For Ṭāʿūn, a total of 10 epidemic events are known so far. It is a disease.
Table
| Page | DateStart date of the disease. | SummarySummary of the disease event | OriginalOriginal text | TranslationEnglish translation of the text | ReferenceReference(s) to literature | Reference translationReference(s) to the translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1258-00-00-Syria | 1258 JL | Around the time when the Mongols took Baghdad, an epidemic (ṭāʿūn) affected the people in Syria. This was in 656 H (January 8, 1258 to December 27, 1258). The former Ayyubid sultan of Damascus, al-Nāṣir Dāwūd, died of the disease in al-Buwayḍāʾ [May 21, 1259], a village in the surroundings of Damascus. His cousin al-Nāṣir Yūsuf, the lord of Damascus, traveled to al-Buwayḍāʾ, transferred Dāwūd's body to al-Ṣāliḥiyya and buried it in the tomb of Dāwūd's father al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam. | ولحق الناس بالشام في تلك المدة طاعون مات فيه الناصر داود، وخرج الناصر يوسف صاحب دمشق إلى البويضاء، وأظهر عليه الحزن والتأسف، ونقله إلى الصالحية فدفنه بتربة والده المعظم | In that period, a plague struck the Levant, in which Al-Nasser David died, and Al-Nasser Yusuf of Damascus went to Al-Buwayda, showed grief and sorrow for him, and transferred him to Salhiyah, where he was buried in the soil of his great father. | Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī - Masālik al-abṣār 2001-2004, vol. 27, p. 369. | Translation by DeepL |
| 1348-04-00-Middle East | April 1348 JL | From April 1, 1348 to March 22, 1349), an unprecedented plague hit the Middle East, and lasted about a year, and one third of Greater Syria’s and Egypt’s population died. | The Black Death in the Middle East: In the year 749 H (April 1, 1348 to March 22, 1349), an unprecedented wave of plague hit the Middle East. It was the sixth plague which affected the Middle East in the Islamic period. It was called the Kinship Plague (Ṭāʿūn al-Ansāb) since the decease of a person was often followed by the death of some of his or her relatives. People developed pustules, spat yellow blood and died within 50 hours. When people started spitting blood they would bid farewell to their friends, close their shops, their burial would be prepared, and they would die in their homes. The daily death toll reached a maximum of ca. 500 in Aleppo, more than 1,000 in Damascus, and ca. 20,000 in Egypt. Mostly women, youths, poor people, and riffraff died. The plague wave lasted about a year, and ca. one third of Greater Syria’s (Shām) and Egypt’s population died. | Ibn Ḥabīb - Tadhkirat al-nabīh 1976-1986, vol. 3 (1986), pp. 110-112 | Translation by Undine Ott | |
| 1348-06-00-Damascus | 31 May 1348 JL | Black Death in Damascus from May 31 to June 28, 1348) with every day more than 100 people died; especially women. |  |
The Black Death in Damascus: In the month of Rabīʿ I 749 H (May 31 to June 28, 1348), every day more than 100 people died of plague (amrāḍ al-ṭawāʿīn) in Damascus; especially women died. | Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), p. 503. | Translation by Undine Ott |
| 1348-07-00-Damascus | July 1348 JL | 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. | Ibn Baṭṭūṭa - Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār 1853-1859, vol. 1 (1853), pp. 227-229 | None |
| 1348-10-00-Damascus | 7 October 1348 JL | On October 7, 1348 the number of people who had died of plague and were prayed for at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus reached 150 or more; not included were inhabitants of the outskirts of the city and members of the protected religious minorities (ahl al-dhimma) whose bodies were not brought to the Umayyad Mosque. It was said that on many days, casualties in the outskirts of Damascus (ḥawāḍir al-balad) reached more than 1,000. On October 7, a dust storm reached Damascus; people prayed to God and ask for this to be the end of the plague; things only got worse afterwards, though. On Miʿrāj Night (October 21), not as many people as usual gathered in the Umayyad Mosque because so many people had died of plague and many more were occupied caring for the sick and the deceased. In the beginning of Shaʿbān 749 H (the month began on October 25), many people were infected with plague (fanāʾ), and often there would be a bad smell in the city. |  ...  ...  |
Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), pp. 507-508. | Translation needed | |
| 1349-01-27-Damascus | 27 January 1349 JL | On January 27, 1349, the Friday preacher Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Qazwīnī died of plague in Damascus after two days of illness. The members of his household were infected, too; his brother Ṣadr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Karīm died soon afterwards. |  |
Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), p. 509. | Translation needed | |
| 1349-03-22-Damascus | 22 March 1349 JL | In the year 750 H (March 22, 1349 to March 10, 1350), the number of plague infections in Damascus greatly declined. The number of deceased people with taxable inheritance which the Office of Inheritances (dīwān al-mawārīth) recorded was ca. 20 for 750 H while it had been 500 for 749 H (April 1, 1348 to March 21, 1349). Plague did not yet disappear entirely, though: on March 25, 1349, the jurist Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. al-Thiqa, his son and his brother all died of plague within one hour. They were buried in one grave. |  |
Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), p. 509. | Translation needed | |
| 1349-08-17-Syria | August 1349 JL | The governor (nāʾib) of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dīn Quṭlīshā, died. News of his death reached Damascus in the beginning of Jumādā II (August 17 to September 14, 1349). Many people rejoiced at his death given his misconduct in Hama during the plague (ṭāʿūn) (before he became governor of Aleppo). It was reported that he had enriched himself on the inheritance of the deceased. |  |
Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), pp. 515-516 | Translation needed | |
| 1369-05-09-Damascus | 9 May 1369 JL | Five men stated before a Jerusalem notary sometime between October 12 and 21, 1369 that they knew a shaykh named ʿAlī b. Badr al-Dīn who was a resident of Jerusalem. They stated they knew that the shaykh had left Jerusalem for Damascus while an epidemic (ṭāʿūn) was raging in the latter city and its surroundings. The shaykh had left Jerusalem in the beginning of the month of Shawwāl 770 H (May 9 to June 6, 1369) with a couple of associates and had stayed in Damascus in a Sufi khanaqah for some days. The witnesses stated that he had intended to proceed from Damascus to Aleppo but that his further whereabouts were unknown to them. | بسم اللّه الرّحمن الرّحيم يقول الواضعون خطوطهم آخره من المشائخ والفقراء والعدول إنّهم |
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate The undersigned elders, the poor and the righteous say that they |
Arabic Papyrology Database (APD), P.Haram I 30 = P.HaramCat. 229 | Translation by DeepL |
| 1374-03-16-Alexandria | March 1374 JL | Many people, mainly children, died of plague (ṭāʿūn, fanāʾ, wabāʾ) in Alexandria from Shawwāl 775 H (March 16 to April 14, 1374) to Rabīʿ I 776 H (August 10, 1374 to September 8, 1374). Up to 200 people died per day. In Shawwāl, 7,000 people perished within three days. In 775 H (1373), the Nile had failed to reach the necessary gauge (wafāʾ) during the summer flood, and many fields in Egypt could not be cultivated. Prices for grain and other foodstuffs rose in Egypt. Prices remained high also during the following year (776 H: June 13, 1374 to June 1, 1375) despite a sufficient Nile flood and the availability of grain. People became impoverished and died of hunger due to the rise in prices while grain merchants (khazzān) made huge profits. Finally, people revolted against inflation and famine. Plague came on top of famine. In Alexandria, 17,000 people reportedly died of plague, 12,000 of whom were male and female children. [...] |     |
al-Nuwayrī - Kitāb al-Ilmām 1968-1976, vol. 3 (1970), pp. 253-254; vol. 4 (1970), p. 127-129; 143; vol. 6 (1973), pp. 423-425. | Translation needed |
