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Several Natural Disasters in the Middle East (at the Beginning of the Eleventh Century) and Their Consequences

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Historical Disaster Experiences

Abstract

The Islamic Middle East suffered a series of natural disasters (such as floods, snowfall, and storms) at the beginning of the eleventh century. These disasters are mentioned in many Arab historical sources in varying degrees of detail. Several authors, such as al-Maqrīzī and al-Suyūṭī, devoted whole books to these disasters, while others, like al-Anṭākī and Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, treated them as only one event among others in their chronicles. These disasters had serious consequences for populations and the economy; hence states (Abbasid in the Middle East and Fatimid in Egypt) took measures at the time to limit damage and prevent a more serious aftermath. Medieval Arabic sources are very useful for discovering and studying natural disasters and their types in the Middle East at the beginning of the eleventh century and during the following centuries. They are also beneficial in analysing the strategies developed by the states facing these natural events. They are nonetheless insufficient by themselves to enable a clear analysis and understanding of this topic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Robert Delort, introduction to Les catastrophes naturelles dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne by Bartolomé Bennassar (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1996), 6–25.

  2. 2.

    Delort, introduction to Les catastrophes naturelles, 7 (translated from French by Elaine Griffiths).

  3. 3.

    Albert de Biberstein-Kazimirski, Dictionnaire arabe-français, vol. 2 (Paris: Maisonneuve Editeurs, 1860; Beyrouth: Librairie du Liban, 1944), 882.

  4. 4.

    Biberstein-Kazimirski, Dictionnaire, vol. 1, 1381–1382.

  5. 5.

    Delort, introduction to Les catastrophes naturelles, 8 (translated from French).

  6. 6.

    Ibid. (translated from French).

  7. 7.

    Christian Pfister , Grandes catastrophes naturelles et incendies en Suisse depuis 1500, Le jour d’après, 2002, accessed June 26, 2016, quoted at http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F47887.php?topdf=1 (translated from French). For the Middle East see Ronnie Ellenblum, The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East; 950–1072 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

  8. 8.

    Al-Maqrīzī , Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma aw Tārīkh al-majāʿāt fī Miṣr, (Beirut : Muʾassasat Nāṣir li-l-thaqāfa, 1980).

  9. 9.

    Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Kashf al-ṣalṣala ʿan waṣf al-zalzala [Traité du tremblement de terre], trans. and annot. Saïd Nejjar (Rabat: Institut Universitaire de la Recherche Scientifique, 1974).

  10. 10.

    Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Kashf al-ṣalṣala ʿan waṣf al-zalzala, ed. and annot. Muḥammad Kamāl ʿIzz al-Dīn (al-Qāhira: ʿĀlam al-kutub, 1987).

  11. 11.

    Muḥammad Kamāl ʿIzz al-Dīn, introduction to Kashf al-salṣala, 12–39.

  12. 12.

    Yaḥya bin Saʿīd bin Yaḥya al-Anṭākī , Tārīkh al-Anṭākī al-maʿrūf bi-Ṣilat tārikh Ūtīkhā, ed. and annot. Umar Tadmurī (Tripoli: Jarrūs Press, 1990).

  13. 13.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān fi tārīkh al-aʿyān [Le Miroir du temps]: Édition et étude des années 395–411 AH/1004–1021 CE, ed. Juliette Rassi (Damascus : Institut Français du Proche-Orient, 2005).

  14. 14.

