Cairo

Place

Time

Language

Disease

Animal

Keyword

Person

Nature event

River

Plague

Scribe

Social response

Victims

In Cairo, a total of 12 epidemic events are known so far. It is the capital city of Egypt.

Events

Date	Summary	Source	Translation	T

1217, March

The fragment of a letter mentions a great epidemic (al-wabāʾ al-ʿaẓīm) which has struck the different parts of Cairo and has affected the physician and head of the Jews in Egypt (nagid), Avraham Maimonides (d. 1237), and his daughter. The fragment bears no date, but see here.

recto: ואמא חאלנא פאן אלמולי אלרייס הנגיד יג יק[ אלאכבר מריץ פי שדה אללה יעאפיה ובנתה[ איצא והו גיר קאדר עלי מלאזמתה{א} אלא מלאזם ו[ט]אה טול אלאסבוע לא ינזל ליל ולא נהאר והו מן דלך פי שדה עטימה אללה יומן (=ימון) [אלעאפיה] ואמס וצלני ורקה מן צהרה רבנו חננאל הדיין הגדול דאם עזה והו יקול אן הדה אלאיאם מתל יום הדין כל שכץ משגול בנפסה verso: ואנמא עזימתנא וכליתנא עלי אלכלאץ מן הדא אלובא אלעטים אלדי מא פי מצר ואלקאהרה בית מן חשובי ישראל וגירהם אלא ופיה מריץ או מרצי ואלנאס פי שדה עטימה משאגיל אנפסהם ען בעצהם בעץ פכפי ען גריב

As to us, our lord, the Rayyis, the Nagid [may his] gl[ory be] in[creased], the chief [Rav] is seriously ill, may God heal him, and so is his daughter; he is unable to treat her, and confined to his bed; throughout the week he could not get up, neither at night, nor at daytime, which caused him great grief; may God grant him health. Yesterday, I received a note from his father-in-law, our master, Hananel, the chief justice, may his high position endure, saying: "These days are like the Last Judgment; everyone is occupied only with himself." We strive to save ourselves from the great plague. In Miṣr [Fustat] and Cairo, there is no house belonging to important persons and, in fact, to anyone else, where not one or several persons are ill. People are in great trouble, occupied with themselves and unable to care for others, let alone for strangers.

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1217, March

A letter mentions that a disease raged in Cairo, dated on March 17, 1217.

לקד כאן קלובנא ועיוננא מתטלעה אלי אללה סובחאנה ותעאלי באלציאם וגירה ואלדעא אן יפרג' ען ישראל מן אלדבר אלדי כאן ענדכם וכנא נדעו אלי אללה אלא יעדמנא גאה סיידנא ולא נט'רה לאן סיידנא אליום נר ישראל עלי אלחקיקה ולא ארתפע שאננא גמיעא אלא בסיידנא

A letter to Avraham Maimonides (d. 1237), the head of the Jews in Egypt (nagid), in Cairo, written by the teacher, cantor, and clerk Yehuda b. al-ʿAmmānī in Alexandria. Yehuda mentions that the Jewish community in Alexandria had been fasting and supplicating on behalf of the addressee's health and for God to lift the disease (Hebr. dever) that raged in Cairo and had afflicted Avraham, too. The letter is dated to the end of Adar 1528 Seleucid era (the month ended on March 17, 1217). (Translation: Undine Ott)

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1348, July VN: 24.000 + 2000

In the days of the Black Death, in late July 1348, the governor of Syria Arghūn-Shāh ordered the inhabitants of Damascus to fast for three days and to close the food stalls in the market. People fasted from July 22 to 24. Afterwards, the elites and the other social strata flocked to the Umayyad Mosque to recite ritual prayers, supplications and invocations of God. They spent the night there, and at dawn the morning prayer was said. Then all the inhabitants of the city – men, women and children – went out to the Mosque of the Footprints (Aqdām), the amirs on bare feet. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all took part, carrying their respective Books and imploring God. At the mosque, people abased themselves before God and supplicated him. At noon they returned to the city and the Friday prayer was said. God, then, reduced their suffering. The daily death toll in Damascus did not reach 2,000 whereas in Cairo it amounted to 24,000.

Anecdote: I witnessed at the time of the Great Plague at Damascus in the latter part of the month of Second Rabīʿ of the year 49, a remarkable instance of the veneration of the people of Damascus for this mosque. Arghun-Shah, king of the amirs and the Sultan's viceroy, ordered a crier to proclaim through Damascus that the people should fast for three days and that no one should cook in the bazaar during the daytime anything to be eaten (for most of the people there eat no food but what has been prepared in the bazaar). So the people fasted for three successive days, the last of which was a Thursday. At the end of this period the amirs, sharifs, qadis, doctors of the Law, and all other classes of the people in their several degrees, assembled in the Great Mosque, until it was filled to overflowing with them, and spent the Thursday night there in prayers and liturgies and supplications. Then, after performing the dawn prayer [on the Friday morning], they all went out together on foot carrying Qur'ans in their hands — the amirs too barefooted. The entire population of the city joined in the exodus, male and female, small and large; the Jews went out with their book of the Law and the Christians with their Gospel, their women and children with them; the whole concourse of them in tears and humble supplications, imploring the favour of God through His Books and His Prophets. They made their way to the Mosque of the Footprints and remained there in supplication and invocation until near midday, then returned to the city and held the Friday service. God Most High lightened their affliction; the number of deaths in a single day reached a maximum of two thousand, whereas the number rose in Cairo and Old Cairo to twenty-four thousand in a day.

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1348, September VN: 21.000 + 1080

In September or October 1348, the Black Death had abated in Alexandria and Cairo. The maximum death toll in Alexandria had been 1,080, while it had been 21,000 in Cairo. Everyone from among the city elites Ibn Baṭṭūṭa had known in Cairo had died.

Then I travelled to al-Maḥalla al-Kabīra, then to Naḥrarīya, then to Abyār, then to Damanhūr, and then to Alexandria. I found the plague had abated after the number of deaths had risen to a thousand and eighty a day. Then I went to Cairo and was told that during the plague the number of deaths there had risen to twenty-one thousand a day. I found that all the shaikhs I had known were dead. May God Most High have mercy upon them!

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1348, September – 1348, October

A pilgrimage caravan left Cairo for Mecca in Rajab 749 H (September 26 to October 24, 1348). The Black Death accompanied it until it reached the Ayla pass (ʿAqaba).

When I arrived in Cairo I found that the Grand Qāḍī ʿIzz al-Dīn, son of the Grand Qāḍī Badr al-Dīn, son of Jamāʿa, had set out for Mecca in a huge caravan called Rajabī, because it leaves in the month of Rajab. I was told that the plague was among them until they reached the pass of Aila where it ceased.

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1361, October – 1362, October

A deadly disease (fanāʾ) hit Cairo, Alexandria and further places in 763 H (October 31, 1361 to October 19, 1362). Many people died.

"In the year 763 AH (1362-1363 AD), a plague struck Egypt, Alexandria, and other places, causing the death of many people. In the year 775 AH (1373-1374 AD), a calamity befell in Ben Saghta. (3) In Ben: many people died. (4) In: the number increased in Ben and decreased elsewhere. (5) Among the original inhabitants, many died, and in Ben, the number increased and decreased elsewhere." (Translation: ChatGPT-3.5)

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References

	Cities of the Middle East and Greater Syria
Ayla • ʿAjlūn • Aleppo • Alexandria • Caffa • Cairo • Damascus • Damiette • Deir Kifa • Gaza • Hama • Ḥoms • Jazira • Jerusalem • Mecca • Tunisia

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