Prayers of supplication

For Prayers of supplication, a total of 5 epidemic events are known so far. It is a keyword.

Table

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
1217-03-00-Cairo 002	March 1217 JL	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).	Princeton Geniza Project (PGP), T-S 16.305, lines 24-31 verso, ed. by Miriam Frenkel, The Compassionate and Benevolent. The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages (in Hebrew), Jerusalem 2006 PGP	Translation by Undine Ott
1348-05-00-Levantine coast	May 1348 JL	The Black Death at the Levantine coast (sawāḥil): The inhabitants of Damascus, after having heard about plague (wabāʾ) in the Levantine coastal plain and other regions, feared it might reach their city, too, and many people might die of the disease (dāʾ). For this reason, al-Bukhārī's (d. 870) hadith collection was recited in Damascus after Friday prayer on June 6, 1348. The judges and a group of people were present. Prayers of supplication were spoken, asking God to bring the pandemic to an end. On June 9, surah "Nūḥ" from the Quran was recited 3,363 times.			Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), pp. 502-503.	Translation needed
1348-06-29-Damascus	29 June 1348 JL	The number of plague deaths in Damascus increased in the month of Rabīʿ II 749 H (June 29–July 28, 1348). More than 200 people died per day, and the removal of the dead bodies was delayed. Poor people suffered the highest losses. On July 3, 1348, the Friday preacher prescribed to recite prayers and supplications asking for the plague to abate. The abolition of taxes (ḍamān) on funeral services by the governor of Syria (nāʾib al-salṭana) Sayf al-Dīn Arghūn-Shāh al-Nāṣirī was proclaimed on July 14. On July 21, it was announced that the inhabitants of Damascus should fast for three days, and on day four abase themselves before God at the suburban Mosque of the Footprint (Qadam) and implore him to end the plague; afterwards, people set out for the desert to recite prayers of supplication, including Jews, Christians, and Samaritans, high and low, etc.			Ibn Kathīr - Al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya 1997-1999, vol. 18 (1998), pp. 503-504	Translation needed
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

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