    I consulted a number of Arab chronicles to compare and supplement my information on natural disasters . These sources are sorted by chronological order as follows: al-Zuqnīnī (eighth century), Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl li-Dyonīsyus al-Tilmaḥrī (Patriarch 818–845) [Story of al-Zuqnīnī attributed to Patriarch Dyonīsyus al-Tilmaḥrī], trans. (Syria c to Arabic) Deacon Boutros Qāsha, ed. and annot. Father Suhayl Qāsha (Jounieh: Manshūrāt al-Maktaba al-Būlsīya, 2006); al-Musabbiḥī (420 AH/1029 CE), Tome quarantième de la chronique d’Égypte de Musabbiḥī, edit. and pres. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid and Thierry Bianquis (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1978); ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī (597 AH/1201 CE), al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-mulūk wa al-umam, ed. and annot. Muḥammad ʿAṭā and Muṣṭafā ʿAṭā (Beirut : Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmīya, 1992), vol. 15 387–447 AH; Mār Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryānī al-Kabīr (595 AH/1199 CE), Tārīkh Mār Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryānī al-Kabīr, trans. (Syria c to Arabic) Mār Grīgorius Ṣalība Shamʿūn, vol. 3 (Aleppo : Mardin Publishing House, 1996); Ibn al-Athīr (630 AH/1256 CE), al-Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, vol. 9 (Beirut: Dār Ṣādīr, 1979); Ibn Muyassar (677 AH/1278 CE), al-Muntaqa min akhbār Miṣr, ed. and annot. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1981); Ibn al-ʿIbrī (685 AH/1286 CE), Tārīkh al-zamān, trans. (Syria c to Arabic) Father Isḥāq Armala (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1986); Ibn Tagh rī Birdī (874 AH/1470 CE), al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa al-Qāhira, ed. and annot. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shams al-Dīn, vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmīya, 1992).

  15. 15.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 9.

  16. 16.

    The emergence of islets in the Tigris actually took place in 146 AH/763–764CE, according to al-Zuqnīnī , Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl li-Dyonisius al-Tilmaḥrī, 123.

  17. 17.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 48. It seems that Sibṭ used the Kitāb al-Muntaẓam of his grandfather, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, to mention the drought and flooding of the Tigris in 400 AH, al-Muntaẓam, 15:70. Both historians put the emphasis on the situation of the Tigris, as they place the story at the beginning of the sequence of events of 400 AH. The Egypt ian historian Ibn Taghrī Birdī, who used Sibṭ as the source of information in his book, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, mentions the situation of the Nile water at the beginning of each year. Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, 214, 225.

  18. 18.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 32; ʿAbbādān and Mahrūbān (al-Muntaẓam, vol. 15, 58).

  19. 19.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 34.

  20. 20.

    Our doubt is confirmed by what ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī suggested in al-Muntaẓam, 15:59, where hailstones are said to weigh about five dirhams, which is a likely figure when compared with the hail projectiles as large as stones that fell on the village of Tall Aswad in 729 CE according to al-Zuqnīnī . But it seems that Sibṭ merged two events from the works of his grandfather Ibn al-Jawzī, since ʿAbd al-Raḥmān adds a reference to the huge hailstones in the two regions of Wāsīṭ and Saqyi al-Furāt, where one hailstone weighed 106 dirhams, al-Muntaẓam, 15:60; see also Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 76.

  21. 21.

    Al-Zuqnīnī, Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 101; Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 50, 56, 74, 83, 85; al-Zuqnīnī, Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 216–217, 101n5.

  22. 22.

    Al-Anṭākī is a major source dealing partly with natural disasters in the Middle Ages in his book entitled Tārīkh al-Anṭākī. See the editor’s introduction, 7.

  23. 23.

    Al-Anṭākī, Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 275.

  24. 24.

    Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fi al-tārīkh, 8:208.

  25. 25.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 28; see also ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:54–55; Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 8:205.

  26. 26.

    ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:67–68. Sibṭ does not mention this matter among the events of 399 AH/1008–1009 CE.

  27. 27.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 70; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntaẓam, 15:84–85.

  28. 28.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mir’āt al-zamān, 69; see also ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntaẓam, 15:84.

  29. 29.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mir’āt al-zamān, 131; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntaẓam, 15:124.

  30. 30.

    Ibn al-Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, 4:281; Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 85–86.

  31. 31.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mir’āt al-zamān, 34. This information by Sibṭ is also mentioned among the events of the year 398 AH/1007–1008 CE by Ibn al-ʿIbrī in Tārīkh al-zamān, 76. For additional information on the damage from the storm of 1035 CE in the “Sea of Faris” [Persia n Gulf], see Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 86.

  32. 32.

    These winds rose in July of 988 CE/ Raby` al-THaany 378 AH. Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 70.

  33. 33.

    This took place in 290 AH/902 CE. Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 50.

  34. 34.

    This took place in 285 AH/898 CE. Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 49.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 85.

  36. 36.

    This took place in the month of Rajab 423 AH/ July 1032 CE. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:227; Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 85.

  37. 37.

