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Once in a Lifetime, part 2

The Plague Goes Town by Town

Ibn al-Wardi, The Report of the Pestilence, from his chronicle (Aleppo, 1348)

Draft: this translation has not yet been checked against the original by a separate review.

Written
1348 (the essay); the chronicle entries 1346–1349
Place
Aleppo
Language
Arabic
Kind of source
essay
Reading time
7 minutes
Difficulty
Challenging
Intensity
Medium

Black Death (1347–1351)Plague (Yersinia pestis)Death and burial

Once in a Lifetime themes: Fear, Unknowns

Versions

The edited translation, in simplified modern English. Bracketed words were added for clarity; [...] marks a cut. Tap a note number to read the note.

Year 747 [1346–1347]

This year the pestilence struck the lands of Uzbek,1 and villages and cities were emptied of people. Then the pestilence reached the Crimea, until about a thousand funerals left the city in a single day. A merchant I trust told me this. Then the pestilence reached the Rum,2 and a great many of them died. A merchant from our town who came back from those lands told me what the judge of the Crimea had said: “We counted those who died of the pestilence. There were eighty-five thousand, not counting those we do not know about.” Today the pestilence is in Cyprus, and so are very high prices.

Year 749 [1348–1349]

This year, in the month of Rajab,3 the pestilence reached Aleppo. May God spare us its evil! We were told that this pestilence began in the Land of Darkness4 fifteen years before this time. I wrote an essay about it, which I called The Report of the Pestilence.

From the essay: O God, bless our master Muhammad and grant him peace. Through his favor with You, save us from the tyranny of the plague, and keep us safe. The plague brought terror and death. Its story began in the Land of Darkness. Alas for this visitor, making its rounds for fifteen years! China was not shielded from it, and the strongest fortress could not keep it out. It drew its Indian blade in India, and it pressed hard on Sind.5 It seized the lands of Uzbek with both hands and locked its fingers around them. How many backs it broke in Transoxiana!6 Then it rose up, came into view, and fell on the Persians. It stretched its stride as far as Cathay.7 It gnawed at the Crimea and pelted the Rum with blazing coals. It dragged its crimes to Cyprus and the islands. Then it conquered people in Cairo. Its eye woke up to Egypt, and it struck them down on the plain of the Last Day.8 It stilled the bustle of Alexandria, and there it did the work of the Sufi poor among the Hariri brethren.9

Alexandria, this pestilence is a beast reaching out its paw to you. Bear its share-out with patience: of every seventy, it has left you seven.10

Then it went down to Upper Egypt, as a believer turns to clean earth for washing.11 A cloudburst of it flashed lightning over Barqa.12 Then it raided Gaza and gave Ashkelon a shaking. It pressed hard on Acre. In Jerusalem it took martyrs.13 It overtook even those who had fled the farthest, with a heart as hard as the Rock. Had the Gate of Mercy not been opened, the Resurrection would have come at once.14 Then it covered the stages of the road, meaning to reach the coast. It hunted down Sidon and caught Beirut off guard by a trick. Then it aimed its volley at Damascus. There it settled in and swayed [?], killing a thousand and more every day. It made the many few, and it killed a multitude with a single pustule.

Another passage: May God set Damascus right and guard it from abuse. Its spirit has sunk so low it kills a person with a single grain.15

Then it made al-Mizza bitter and came out to Barza.16 It fused itself to Baalbek, and at Qara it recited “Halt, let us weep.”17 It struck Homs a heavy blow, then let it go, knowing that Homs had three ailments.18 Then in Hama it [...?], and the banks of its Orontes turned cold with fever:19

O plague, Hama is one of the best of lands, the strongest of its fortresses. Curse you! You smelled it and you poisoned it, and kissed its mouth, holding it by its locks.20

Then it entered Maarrat al-Numan21 and said to it, “You are safe from me. Hama is enough for you; I have no need of you.”

It found Maarra a lovely, bright-eyed face, but with a brow joined to injustice. What can the plague do in a town that is stabbed with oppression every day?22

Then it traveled by night to Sarmin and al-Fua, and it fell on Sunnis and Shiites alike.23 For the Sunnis it made its spearpoints the law, and in the homes of the Shiites it spread death. Then it gave Antioch some share, but left out of shame, for it had forgotten the memory of a beloved.24 Then it said to Shayzar and Harim, “Do not fear me. Before and after, you have no need of me.” For unhealthy places grow healthy in times of pestilence. Then it brought down Azaz and Killiz. The plowman moved into their houses, and Ibn Hilliza was no help at all.25 It took the people of good sense from the people of al-Bab. It went to work on Tell Bashir, and wore down Duluk and Hashir [?]. It made for the valleys and the hills, and it plucked a multitude out of the castles. Then it went after Aleppo, but it did not win.

Another passage: It is one of the decrees of fate that the plague follows the members of a household. As soon as one of them spits blood, they are all sure they are finished. Then, after two nights or three, the one who spat lies in the grave.

I asked the Maker of souls to drive away the plague that struck, for whoever tastes blood in his throat has tasted his own end.

Another passage: Aleppo, God keep us from its evil, is a land of hardship. It has turned into a wicked snake that kills people with a spit.

The funeral workers have made a fine living in Aleppo. May they get nothing from it! They have lived off this season and sweated from carrying [the dead]. May they neither live nor sweat! They amuse themselves and play, and they keep the customer waiting.

Aleppo the Gray turned black in my eyes, from dread and gloom.26 In it the Sons of the Bier nearly joined the Daughters of the Bier [in the sky].27

Here is something that angered Islam and caused pain: the accursed people of Sis28 rejoice at the plague in our lands.

