There are some who think that if the Islamic world suffers a catastrophic loss — say, the destruction of Mecca — it would cause widespread disillusionment and even apostasy, and blunt the force of the advancing jihad. There have been incidents in Islamic history, however, that involved such catastrophes, and the jihad went on as always. In my new book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, I recount how the Qarmatians, an apocalyptic Ismaili Shi’ite sect, stormed Mecca in the year 928 and stole the Black Stone from the Ka’aba.
Their theft of the Black Stone signified, the Qarmatians said, the end of Islam as such and the commencement of the age of the Mahdi, the savior figure of Islam. They were, however, willing to return it for a ransom back to Mecca, but no ransom was ever paid.
The Qarmatians kept the black stone for 22 years, finally returning it in the year 950, on the orders of the Fatimid Shi’ite caliph who had established himself in Cairo and whose authority they had accepted. They threw it into Great Mosque of Kufa in central Iraq, breaking it into seven pieces. And did they return the same black stone they had taken 22 years before? No one knows. But in any case, this curious episode shows that the jihad, unfortunately, can survive what appear to be appalling setbacks and affronts to core Islamic assumptions.
Keep up with the Qarmatians. Read The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, a book that challenges numerous cherished assumptions of today’s foreign policy “experts,” as well as of those who reject the competence of those “experts.” Click here to preorder.