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Epidemic disease in central Syria in the late sixth century Some new insights from the verse of Ḥassān ibn Thābit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Lawrence I. Conrad
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Extract

Any interpretation of Near Eastern history touching upon the sixth and seventh centuries must invariably come to terms with the numerous causes of mortality, destruction, and social and economic disruption that preceded the Arab conquests. One of these factors was undoubtedly the bubonic plague, which descended the Nile in the summer of 641, spread through the Delta and passed to Syrian ports in the winter of that year; by the summer of 542 it had reached Constantinople itself and infected, among many other places, large parts of inland Asia Minor and Syria.

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Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 18 , 1994 , pp. 12 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1994

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References

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17. Dīwān, I, 228 no. 105.

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58. Ibid., 337 (no. 9405).

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64. Dussaud, Mission, 32; idem, Topographie, 365.

65. In his Five years in Damascus (London 1855) II, 194-198, J.L. Porter sought to prove that al-Qurayya is the Kerioth mentioned in Jeremiah 43:23-24 and Amos 2:2, but this argument has not been accepted.

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90. Waddington, IGLS, nos. 2562a (222 A.D.), 2562b (250 A.D.).

91. Nöldeke, ‘Zur Topographie und Geschichte’, 425; Dussaud, Topographie, 311; Zayyāt, , ‘Adyār Dimashq’, Al-Mashriq 43 (1949) 84–85 Google Scholar; Zakarīyā, Al-Rīf al-sūrī, I, 383-374.

92. Kurd ‘Alī, Ghūṭat Dimashq, 24; Zakarīyā, Al-Rīf al-sūrī, I, 374. Cf. Kamal S. Salibi, Syria under Islam, I: Empire on Trial (Delmar, N.Y. 1977) 39-40.

93. Ghūṭat Dimashq, 24.

94. See Wetzstein, Reisebericht, 3.

95. Zakarīyā, Al-Rīf al-sūrī, I, 373.

96. Conrad, Lawrence I., ‘The Quṣūr of Medieval Islam: Some Implications for the Social History of the Near East’, Al-Abḥāth 29 (1981) 13–20 Google Scholar.

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98. Dīwān, I, 74 v. 2, 255 v. 3, 485 v. 11.

99. Al-Jāḥiẓ, Ḥayawān, V, 134; al-Ya’qūbī, Kitāb al-buldān, 327; Ibn Khurradādhbih (d. ca. 300/911), Kitāb al-masâik wa-l-mamāik, ed. MJ. de Goeje (Leiden 1889) 78; al-Bakrī, Mu’jam mā ‘sta’jam, II, 357-358. Cf. the note in Ḥassān ibn Thābit, Dïviān, II, 74; also Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 463.

100. Murūj al-dhahab, IV, 364-365.

101. See Burckhardt, , Travels in Syria, 294 Google Scholar; Clermont-Ganneau, , Recueil, I, 4–7 Google Scholar; Ewing, W., ‘A Journey in the Hauran’, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 1895, 285–286 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Greek and Other Inscriptions Collected in the Hauran’, op. cit., 45-46, nos. 8-11; Brünnow and Domaszewski, von, Die Provincia Arabia, III, 270, 296 Google Scholar; Dussaud, , Mission, 48 Google Scholar; idem, Topographie, 333; Sartre, , Trois études, 102, 105 Google Scholar.

102. Nöldeke, , ‘Zur Topographie und Geschichte’, 429 Google Scholar; Chabot, , Documenta, 213, 215, 216, 224 Google Scholar; = Lamy, ‘Profession de foi’, nos. 2, 23, 31, 35, 36, 128; Sartre, , Trois études, 186 Google Scholar.

103. E.g. al-Balādhurl, Ansāb al-ashrāf, I. ed. Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh (Cairo 1959) 7.

104. See Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282), Wafayāt al-a’yān, ed. Ihsān ‘Abbās (Beirut 1968-1972) II, 11, 17; III, 184-185.

