Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:29:01.382Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Type
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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. Bury, J.B., 2nd ed. (London 1901-1902) IV, 436–440 Google Scholar.

2. Bury, J.B., History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian (A.D. 395 to A.D. 565) (London 1923) II, 62–66 Google Scholar; Stein, Ernst, Histoire du Bas-Empire (Paris 1949-1959) II, 758–761 Google Scholar; Teall, John L., ‘The Barbarians in Justinian’s Armies’, Speculum 40 (1965) 294–322 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Charanis, Peter, ‘Observations on the Demography of the Byzantine Empire’, in Proceedings of the XIIIth International Conference of Byzantine Studies, ed. Hussey, J.M., Obolensky, D., and Runciman, S. (London 1967) 1–19 Google Scholar; Russell, Josiah C., ‘That Earlier Plague’, Demography 5 (1968) 174–184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Biraben, Jean-Noäl and Goff, Jacques Le, ‘La peste dans le Haut Moyen Age’, Annales 24 (1969) 1484–1510 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allen, P., ‘The “Justinianic” Plague’, 49 (1979) 5–20 Google Scholar. More sceptical positions have recently been taken on the matter; these will be considered at the end of this study.

3. Conrad, Lawrence I., ‘The Plague in Bilād al-Shām in Pre-Islamic Times’, in ‘Adnān al-Bakhīt, Muḥammad and ‘Aṣfūr, Muḥammad, eds., Proceedings of the Symposium on Bilād al-Shām during the Byzantine Period (Amman 1986) II, 143–163 Google Scholar.

4. See Celli, Angelo, Storia della malaria nell’Agro Romano (Castello 1925)Google Scholar.

5. Conrad, ‘The Plague in Bilād al-Shām’, 157.

6. Tchalenko, Georges, Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord (Paris 1953-1958)Google Scholar.

7. Sodini, Jean-Pierre et al, Déhès (Syrie du Nord), campagnes I-III (1976-1978); recherches sur l’habitat rural (Paris 1980; = Syria 57, 1–304)Google Scholar.

8. See, for example, Sartre, Maurice, Bostra: des origines à l’Islam (Paris 1985) 127–128 Google Scholar.

9. In his ‘Die ghassânischen Fürsten aus dem Hause Gafna’s’, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1887) 41, Theodor Nöldeke proposed that Ḥassān was probably born around 590, but this is certainly too late. Cf. the studies cited in the following note.

10. See ‘Arafat, Walid N., ‘A Critical Introduction to the Study of the Poems Ascribed to Ḥassān ibn Thābit’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1954) 3–20 Google Scholar; idem, art. ‘Ḥassān b. Thābit’ in El 1, III (Leiden 1971) 271b-273a.

11. Thābit, Ḥassān ibn, Dīwān, ed. ‘Arafat, Walid N. (Leiden 1971; E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, 25)Google Scholar.

12. ‘Arafat, , ‘Critical Introduction’, 274–285 Google Scholar; idem, ‘A Controversial Incident and the Related Poem in the Life of Ḥassān b. Thābit’, BSOAS 17 (1955) 197-205 (esp. 204-205); idem, ‘An Interpretation of the Different Accounts of the Visit of the Tamīm Delegation to the Prophet in A.H. 9’, BSOAS 17 (1955) 416-425 (esp. 420-425); idem, ‘The Development of a Dramatic Theme in the Story of Khubaih b. ‘Adiyy and the Related Poems’, BSOAS 21 (1958) 15-30; idem, ‘Early Critics of the Authenticity of the Poetry of the Sīra’ BSOAS 21 (1958) 453-463; idem, ‘An Aspect of the Forger’s Art in Early Islamic Poetry’, BSOAS 28 (1965) 477-482; idem, ‘The Historical Significance of Later Anṣārī Poetry’, BSOAS 29 (1966) 1-11, 221-232.

