Al-Muqanna (Arabic:المقنع"The Veiled", died c. 783[1]) bornHashim, (Arabic: هاشم), was an 8th-century political and military leader who operated in modern Iran. He led a rebellion against theAbbasid Caliphate and according to variousMuslim historians, claimed to be aprophet. He was a major figure of theKhorrām-Dīn religious movement, which drew on bothZoroastrian andIslamic influences.
Iranian academicsSaid Nafisi andAmir-Hossein Aryanpour wrote about him in the context of theKhorrām-Dīnān, the religious movement he founded around AD 755.
Al-Muqanna was born with the name Hashim. He was a native ofBalkh in modernAfghanistan. At the time, the city was under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, whose heads claimed successorship to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and leadership of the Muslim community. Hashim worked in textiles before his political and religious career.
Al-Muqanna's nickname comes from the veil he wore over his face.
Encyclopaedia Iranica reports that early scholars believed he was ofSogdian origin.[2]
Of Iranian stock,[3] Hashim was fromBalkh,[2] and he was a clothes pleater. He became a commander forAbu Muslim who ruled over the province ofGreater Khorasan under theAbbasid caliphs. After Abu Muslim's execution in 755 AD on the orders of the second Abbasid caliphal-Mansur, Hashim was said to have claimed to be the either anincarnation of God or aprophet.
He was reputed to wear aveil in order to cover up his beauty, which possibly inspiredMusa al-Mubarqa', while his followers wore white clothes in opposition to Abbasid rulers' black. He is reputed to have engaged inmagic andmiracles in order to gain followers. According to Bertold Spuler, Muslim historians portray Muqanna and his followers as having introduced common ownership of women.[4]
Hashim was instrumental in the formation of theKhorrām-Dīnān armies which were led byPāpak Khorram-Din. This was anuprising ofIranians aimed at overthrowing the ruling Abbasids.
When Hashim’s followers began raiding towns and property of other Muslims, looting their possessions, the Abbasid caliph sent several commanders to crush the rebellion. Hashim chose to poison himself rather than surrender to the Abbasids, who had set fire to his house. Hashim died in aPersian fort nearKesh.[1] TheKhorrām-Dīnān armies continued to exist until the 12th century.
In 1787Napoleon Bonaparte wrote a two-page short story about Al-Muqanna called "Le Masque prophète".[5]
The first poem inLalla-Rookh (1817) byThomas Moore is titledThe Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, and the characterMokanna is modeled loosely on al-Muqanna‘. An 1877 opera,The Veiled Prophet byCharles Villiers Stanford, is in turn loosely based on the story of Mokanna as given inLalla-Rookh.
St. Louis businessmen referenced Moore's poem in 1878 when they created the Veiled Prophet Organization and concocted a legend of Mokanna as its founder.[6]For many years the organization put on an annual fair and parade called the "Veiled Prophet Fair", which was renamedFair Saint Louis in 1992. The organization also gave adebutante ball each December called theVeiled Prophet Ball.
TheMystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm (founded 1889), often known as "the Grotto", asocial group with membership restricted toMaster Masons, and its female auxiliary, the Daughters of Mokanna (founded 1919), also take their names from Thomas Moore's poem.[7][8]
Argentine writerJorge Luis Borges used a fictionalized al-Muqanna‘ as the central character ofThe Masked Dyer, Hakim of Merv, a 1934 short story, and in another story fifteen years later,The Zahir, as a past avatar of the titular object.
Sax Rohmer used the legend of el Mokanna as the background for his 1934 novel,The Mask of Fu Manchu.
Iranianfilm directorKhosrow Sinai has a film script about al-Muqanna entitledSepidjāmeh (The Man in White) published inTehran in 1999.[9]
Reputed to have come from Balkh (Balḵ), not Sogdiana, Hāšem participated in the ʿAbbāsid revolution (see ABBASID CALIPHATE) and continued to serve as a soldier and secretary in the army at Merv under Abu Dāwud Ḵāled b. Ebrāhim al-Ḏohli (governor of Khorasan 137-140/755-57), and his successor ʿAbd-al-Jabbār b. ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān al-Azdi (140-41/757-58).