105. Hütteroth, and Abdulfattah, , Historical Geography, 207 Google Scholar.

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107. Al-Tabarī, , Ta’rīkh al-rusul wa-1-mulūk, ed. Muḥammad Abū 1-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, 2nd ed. (Cairo 1968-1969) III, 391, 404, 405, 406, 408, 410, 436, 438 Google Scholar. ‘

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109. See, e.g., Wetzstein, , Reisebericht; 118–119 Google Scholar; Nöldeke, , ‘Zur Topographie und Geschichte’, 425–426 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Ghassânischen Fürsten’, 45; Goeje, M.J. de, Mémoire sur la conquête de la Syrie, 2nd ed. (Leiden 1900) 48–49 Google Scholar; Dussaud, , Mission, 45 n.g 2 Google Scholar; idem, Topographie, 306, 318; Caetani, Leone, Annali dell’Islam (Milan 1905-1926) III, 317–320 Google Scholar.

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111. E.g. Yāqūt, , Mu’jam al-buldān, IV, 488 Google Scholar.

112. Al-Tabarī, , Ta’rīkh, III, 410 Google Scholar. On Sayf, see Duri, A.A., The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs, ed. and trans, Conrad, Lawrence I. (Princeton 1983) 46–47 Google Scholar, and the earlier literature cited therein; also Landau-Tasseron, Ella, ‘Sayf ibn ‘Umar in Medieval and Modern Scholarship’, Der Islam 67 (1990) 1–26 Google Scholar.

113. Dīwān, I, 74 v. 2; cf. also Ibn ‘Asākir, Ta’rīkh madlnat Dimashq, I, 513. This would seem to dispose of the theory that a Marj al-Suffarīn was located east of Damascus. See Nöldeke, , ‘Zur Topographie und Geschichte’, 425 Google Scholar; Caetani, , Annali dell’Islam, II.2, 1209 Google Scholar.

114. Al-Harawī, , Ishārât, 12 Google Scholar.

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116. Yāqūt, , Mu’jam al-buldān, II, 3 Google Scholar.

117. Ibid., II, 183.

118. Ibid., Ill, 400. Cf. also Strange, Le, Palestine under the Moslems, 504 Google Scholar.

119. Zakarīyā, , Al-Rīfal-swūrī, II, 458–462 Google Scholar. Cf. also now the detailed article by Nikita Elisséeff in EI2 , VI (Leiden 1991) 546a-548b.

120. See, for example, Ibn A’tham al-Kūfī, Kitāb al-futūh, II, 439.

121. See Merrill, Selah, East of the Jordan (New York 1881) 296–298 Google Scholar; Schumacher, Gottlieb, Northern ‘Ajlûn (London 1890) 154–168 Google Scholar; Sourdel-Thomine, Janine, art. ‘Bayt Rās’ in EI2 , I (Leiden 1960) 1148a–b Google Scholar; Mittmann, , Beitràge, 133-134, 169–173 Google Scholar; Sartre, , Trois études, 70 Google Scholar; Bowersock, Glenn W., Roman Arabia (Cambridge, Mass. 1983) 91 Google Scholar; Lenzen, Chérie J. and Knauf, E. Axel, ‘Beit Ras/Capitolias: a Preliminary Evaluation of the Archaeological and Textual Evidence’, Syria 64 (1987) 24 Google Scholar; Zeyadeh, Ali, An Archaeological Assessment of Six Cities in al-Urdunn: From the Fourth Century to the Mid-Eighth Century A.D. (M.A. thesis, Yarmouk University, 1988) 159–167 Google Scholar; Lenzen, Cherie J., ‘Irbid and Beit Ras: Interconnected Settlements c. A.D. 100-900’, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, IV (Amman 1992) 299–301 Google Scholar. Cf. also Caetani, , Annali dell’Islam, III, 498 n. 5 Google Scholar; Steuernagel, , Namenliste, 30 Google Scholar.

122. Thābit, Hassān ibn, Dīwān, I, 17 v. 6, 106 v. 8, 518 v. 1 Google Scholar.

123. ibid., II, 6, 103.

124. Balādhurī, Al, Futūh al-buldāh, 116. Cf. Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, III, 496 Google Scholar.

125. Lenzen, and Knauf, , ‘Beit Ras/Capitolias’, 39 Google Scholar; Zeyadeh, , Archaeological Assessment, 166–167 Google Scholar.

126. Khurradādhbih, Ibn, Al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik, 78 Google Scholar; al Bakrī, , Mu’jam mā ‘sta’jam, I, 288–289 Google Scholar; Yāqūt, , Mu’jam al-buldāh, I, 201, 776–777 Google Scholar. Cf.Strange, Le, Palestine under the Moslems, 32, 415 Google Scholar.