The people of Sis delight in what grieves us; such are the ways of the enemy of the faith. May God move it to them soon, and may the plague tear the tyrant apart.

Another passage: If someone says, “It is contagious and destroys,” I say, “No, God creates and brings back.”29 If a liar argues for contagion30 and twists the meaning, we say, “The Truthful One, God bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Then who infected the first?’”31 Its serpent uncoiled and slithered, and it was named the Plague of Lineages [because it took whole families]. It is the sixth plague to strike in Islam. In my view it is the great dying that our Prophet foretold, the best of blessing and peace be on him.32 In kān wa-kān verse:33

I take refuge with God, my Lord, from the evil of the Plague of Lineages. Its gunpowder has flared up and flown through every land. [One line, in colloquial Arabic, is not yet understood.] It enters a house and swears, “I will not leave without its people. I have the judge’s order for everyone in the house.”

This is enough, for the essay is long.

Notes

  1. The lands of the Golden Horde, the Mongol state north of the Black and Caspian Seas, named for its khan Uzbek (ruled 1313–1341). back
  2. Literally “the Romans”: Arabic writers’ name for the Byzantine Greeks, and also for Anatolia (in modern Turkey). The writer does not say which he means. back
  3. The seventh month of the Muslim year. Rajab of the year 749 began in late September 1348. back
  4. Arabic geographers placed a Land of Darkness in the far north, beyond the lands of the Golden Horde. back
  5. The lower Indus valley, in modern Pakistan. An “Indian” was also a common word for a sword of Indian steel. back
  6. The lands beyond the Oxus (Amu Darya) river in Central Asia, around Bukhara and Samarkand. back
  7. Northern China. Nearly every place in the essay comes with a pun on its name: here khuṭā, “stride,” and al-Khiṭā, Cathay. Most cannot be kept in English. back
  8. Al-sāhira (Quran 79:14) is the open plain where the dead will gather on the Last Day; the word also means “wakeful,” matching the eye that “woke up.” back
  9. The meaning is uncertain. The Haririyya were a brotherhood of Sufis (Muslim mystics), who called themselves “the poor”; ḥarīr also means “silk.” back
  10. A pun: sabʿ, “beast of prey,” and sabʿa, “seven.” The figure is a poet’s, not a count. back
  11. The Quran (4:43) tells believers with no water to wash before prayer with “clean earth” (ṣaʿīd ṭayyib). Al-Ṣaʿīd is also Upper Egypt. back
  12. Cyrenaica, in modern eastern Libya. The verb is abraqa, “flashed lightning,” a pun on the name. back
  13. Muslim tradition held that a believer who died of plague died a martyr. back
  14. Jerusalem puns: al-Aqsa (“the farthest”) Mosque; the Rock under the Dome of the Rock; the Gate of Mercy in the wall of the sacred enclosure; and qiyāma, “resurrection,” also the Christians’ Church of the Resurrection. back
  15. Ḥabba, “grain” or “seed,” was also a word for a pustule. The line can also be read “it kills a person for love of it.” back
  16. Villages near Damascus. The verbs pun on their names, as they do with most of the places that follow. back
  17. The opening words of the most famous early Arabic poem, by Imru al-Qays. The Arabic qifā nabki also sounds like al-Nabk, a town near Qara. back
  18. Grammar jokes. Baalbek is the grammarians’ example of two words fused into one. Ṣarafa means “let go” and also “decline a noun”; grammarians speak of “causes” (ʿilal, also “ailments”) that keep a name like Homs from being declined. back
  19. The river of Hama is the Orontes, in Arabic al-ʿĀṣī, “the rebel.” Ḥummā, “fever,” puns on Hama. back
  20. The last half-line is borrowed from a well-known Arabic love poem. Shamamtahā, “you smelled it,” and samamtahā, “you poisoned it,” differ by a single letter. back
  21. The writer’s hometown, a small city between Hama and Aleppo. back
  22. Ṭāʿūn, “plague,” comes from a root meaning “to stab.” Ḥājib, “brow,” is also the title of a court official, so the “brow” may be the town’s governor. back
  23. Sarmin and al-Fua were towns near Aleppo. The puns that follow play on Sunna and Shia, the names of the two main branches of Islam. back
  24. Habib the Carpenter, honored as a saint, had his shrine at Antioch. “The memory of a beloved” also completes the line of Imru al-Qays quoted above. back
  25. Puns on Killiz: al-ḥārith, “the plowman,” and Ibn Hilliza, from al-Harith ibn Hilliza, a famous early Arabic poet. The sense of the first is uncertain. back
  26. Al-Shahbāʾ, “the gray,” is a traditional name for Aleppo. back
  27. The Daughters of the Bier (Banāt Naʿsh) are the stars of the Big Dipper. The Sons of the Bier are those carried on biers: the dead. back
  28. The capital of the Christian kingdom of Armenia in Cilicia, in modern southern Turkey. It was often at war with the Mamluk sultans, who ruled Egypt and Syria. back
  29. Quran 85:13 says of God, “He it is who originates and restores.” The writer rhymes it with the claim he rejects, yuʿdī wa-yubīd, “infects and destroys.” back
  30. The idea that disease passed from person to person by touch, breath, or objects, long before anyone knew about germs. Many Muslim scholars rejected it, citing the Prophet’s saying “There is no contagion.” back
  31. From a saying of the Prophet. Told that one mangy camel spreads the disease to a healthy herd, he asked who had infected the first. back
  32. A saying of the Prophet lists among the signs before the Last Hour a great dying that will seize people like a disease of sheep. back
  33. A popular verse form in colloquial Arabic, used for stories and moral lessons. back