The Karmathites differed from the doctrine of Abdallah, the son of Maimun, in hoisting the standard of revolt, instead of, according to the secret system, waiting their time tranquilly, till the throne should be occupied by one of their number, and openly taking the field against the existing power of the khalifat. The contest was sanguinary, like that of Babek twenty years before; but more tedious and dangerous both to the altar and the throne. Even Khalif Motadhadbillah, who strengthened, with the iron remedy of the sword, those nerves of the khalifat, so deplorably enfeebled since his sixth ancestor, Motewekul, and received in history the name of the second founder of the Abbassides, Seffahssanni, the second blood-spiller,—Abbas being the first,—was unable, with all his energy, to extirpate this pernicious brood. The astrologers, philosophers, soothsayers, and story-tellers, had entirely lost all the credit which they once possessed at court, in the reigns of Harun and Maimun:[26] these, however, being without weapons, or leaders, were in nowise dangerous; while commanders of military genius and courage, such as Abusaid, Jenabi, and Abutaher, guided the mailed arm of the Karmathites against the head and heart of Islamism. Under the conduct of the latter, the Karmathites took the holy city of Mecca, as the Wahabees have done in our own days,[27]—so little novelty do such doctrines and deeds possess in the history of Mohammedanism. Thirty thousand Moslimin fell in defence of the sanctity of the Kaaba against its impious assailants, who set fire to the temple, and carried away to Hadjar even the black stone said to have fallen from heaven in the time of Abraham. This stone was an aërolite, and for that reason, like many others, an object of popular veneration. It was restored, after a lapse of twenty-two years, when the Emir of Irak redeemed it at the price of fifty thousand ducats. The adoration of the Kaaba, which was founded on this stone, was not to have the gates of hell prevail against it. For a whole century, the pernicious doctrines of Karmath raged with fire and sword in the very bosom of Islamism, until the wide spread conflagration was extinguished in blood.