127. See al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī, , Dīwāwān, ed. Shukrī Faysal (Beirut 1968), 160 v. 10 Google Scholar; Nuwās, Abū, Dīwān, II, ed. Wagner, Ewald (Wiesbaden 1972) 22 v. 3 Google Scholar.

128. Peeters, Paul, ‘La passion de S. Peter de Capitolias’, AB 57 (1939), 299–333 Google Scholar; Schick, , Christian Communities of Palestine, 260–261 Google Scholar.

129. Mittmann, , Beitrāge, 250 Google Scholar; Lenzen, and Knauf, , ‘Beit Ras/Capitolias’, 42 Google Scholar.

130. Hütteroth, and Abdulfattah, , Historical Geography, 203 Google Scholar.

131. A jābiya was a broad shallow hole which a herdsman would scoop out in the ground, and then fill with water from a spring or well to water his animals. See Sūrat Saba’ (34), v. 13: ‘and bowls like jawābī. The bedouins of Syria continued to use such jawābī into modern times. Alois Musil refers to them in his Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins (New York 1928), 340, and this writer found them to be still called by this name by tribesmen east of Hamāh in northern Syria in 1973.

132. For accounts of the site, see Schumacher, , Across the Jordan, 230 Google Scholar; Dussaud, , Mission, 42–48 Google Scholar; idem, Topographie, 332-333. Cf. also Steuernagel, , Namenliste, 144 Google Scholar. Al-Jābiya is now difficult of access because of its proximity to the current Syrian-Israeli ceasefire lines.

133. Chabot, , Documenta, 215 Google Scholar; = Lamy, , ‘Profession de fois’, no. 24 Google Scholar; al-Mas’ūdī, , Murūj al-dhahab, II, 234 Google Scholar; al-Isfahānī, Hamza, Ta’rīkh, 120 Google Scholar. Cf.Sartre, , Trois études, 179 Google Scholar.

134. Ḥassān ibn Thābit, Dīwān, I, 40 v. 7, 74 v. 1 (again in the plural form, al-jawābī), 109 v. 3.

135. Ibid., II, 74.

136. See Kaegi, Walter W., Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests (Cambridge 1992) 112-120, 138 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kaegi was able to visit the site in July 1984.

137. See Lammens, Henri and Sourdel-Thomine, Janine, art. ‘al-Jābiya’ in EI2 , II (Leiden 1965) 360 Google Scholar; Ibrāhīm Baydūn, ‘Mu’tamar al-Jābiya’, in Muḥammad ‘Adnān al-Bakhīt, ed., Fourth International Conference on the History of Bilād al-Shām during the Umayyad period: Proceedings of the Third Symposium, Arabic Section (Amman 1989) 143-190; Schick, , Christian Communities of Palestine, 315 Google Scholar.

138. Khurradādhbih, Ibn, Al-Masālik wa-1-mamālik, 77 Google Scholar; al-Mas’ūdī, , Al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf, ed. Goeje, M.J. de (Leiden 1894) 308 Google Scholar; al-Bakrī, Mu’jam mā ‘sta’jam, II, 477; Yāqūt, Mu’jam al-buldān, II, 3.

139. Hütteroth, and Abdulfattah, , Historical Geography, 208 Google Scholar.

140. Mu’jam al-buldān, II, 159.

141. Al-Himyarī, , Al-Rawd al-mi’ṭār JÌ khabar al-aqṭār, ed. Iḥsān ‘Abbās (Beirut 1975) 183 Google Scholar.’

142. Mu’jam al-buldān, II, 183.

143. ‘Zur Topographie und Geschichte’, 430-431. Cf. his ‘Ghassānischen Fürsten’, 40.

144. Mission, 48.

145. Al-Mubarrad, , Al-Kāmil fi l-adab wa-l-lugha, ed. Wright, William (Leipzig 1864-1892) 74 Google Scholar.

146. Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, Ta’rīkh, 121.

147. See Conrad, , ‘The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East’, 323–327 Google Scholar.

148. Although later variant versions of specific lines of the poem did add new place names. See, for example, Ibn ‘Asākir, Al-Ta’rīkh al-kabīr, IV, 382; Yāqūt, Mu’jam al-buldān, I, 332-333, where the name of Afīq (ancient Apheca, near Lake Tiberias) is introduced.

149. Chronicon anonymumpseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dicto, ed. Chabot, J.-B. (Paris 1927-1933 Google Scholar; CSCO 91, 104, Ser. syri 43, 53), II, 155, 205.