    Al-Maqrīzī , Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 69–71. On climate , prices, and diseases in Bilād al-Shām during the Mamlūk era, see Fādī Tawā, al-Munākh wa al-asʿār wa al-amrāḍ fi Bilād al-Shām fī ʿadh al-mamālīk, 648–922 AH/1250–1516 CE (Beirut : Mouasasat Nasir li-l thakafah, 1998).

  38. 38.

    Al-Anṭākī , Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 262. This event is not mentioned by Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , but his contemporary, Ibn al-Athīr, mentions it and provides more details about the cost of living, high to the point that bakeries and public baths (ḥammāmāt) were closed, that the wealth of people was exhausted, and that an epidemic ravaged the country (between five hundred and seven hundred people died every day). See Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 9:185.

  39. 39.

    Al-Anṭākī, Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 266.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 375. That year the water level of the Nile reached fifteen and a half cubits.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 278. This information is also mentioned by Ibn al-Athīr among the events of the year 398 AH/1007–1008 CE. Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 8:208.

  42. 42.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mir’āt al-zamān, 64–65.

  43. 43.

    Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 77. On the swarms of locusts that attacked Baghdād in 404 AH/1013–1014 CE, see ibid., 78.

  44. 44.

    Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 59, 85. Among the events of the year 423 AH/1031 CE, Ibn Tagh rī Birdī mentions the plague that ravaged India and Persia , especially in Ghaznā, Khurāsān, Jurjān, and Aṣbahān. It spread as far as Baghdād, al-Mūsil, and al-Jazīra, and claimed many victims (40,000 in Iṣbahān alone). Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, 4:279.

  45. 45.

    Al-Anṭākī , Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 55–56.

  46. 46.

    Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:111. In 406 AH/1015–1016 CE, according to Sibṭ, the high cost of food affected al-Ahwāz (in Persia ). Sibṭ, Mir’āt al-zamān, 113.

  47. 47.

    Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 8:263. See also 8:329 for high cost of living in 413 AH.

  48. 48.

    Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, 4:252. The same order was given by Caliph al-Ẓāhir in 415 AH/1024–1025 CE because of the same problem of epidemic that spread between animal s. al-Musabbiḥī, Akhbār Miṣr, 46. Ibn al-ʿIbrī speaks of a famine which struck the domestic animals in 808 CE, until they devoured the youths and women. Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 17.

  49. 49.

    On this topic, see Aḥmad al-Sayyid al-Ṣāwī, Majāʿāt Miṣr al-Fāṭimīyah: Asbāb wa Natāʾij (Beirut : Dār al-Taḍamun, 1988), 32–40. For the famine at the time of al-Ẓāhir, see ibid., 41–49.

  50. 50.

    Al-Anṭākī , Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 266; see also al-Ṣāwī, Majāʿāt Miṣr al-Fāṭimīya, 38.

  51. 51.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir’āt al-zamān, 12, 82. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī adds that the star is big like Venus and lights the earth like the moon . ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:49, 15:91. Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 15:190. Ibn al-Athīr also speaks of the apparition of a comet in 393 AH/1002–1003 CE, ibid., 15:178. According to Ibn al-ʿIbrī, the apparition of the star in 396 AH lasted for 4 months. Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 76.

  52. 52.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir’āt al-zamān, 127–128. Ibn al-ʿIbrī talks about the emergence of a pillar of light in the sky that lasted from evening to dawn and about the fall of a flash-like star in Sinjār in 425 AH/1034 CE. These events were followed by a plague , with incidents of suffocation in Baghdād . Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 85–86.

  53. 53.

    Delort, introduction to Les catastrophes naturelles, 14–15.

  54. 54.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir’āt al-zamān, 153, 161–162. This took place in 411 AH/1020–1021 CE.

  55. 55.

    Delort, introduction to Les catastrophes naturelles, 14.

  56. 56.

    Al-Anṭākī , Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 262–264.

  57. 57.

    Al-Zuqnīnī , Tārīhkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 118–120.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 97, 114–115, 149, 191 (for the years 741, 756, 769, and 773 CE).

  59. 59.

    Al-Maqrīzī , Ighāthat al-ummah bi-kashf al-ghimma, 78.

