1348-07-00-Damascus
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| Date startStart date of the disease. | 1348-07 | + |
| Date endEnd date of the disease. | + | |
| SeasonSeason (spring, summer, fall or winter) | Summer | |
| Date otherOther mentioned dates. | ||
| PlacePlace(s), city or location of the disease. | Cairo, Damascus | |
| RegionHistorical region(s) | ||
| CountryCurrent country | ||
| RiverMentioned river(s) | ||
| Natural eventMentioned natural event(s) | ||
| PersonMentioned persons(s) | ||
| GroupGroup(s) of people mentioned | ||
| VictimIndication of victims | 24.000 + 2000 absolute | + |
| AnimalMentioned animal(s) | ||
| DiseaseMentioned disease(s) | Plague, Ṭāʿūn | |
| Epidemic waveAssociated epidemic wave | Black Death | |
| Social responseSocial response that happened in reaction to the disease | ||
| LanguageLanguage of the original text | Arabic | |
| KeywordFurther keyword(s) | Children, Common people, Elites, Epidemics, Fasting, Mortality, Prayers, Prayers of supplication, Religious minorities, Women, Ṭāʿūn | |
| last edited | 23. 12. 2025 by EpiMedDat-Bot. |
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.
Text originalOriginal text
Text translationEnglish translation of the text
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.