13. ‘Arafat, ‘Critical Introduction’, 560; idem, ‘Ḥassān b. Thābit’, 272b.

14. A seminal series of studies on this question has recently been published by Schoeler, Gregor. See his ‘Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam’, Der Islam 62 (1985) 201–230 Google Scholar; ‘Weiteres zur Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im Islam’, Der Islam 66 1989) 38-67; ‘Mündliche Thora und Ḥadīt, Der Islam 66 (1989) 213-251; ‘Schreiben und Veröffentlichen. Zu Verwendung und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhundert’, Der Islam 699 (1922) 1-43.

15. al-Jumaḥī, Muḥammad ibn Sallām, Ṭabaqāt fuḥūl al-shu‘arā’, ed. Shākir, Maḥmūd Muḥammad (Cairo 1952) 179 Google Scholar. This topic is discussed at length in ‘Arafat, ‘Early Critics’.

16. ‘Arafat is of the same opinion concerning these poems. See his ‘Critical Introduction’, 543-552.

17. Dīwān, I, 228 no. 105.

18. Ibid.

19. See Iliad I.43-67, where Apollo inflicts pestilence upon both men and beasts with arrows fired from his silver bow.

20. Among the Egyptians and Canaanites, for example, the god Reshep was a major deity believed to be responsible for afflicting mankind with epidemic diseases with his arrows and lance. Among the ancient Israelites he was demoted to the status of a lesser demon who spreads pestilence at the command of Yahweh, and in some Old Testament passages his name seems to become nothing more than one of numerous terms for ‘pestilence’. See Deuteronomy 32:23-24, Job 5:7, Psalms 76:4, 78:48. On Reshep, see Fulco, William J., The Canaanite God Reshep (New Haven 1976) 12-13, 23-25, 27, 37, 50, 56-62, 69–70 Google Scholar; and on spirits more generally as the bearers of pestilence, cf. Sigerist, Henry E., Civilisation and Disease (Chicago 1943) 141–142 Google Scholar; Hirst, L. Fabian, The Conquest of Plague: a Study of the Evolution of Epidemiology (Oxford 1953) 1–2 Google Scholar; Zbinden, Ernst, Die Djinn des Islam und der altorientalische Geisterglaube (Bern and Stuttgart 1953) 104, 106, 120, 122, 125.Google Scholar

21. Procopius (wr. 550), De bello persico II.xxii.10-13; ed. Haury, Jakob in his Procopii Caesariensis Opera Omnia, 2nd ed. by Wirth, Gerhard (Leipzig 1962-1964) I, 251–252 Google Scholar.

22. John of Ephesus (d. ca. 585, Historia ecclesiastica, fragments of Part II ed. Land, J.P.N. in his Anecdota syriaca, II (Leiden 1868) 307–309 Google Scholar.

23. Theophanes, , Chronographia, ed. Boor, C. de (Leipzig 1883) 423–424 Google Scholar.

24. Al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868), Kitāb al-ḥayawān, ed. Hārūn, ‘Abd al-Salām Muḥammad, 2nd ed. (Cairo 1385-1389//1965-1969), I, 351; VI, 218–219 Google Scholar; al-Tha‘ǡlibī, (d. 429/1038), Thimār al-qulüb, ed. Ibrāhīm, Muḥammad Abü l-Faḍl (Cairo 1384/1965) 68 Google Scholar; Abūl-Ḥadd, Ibn (d. 656/1258), Sharḥnahīm al-balāgha, ed. Ibrāhīm, Muḥammad Abū I-Faḍl (Cairo 1959-1964) XV, 240 Google Scholar.

25. Al-Jāḥiẓ, (Ḥayawān, VI, 219 Google Scholar) elucidates the passage most fully: ‘He means to say: I did not fear that Ubayy, so strong and determined, would be killed by vile men and those who bridle asses rather than horses; I was only fearful for him from you, that you would be the one to thrust him through, or that the plague of Syria would do so’. See also al-Tha’ālibī, loc. cit.