  60. 60.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 34; see also al-Anṭākī, Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 263–264; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:60; Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 8:208; Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 76. Ibn al-ʿIbrī mentions an earthquake that took place in Egypt and Palestine in 425 AH/1034 CE, which brought down half the city of Bālis and annihilated several villages with their inhabitants in Syria . Similarly, the foundations of the Church of the Resurrection, two minarets in ʿAsqalān and in Ghazza and half of Acre were affected. Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 85. A similar event took place in 139 AH/756 CE, according to al-Zuqnīnī , who mentions a huge earthquake that devastated the region of al-Jazīra (in modern Northern Syria ), where three villages were laid to waste. al-Zuqnīnī, Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 114.

  61. 61.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mir’āt al-zamān, 127–128. According to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jawzī, the damage to Mecca was the result of an accidental fire (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:120). Fires also struck in Jerusalem and in Sāmirrāʾ (in Iraq), see Ibn al-Athīr, al Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, 8:295 for information on the latter.

  62. 62.

    See N. N. Ambraseys, C. P. Melville, and R. D. Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt , Arabia and the Red Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 146. See also p. 30 for the mention of four earthquakes that struck during the eleventh century.

  63. 63.

    According to al-Zuqnīnī, in 742 CE Palestine experienced a strong earthquake , which lasted all night and during which the earth “sighed and bellowed like an ox”. The noise continued for 30 days. As for damage, a whole church in Jerusalem fell on the heads of the faithful: al-Zuqnīnī, Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 88. For information about the same earthquake ’s effects in other regions, see Ambraseys, Melville, and Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt , 25–26. Two more earthquakes are reported by al-Zuqnīnī and are missing in the abovementioned modern study—they happened in 718 and 748 CE, see al-Zuqnīnī, Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 83, 95.

  64. 64.

    The earthquakes mentioned by Ibn al-ʿIbrī are those of 765, 840, and 884 CE: Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārikh al-zamān, 9, 34, 40, 44. For more information on the same period, see Ambraseys, Melville, and Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt, 25–28, 146. The authors also indicate that information about earthquakes in the Islamic world increased after the ninth century as chronicles multiplied. The earthquakes are well studied in the sources of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but the Mamlūk sources are more important than the Ottoman ones, Ibid., 148. On the earthquakes that struck in the Islamic Middle East from 20 to 810 AH/641 to 1408 CE, see al-Suyūṭī , Kashf al-ṣalṣala, 165–210.

  65. 65.

    Alain Ducellier, “Les tremblements de terre balkaniques au Moyen Âge: Aspects matériels et mentaux,” in Les catastrophes naturelles dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne: Actes des XV es Journées Internationales d’Histoire de l’Abbaye de Flaran 10, 11, et 12 septembre 1993, ed. Bartolomé Bennassar (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Murail, Toulouse, 1996), 62 (translated from French).

  66. 66.

    Mār Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryānī al-Kabīr, Tārīkh Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryānī al-Kabīr, 3:127–128, 3:159, 3:173. On the subject of the Divine Will and God’s punishment of people who are “heartless and stubborn” and commit so many bad deeds, see also al-Zuqnīnī , Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 97, 191.

  67. 67.

    Mār Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryānī al-Kabīr, Tārīkh Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryānī al-Kabīr, 3:103, 3:127–128.

  68. 68.

    Al-Suyūṭī, Kashf al-ṣalṣala, 138–143; Anna Akasoy, “Interpreting Earthquakes in Medieval Islamic Texts,” in Natural Disasters , Cultural Responses: Case Studies Toward a Global Environmental History, ed. Christof Mauch and Christian Pfister (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009), 183–187.

  69. 69.

    Al-Suyūṭī, Kashf al-ṣalṣala, 138. See the explanation given by Ducellier of the earthquake as a “wonder” (aya in Arabic) and a sign of divine approval or a sort of scansion. Ducellier, “Les tremblements de terre balkaniques au Moyen Âge,” 63. See also Akasoy, “Interpreting Earthquakes in Medieval Islamic Texts,” 187–189.

  70. 70.

    Ducellier, “Les tremblements de terre balkaniques au Moyen Âge,” 62–63 (translated from French).

  71. 71.

    Al-Suyūṭī, Kashf al-ṣalṣala, 135–136; Akasoy, “Interpreting Earthquakes in Medieval Islamic Texts,” 189.

