Cairo
From EpiMedDat
In Cairo, a total of 12 epidemic events are known so far. It is a capital of Egypt The coordinates are 30° 3' 22.00" N, 31° 14' 22.00" E.
Map of Cairo
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1217-03-00-Cairo | March 1217 JL | The fragment of a letter mentions a great epidemic (al-wabāʾ al-ʿaẓīm) which has struck the different parts of Cairo and has affected the physician and head of the Jews in Egypt (nagid), Avraham Maimonides (d. 1237), and his daughter. The fragment bears no date, but see here. | recto: ואמא חאלנא פאן אלמולי אלרייס הנגיד יג יק[ | As to us, our lord, the Rayyis, the Nagid [may his] gl[ory be] in[creased], the chief [Rav] is seriously ill, may God heal him, and so is his daughter; he is unable to treat her, and confined to his bed; throughout the week he could not get up, neither at night, nor at daytime, which caused him great grief; may God grant him health. Yesterday, I received a note from his father-in-law, our master, Hananel, the chief justice, may his high position endure, saying: "These days are like the Last Judgment; everyone is occupied only with himself." We strive to save ourselves from the great plague. In Miṣr [Fustat] and Cairo, there is no house belonging to important persons and, in fact, to anyone else, where not one or several persons are ill. People are in great trouble, occupied with themselves and unable to care for others, let alone for strangers. | Princeton Geniza Project (PGP), T-S NS 321.93, lines 8-14 recto, 3-6 verso, ed. by Shelomo D. Goitein, Chief Judge R. Ḥanan'el b. Samuel, In-law of R. Moses Maimonides (in Hebrew), in: Tarbiẕ 50, no. 10 (1980), pp. 371-395 PGP | None; None; |
| 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 | 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 |
| 1258-00-00-Bilbeis | 1258 JL | Plague in Syria and Egypt. | In this year (i.e. 1258), plague struck across Syria, the regions of Egypt, and the like […] A fever and cough occurred in Bilbeis such that not one person was spared from it, yet there was none of that in Cairo. Then after a day or two, something similar happened in Cairo. I was stationed in Giza at that time. I rode to Cairo and found that this condition was spreading across the people of Cairo, except a few. | None | ||
| 1258-11-00-Cairo | November 1258 JL | Epidemic in Cairo. | Then there happened a great epidemic at Cairo, from which hardly any one escaped; it began on Thursday, the 24th of Shawwál, and Behá ed dín was one of those attacked by it. He survived a few days, and then expired a little before sunset onn Sunday the 4th of Dhu’l Ka’deh in the same year (Nov AD 1258) and was buried the next after midday prayers […]I could not make it for [Bahaˉʾ al-Dīn’s funeral] prayer as I was engaged myself with the disease. When I had recovered from the disease, I proceeded to his grave for visitation and read a part of the Qur’aˉn for him | None | ||
| 1309-06-11-Egypt | June 1309 JL | Epidemic (wabāʾ) in Cairo and other parts of Egypt in 709 AH (June 11, 1309 - May 30, 1310). Many people died, most of them were mamluks of amirs. | Baybars al-Mansuri - Zubdat al-fikra 1998, p. 413 | Translation needed | ||
| 1310-01-04-Cairo | 4 January 1310 JL | Epidemic (wabāʾ) in Cairo in Shaʿbān 709 AH (January 4 - February 1, 1310). 100 people died per day. | Al-Birzālī 2006, vol. 2, p. 432. | Translation needed | ||
| 1323-08-05-Cairo | 1323 JL | In the wake of a hot, black storm illnesses (amrāḍ) spread in Cairo in summer/autumn 723 AH (1323). For the period of a month, a number of people died. A similar storm had killed people in Damascus before, in Shaʿbān 723 AH (August 5 - September 2, 1323), and had made fruits wither and water run dry; Damascene wheat prices had subsequently gone up. In Cairo, the storm equally hampered grain crop growth, hence grain prices rose since little grain was available. | Al-Maqrīzī, Al-Sulūk 1997, vol. 3, p. 66. | 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 |
| 1348-09-00-Alexandria | September 1348 JL | In September or October 1348, the Black Death had abated in Alexandria and Cairo. The maximum death toll in Alexandria had been 1,080, while it had been 21,000 in Cairo. Everyone from among the city elites Ibn Baṭṭūṭa had known in Cairo had died. |  | Then I travelled to al-Maḥalla al-Kabīra, then to Naḥrarīya, then to Abyār, then to Damanhūr, and then to Alexandria. I found the plague had abated after the number of deaths had risen to a thousand and eighty a day. Then I went to Cairo and was told that during the plague the number of deaths there had risen to twenty-one thousand a day. I found that all the shaikhs I had known were dead. May God Most High have mercy upon them! | Ibn Baṭṭūṭa - Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār 1853-1859, vol. 4 (1858), p. 323 | None |
| 1348-09-00-Cairo | September 1348 JL | A pilgrimage caravan left Cairo for Mecca in Rajab 749 H (September 26 to October 24, 1348). The Black Death accompanied it until it reached the Ayla pass (ʿAqaba). |  | When I arrived in Cairo I found that the Grand Qāḍī ʿIzz al-Dīn, son of the Grand Qāḍī Badr al-Dīn, son of Jamāʿa, had set out for Mecca in a huge caravan called Rajabī, because it leaves in the month of Rajab. I was told that the plague was among them until they reached the pass of Aila where it ceased. | Ibn Baṭṭūṭa - Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār 1853-1859, vol. 4 (1858), p. 324. | None |
| 1360-00-00-Damascus | 1360 JL | Devasting plague in Damascus and Cairo. The reason is only known to god and gods will is more powerful than natural influence. | Della grande pistolenzia che percosse li Saracini. In questo anno pestilenzia di febri fu in Damasco e al Caro tanto fuori di modo, che sanza niuno riparo quasi generalmente ogni gente uccidea; il perché si credette che lle province di là rimanessono disolate e sanza abitatore, e sse guari tempo fosse durata avenia. Li morti furono tanti, che stimare numero certo o vicino non si poté. La cagione onde mossa a dDio solo, o ccui lo rivela, è manifesta. La naturale nicissità, la quale surge dalla influenza de' cieli e delle stelle, dà luogo alla nicisità soluta che procede dalla sua volontà. | Of the great plague that struck the Saracens In that year, a fever plague raged so violently in Damascus and Cairo that it carried off almost the entire population without any defence. It was believed that the provinces there would remain devastated and uninhabited if the plague continued for much longer. The number of deaths was so great that it was impossible to make an exact or even approximate estimate. The cause of this plague was known only to God or to those to whom he revealed it. The natural necessity arising from the influence of the heavens and the stars gave way to the divine necessity arising from his will. | Matteo Villani 1995,Vol. 2, p. 506 | None |
| 1361-10-00-Egypt | October 1361 JL | A deadly disease (fanāʾ) hit Cairo, Alexandria and further places in 763 H (October 31, 1361 to October 19, 1362). Many people died. |  | "In the year 763 AH (1362-1363 AD), a plague struck Egypt, Alexandria, and other places, causing the death of many people. In the year 775 AH (1373-1374 AD), a calamity befell in Ben Saghta.
(3) In Ben: many people died. (4) In: the number increased in Ben and decreased elsewhere. (5) Among the original inhabitants, many died, and in Ben, the number increased and decreased elsewhere." | al-Nuwayrī - Kitāb al-Ilmām 1968-1976, vol. 4 (1970), p. 127. | Translation by ChatGPT-3.5 |
