booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

By means such as these the extraordinary result was brought about that a multitude of men of diverse beliefs
were all working together for an object known only to a few of them....(2) I quote this passage at length
because it is of immense importance in throwing a light on the organization of modern secret societies. It
does not matter what the end may be, whether political, social, or religious, the system remains the same-the
setting in motion of a vast number of people and making them work in a cause unknown to them. That this
was the method adopted by Weishaupt in organizing the Illuminati and that it came to him from the East will
be shown later on. We shall now see how the system of the philosopher Abdullah paved the way for bloodshed
by the most terrible sect the world had ever seen.
The Karmathites
The first open acts of violence resulting from the doctrines of Abdullah were carried out by the
Karmathites, a new development of the Ismailis. Amongst the many Dais sent out by the leader-which included
his son Ahmed and Ahmed's son-was the Dai Hosein Ahwazi, Abdullah's envoy to Irak in Persia,
who initiated a certain Hamdan surnamed Karmath into the secrets of the sect. Karmath, who was a born intriguer
and believed in nothing, became the leader of the Karmathites in Arabia, where a number of Arabs
were soon enlisted in the society. With extraordinary skill he succeeded in persuading these dupes to make
over all their money to him, first by means of small contributions, later by larger sums, until at last he convinced
them of the advantages of abolishing all private property and establishing the system of the community
of goods and wives. This principle was enforced by the passage of the Koran: " Remember the grace
of God in that whilst you were enemies, He has united your hearts, so that by His grace you have become
brothers...." De Sacy thus transcribes the methods employed as given by the historian Nowairi: When
Karmath had succeeded in establishing all this, and everyone had agreed to conform to it, he ordered the
Dais to assemble all the women on a certain night so that they should mingle promiscuously with all the
men. This, he said, was perfection and the last degree of friendship and fraternal union. Often a husband led
his wife and presented her himself to one of his brothers when that gave him pleasure. When he (Karmath)
saw that he had become absolute master of their minds, had assured himself of their obedience, and found
out the degree of their intelligence and discernment, he began to lead them quite astray. He put before them
arguments borrowed from the doctrines of the Dualists. They fell in easily with all that he proposed, and
then he took away from them all religion and released them from all those duties of piety, devotion, and the
fear of God that he prescribed for them in the beginning. He permitted them pillage, and every sort of immoral
licence, and taught them to throw off the yoke of prayer, fasting, and other precepts. He taught them
that they were held by no obligations, and that they could pillage the goods and shed the blood of their adversaries
with impunity, that the knowledge of the master of truth to whom he had called them took the
place of everything else, and that with this knowledge they need no longer fear sin or punishment.
As the result of these teachings the Karmathites rapidly became a band of brigands, pillaging and massacring
all those who opposed them and spreading terror throughout all the surrounding districts.
Peaceful fraternity was thus turned into a wild lust for conquest; the Karmathites succeeded in dominating
a great part of Arabia and the mouth of the Euphrates, and in A.D. 920 extended their ravages westwards.
They took possession of the holy city of Mecca, in the defence of which 30,000 Moslems fell. " For a
whole century," says von Hammer, " the pernicious doctrines of Karmath raged with fire and sword in the
very bosom of Islamism, until the widespread conflagration was extinguished in blood."
But in proclaiming themselves revolutionaries the Karmathites had departed from the plan laid down by
the originator of their creed, Abdullah ibn Maymn, which had consisted not in acts of open violence but in a
secret doctrine which should lead to the gradual undermining of all religious faith and a condition of mental
anarchy rather than of material chaos. For violence, as always, had produced counter violence, and it was
thus that while the Karmathites were rushing to their own destruction through a series of bloody conflicts,
another branch of the Ismailis were quietly reorganizing their forces more in conformity with the original
method of their founder. These were the Fatimites, so-called from their professed belief that the doctrine of
the Prophet had descended from Ali, husband of Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. Whilst less extreme than
the Karmathites, or than their predecessor Abdullah ibn Maymn, the Fatimites, according to the historian
Makrizi, adopted the method of instilling doubts into the minds of believers and aimed at the substitution of
a natural for a revealed religion. Indeed, after the establishment of their power in Egypt, it is difficult to distinguish
any appreciable degree of difference in the character of their teaching from the anarchic code of
Abdullah and his more violent exponent Karmath.
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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