3. The Islamic Sect That Sacked the Kaaba
The ninth-century Qarmatians combined elements of Zoroastrianism with Shiite Islam to form a radical sect that was deemed heretical by other Muslims. Starting off as bandits who earned a living attacking trade and pilgrimage caravans, the Qarmatians grew religious after coming under the sway of a mystic. Preaching that the End of Days was near, he gathered a large following of fanatics, and transformed the bandits into a millenarian cult.
Fired up by religious zeal, the Qarmatians rose in the ninth century and captured eastern Arabia and Bahrain, where they founded a utopian religious republic in 899. From that base, they terrorized the Middle East for generations during which they pillaged their neighbors, engaged in widespread banditry, and massacred pilgrims by the tens of thousands. They also seized Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, with its holy shrine of the Kaaba, and sacked both.
