated with the Ismd'iHdoctrines and were eagerly expecting the coming of the Imam,he crossed over thither, declared himself to be the great-grandsonof Muhammad b. Isma'Il and the promised Mahdi, tookthe name of Abu Muhammad 'Ubaydu'llah, placed himself atthe head of his enthusiastic partisans, overthrew the Aghlabiddynasty, conquered the greater portion of North Africa, and,with the newly-founded city of Mahdiyya for his capital,established the dynasty which, because of the claim which itmaintained of descent from Fatima, the Prophet's daughter,is known as the Fatimid. =Sixty years later (A.H. 356 A.D. 969) Egypt was wrested by them from the House ofIkhshid, and at the end of the tenth century of our era most1See de Goeje's learned note on this much-debated etymology atpp. 199-203 of his Alenwire sur les Carmathes. For a full account of the,conversion of Hamdan, see de Sacy's Expose, vol. i, pp. clxvi-clxxi,