150. See Conrad, , ‘The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East’, 330 Google Scholar.

151. Cf.Conrad, , ‘The Plague in Bilād al-Shām in Pre-Islamic Times’, 154–157 Google Scholar.

152. Mabry, Jonathan and Palumbo, Gaetano, ‘Environmental, Economic and Political Constraints on Ancient Settlement Patterns in the Wadi-al-Yabis Region’, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, IV, 67–72 Google Scholar. The researchers who undertook the survey attribute the decline to the Arab conquests, the later removal of the capital to Baghdad, and economic stagnation; but these traditional arguments have been increasingly discredited in recent literature. See, in the same volume, the essays by Walmsley, Alan, ‘Fiḥl (Pella) and the Cities of North Jordan during the Umayyad and Abbasid Periods’, 377–384 Google Scholar; and Whitcomb, Donald, ‘Reassessing the Archaelogy of Jordan of the Abbasid Period’, 385–390 Google Scholar.

153. The classic formulation of this thesis is Watt, W. Montgomery, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford 1953) 1–29 Google Scholar.

154. Crone, Patricia, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Oxford 1987)Google Scholar; Peters, F.E., ‘The Commerce of Mecca before Islam’, in Kazemi, Farhad and McChesney, R.D., eds., A Way Prepared: Essays on Islamic Culture in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder (New York 1988) 3–26 Google Scholar. But cf. also Piacentini, Valeria Fiorani, ‘Traffici e mercati di Boṣrā nella tradizione islamica’, in Campanati, Raffaella Farioli, ed., La Siria araba da Roma a Bisanzio (Ravenna 1988) 205–224 Google Scholar; Ihsān ‘Abbās, ‘Al-’Alāqāt al-tijāriya bayna Makka wa-1-Shām ḥaṭṭā bidāyat al-fath al-islāmī’, Al-Abḥāth 38 (1990) 3-40.

155. Overland transport costs were enormous. In the fourth century, for example, the cost of transporting a 1200 (Roman) pound wagon of wheat amounted to about 55 percent of the value of the wheat per 100 (Roman) miles, and represented an expense 40 times higher than shipment by sea. See Hendy, Michael F., Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy (Cambridge 1986) 556 Google Scholar. Camel transport in the seventh century would have been far cheaper, since camels can carry heavier loads per animal at a faster rate per day, live longer and possess far greater endurance, do not require food beyond what desert herbage provides, can traverse ground where wagons cannot go and do not need to be unloaded at fords, and do not involve expensive harness or the dead weight of a wagon. See BuUiet, Richard W., The Camel and the Wheel (Cambridge Mass. 1975) 19–27 Google Scholar. Still, it is unlikely that costs were thereby reduced to levels that would have made the overland shipment of Arabian products to Syria feasible in any but extreme circumstances. See Hendy, , Studies, 557 Google Scholar.

156. Conrad, , ‘The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East’, 470–474 Google Scholar.

157. See Conrad, , ‘Ṭā’ūn and Wabā”, 284–288 Google Scholar; further in idem, ‘The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East’, 347-352, 465-469.

158. See Sartre’s, Bostra: des origines Ǥ l’Islam, 138–139 Google Scholar; also his ‘Le peuplement et le développement du Hawrān antique Ǥ la lumière des inscriptions grecques et latines’, in Denzer, ed., Hauran I, I, 197-198, where a more cautious attitude is adopted.

159. Durliat, Jean, ‘La peste du VIe siècle; pour un nouvel examen des sources byzantins’, in Hommes et richess dans l’Empire byzantine, I: IVe-VFe siècle (Paris 1989) 107–119 Google Scholar. But see the sharp critique which follows in the same volume by J.-N. Biraben.

160. The huge literature on these plagues may best be approached through three works: Dois, The Black Death in the Middle East; Biraben, Jean-Noël, Les hommes et tapeste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens (Paris 1975-1976)Google Scholar; Panzac, Daniel, La peste dans l’Empire Ottoman, 1700-1850 (Louvain 1985)Google Scholar.

161. Groves, Anthony N., Journal of a Residence at Baghdad during the Years 1830 and 1831 (London 1832)Google Scholar. The author himself perished in the last days of the epidemic; his journal was brought back to England and published posthumously.

162. Baltazard, Marcel et al., ‘Recherches sur la peste en Iran’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization 23 (1960) 151–152 Google Scholar.