the Mahdi. The minority believed in his death and would eventually emerge in later times as the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the precursors to all modern groups. The majority Ismā‘īlī missionary movement settled in Salamiyah (in present-day Syria) and had great success in Khuzestan (southwestern Iran), where the Ismā‘īlī leader al-Husayn al-Ahwāzī converted the Kūfan man Ḥamdān in 874 CE, who took the name Qarmaṭ after his new faith. Qarmaṭ and his theologian brother-in-law ‘Abdān prepared southern Iraq for the coming of the Mahdi by creating a military and religious stronghold. Other such locations grew up in Yemen, in Eastern Arabia (Arabic Bahrayn) in 899, and in North Africa. These attracted many new Shi'i followers due to their activist and messianic teachings. This new proto-Qarmaṭī movement continued to spread into Greater Iran and then into Transoxiana. The Qarmatian Revolution A change in leadership in Salamiyah in 899 led to a split in the movement. The minority Ismā‘īlīs, whose leader had taken control of the Salamiyah centre, began to proclaim their teachings – that Imām Muḥammad had died, and that the new leader in Salamiyah (Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah) was in fact his descendant come out of hiding and was the Mahdi (a Messianic figure who will appear on Earth before the Day of Judgment and rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny). Qarmaṭ and his brother-in-law opposed this and openly broke with the Salamiyids; when ‘Abdān was assassinated, he went into hiding and subsequently repented. Qarmaṭ became a missionary of the new Imām, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah (873–934), who founded the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa in 909. Nonetheless, the dissident group retained the name Qarmaṭī. Their greatest stronghold remained in Bahrain, which at this period included much of eastern Arabia as well as the islands that comprise the present state. It was under Abbasid control at the end of the ninth century, but the Zanj Rebellion in Basra disrupted the power of Baghdad. The Qarmaṭians seized their opportunity under their leader, Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, a Persian who hailed from Jannaba in coastal Fars. Eventually, from Qatar, he captured Bahrain's capital Hajr and al-Hasa in 899, which he made the capital of his state and once in control of the state he sought to set up a utopian society. The Qarmaṭians instigated what one scholar termed a "century of terror" in Kufa. They considered the pilgrimage to Mecca a superstition and once