For Religious minorities, a total of 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1347-00-00-Kuyavia | 1347 JL | Severe plague in Kuyavia and after that Jews were being burned all over Germany | Anno Domini 1347 fuit gravis pestilencia et tunc Iudei per totam Almaniam fuerunt cremati, quia dicebantur christianum populum intoxicasse, ut fuit compertum. | In the year of our Lord 1347, there was a great plague, and at that time, the Jews throughout Germany were burned because they were accused of poisoning the Christian people, as it was determined. | Annales Cuiavienses II, p. 889 | Translation by Thomas Wozniak |
| 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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