Aleppo
In Aleppo, a total of 4 epidemic events are known so far. It is a city and governorate capital of Aleppo, Syria in Syria. The coordinates are 36° 12' 0.00" N, 37° 9' 0.00" E.
Map of Aleppo
Table
| Disease | 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 001 | 1258 JL | Famine and plague raged in the East. | Cette année, la famine et une maladie dangereuse, désolerent toutes les contrées de l’Orient.[…] Cette meme année, une maladie pestilentielle fit, en Syrie, de grands ravages. Il mourait, à Alep, douze cents personnes par jour. Und grand nombre d’ inhabitants de Damas fut victim de ce fléau | This year, famine and a dangerous disease devastated all the regions of the East. [...] In the same year, a pestilential disease caused great havoc in Syria. In Aleppo, twelve hundred people died per day. A large number of inhabitants of Damascus fell victim to this scourge. | Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks 1845, pp. 77-78. | Translation by Martin Bauch |
| 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 | |
| 1348-05-31-Gaza | 31 May 1348 JL | In the beginning of Rabīʿ I, 749 H (the month began on May 31, 1348) news about the Black Death in Gaza reached Aleppo while the author stayed there. The daily death toll had reportedly amounted to more than 1,000. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa then traveled on to Ḥoms which had already been affected by the plague; ca. 300 people died on the day of his arrival. He went on to Damascus whose inhabitants had fasted for three days [July 22 to 24] and on Friday set out for the Mosque of the Footprints (Aqdām). God subsequently reduced the burden of plague lasting on them. The daily death toll in the city had amounted to 2,400. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa traveled on to ʿAjlūn, and then to Jerusalem where the plague wave had already come to an end. |  | In the first days of the month of Rabīʿ I in the year forty-nine news reached us in Aleppo that plague had broken out in Ghazza and that the number of dead there exceeded thousand a day. I went to Ḥims and found that the plague had already struck there; about three hundred persons died on the day of my arrival. I went to Damascus and arrived on a Thursday; the people had been fasting for three days. On Friday they went to the Mosque of the Footprints, as we have related in the first book. God alleviated their plague. The number of deaths among them had risen to two thousand four hundred a day. Then I went to ʿAjlūn, and then to Bait al-Muqaddas [Jerusalem], where I found the plague had ceased. | Ibn Baṭṭūṭa - Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār 1853-1859, vol. 4 (1858), pp. 319-320. | None |
| 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 |