  72. 72.

    Ducellier, “Les tremblements de terre balkaniques au Moyen Âge,” 63. It is interesting to read the description by al-Zuqnīnī of the earthquake of 742 CE, when the earth continued making noise for 30 days, al-Zuqnīnī, Tārīkh al-Zuqnīnī al-manḥūl, 88. On the frequency and force of the earthquake of 765 CE, see Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh al-zamān, 9. Al-Suyūṭī and Ibn al-Jazzār, authors of a book on earthquakes , also refute the Aristotelian doctrine. Ambraseys, Melville, and Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt , 190–192.

  73. 73.

    Ambraseys, Melville and Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt, 147–149, 150, 159. Ducellier emphasises methodological precautions in the study of earthquakes because of different views of the authors. Les tremblements de terre balkaniques au Moyen Âge, 63.

  74. 74.

    Al-Maqrīzī , Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 64–67.

  75. 75.

    Mu’ssasat Nāsir li-l-Thaqāfa, introduction to Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 7–25.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 23–26; al-Maqrīzī , Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 40, 78–100.

  77. 77.

    Mu’ssasat Nāsir li-l-Thaqāfa, introduction to Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 28–30; al-Maqrīzī, Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 77–84.

  78. 78.

    Mu’ssasat Nāsir li-l-Thaqāfa, introduction to Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 30–35; al-Maqrīzī, Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 84–126. Irving Fisher (1867–1947) “American economist […] Professor of mathematics then of political economy, to which he applied mathematical methods . He provided the quantitative theory of money with a modern formulation, linking the quantity of money in circulation, the speed of circulation and the price level [...].” Le Petit Robert des noms propres, (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, Nouvelle Edition Refondue et Augmentée1994), s.v.

  79. 79.

    Regarding the purpose of al-Maqrīzī’ s book, see al-Maqrīzī, Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 40–42.

  80. 80.

    Ibid., 50–52. Regarding 396 AH/1005–1006 CE and the measures taken by al-Ḥākim, see al-Anṭākī , Tārīkh al-Anṭākī, 266.

  81. 81.

    Al-Maqrīzī , Ighāthat al-umma bi-kashf al-ghimma, 52–53; al-Musabbiḥī, Akhbār Miṣr, 14–16, 74–76. For rising prices at the time of al-Mustanṣir, son of al-Ẓāhir, see Al-Maqrīzī, 59–62.

  82. 82.

    Ibn Muyassar, al-Muntaqa min akhbār Miṣr, 13. On the famine in the time of the Caliph, see al-Ṣāwī, Majāʿāt Miṣr al-Fāṭimīya, 61–68.

  83. 83.

    Aḥmad Sūsa, “al-Fayaḍān wa gharaq Baghdād fī al-ʿaṣr al-ʿAbbāsī,” in Majallat al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-‘Irāqī, (Baghdad al-majmaʿ al-ʿilmī al-‘Irāqī,, 1962), 9:30–68; Otfried Weintritt, “The Floods of Baghdad,” in Mauch and Pfister , Natural Disasters , 161–182.

  84. 84.

    Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī , Mir’āt al-zamān, 81–82. For more information, see ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 15:89. It is interesting to see the layout of dikes and ditches on the Tigris on a map drawn by Aḥmad Sūsa and illustrating the “former irrigation projects” in Sūsa’s “‘al-Fayaḍān wa gharaq Baghdād fī al-ʿaṣr al-ʿAbbāsī’,” 34. On the amounts paid by the Caliph in 938 CE for the work, see also Weintritt, “The Floods of Baghdad,” 172, and a map drawn by Guy le Strange in Weintritt, “The Floods of Baghdad,” 170, originally published in Guy le Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate from Contemporary Arabic and Persia n Sources, (Oxford: Cladrendon Press, 1900).

  85. 85.

    Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, 4:284–285.

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  1. Université Libanaise, Beyrouth, Lebanon

    Juliette Rassi

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    Gerrit Jasper Schenk

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Rassi, J. (2017). Several Natural Disasters in the Middle East (at the Beginning of the Eleventh Century) and Their Consequences. In: Schenk, G. (eds) Historical Disaster Experiences. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_3

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