26. al-Kūfī, Ibn A’tham (wr. 204/819), Kitāb al-futūn, ed. al-Muīd Khān, Muḥammad Abd et al. (Hyderabad 1388-1395/1968-1975) I, 313 Google Scholar; Ḥanbal, Aḥmad ibn (d. 241/855), Al-Musnad (Cairo A.H. 1311-1313), IV, 395, 413 Google Scholar; al-Jāḥiẓ’, , Ḥayawān, I, 351; VI, 218–220 Google Scholar; Qutayba, Ibn (d. 276/889), ‘Uyūn al-akhbār, ed. al-’Adawī, Ahmad Zakī (Cairo 1343-1348/1925-1930) II, 114 Google Scholar; al-Mas’ūdī, (d. 345/956), Murūj al-dhahab, ed. Pellat, Charles (Beirut 1966-1979) III, 214 Google Scholar; al-Ṭabarānī, (d. 360/971), Al-Mu’jam al-ṣaghīr, ed. ‘Uthmān, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad (Medina 1388/1968) I, 50, 127 Google Scholar; ai-Tha’ālibī, , Thimār al-qulūb, 68 Google Scholar; Asākir, Ibn (d. 571/1176), Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, I, ed. al-Munajjid, Salāh al-Dīn (Damascus 1371/1951) 557 Google Scholar; l-Ḥadīd, Ibn Abī, Sharḥ nahj al-balāgha, XV, 240 Google Scholar.

27. Al-Jāḥiẓ, , Ḥawawān, VI, 219 Google Scholar. On this poet of the Azāriqa, see ‘Abbās, Iḥsān, Dīwāh shi’r al-khawārij, 4th ed. (Beirut 1402/1982), 143–144 Google Scholar.

28. Al-Jāḥiẓ, , Ḥayawān, VI, 219 Google Scholar; al-Tha’ālibr, , Thimār al-qulūb, 68 Google Scholar. The second hemistich refers to the harsh fiscal policies of the fallen Umayyads. On the end of the pandemic in 131/749, at the time of the ‘Abbāsid revolution, see my “Ṭā’ūn and Wabā: Conceptions of Plague and Pestilence in Early Islam’, JESHO 25 (1982) 288-290.

29. al-Manbijī, Muḥammad (wr. 765/1364), Mârawāhu al-wā’un fī akhbār al-ṭ ā’ūn, al-miṣrīya, Dār al-kutub Ms. no. 16 Ṭibb ḥalīm, fols. 180v–182v Google Scholar; Ḥajala, Ibn Abī (d. 776/1375), Daf ‘al-niqma fī l-ṣalāt ‘alā nabī l-raḥma, Escorial MS. Arabe no. 1772, fols. 42r–55r Google Scholar; al-‘Asqaìānī, Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449), Badhl al-mā ‘ūn fī faḍl al-tā ‘ūn, al-miṣrīya, Dār al-kutub Ms. no. 2353 Taṣawwuf, fols. 17r–21v Google Scholar. See also Dols, Michael W., The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton 1977) 117–118 Google Scholar.

30. See, for example, Burckhardt, John Lewis, Travels in Arabia (London 1829) 414–415 Google Scholar; Hurgonje, C. Snouck, Mekka, II: Aus dem heutigen Leben (The Hague 1889) 63 Google Scholar; Musil, Alois, Arabia Petraea, III: Ethnologischer Reisebericht (Vienna 1908) 320–323 Google Scholar; Padwick, Contance E., ‘Notes on the Jinn and the Ghoul in the Peasant Mind of Lower Egypt’, BSOAS 3 (1923-1925) 443–444 Google Scholar; Basset, René, Mille et un contes, récits, et légendes arabes (Paris 1924-1927) I, 123–125 Google Scholar; Canaan, Toufik, Dämonenglaube im Lande der Bibel (Leipzig 1929) 28 Google Scholar; Zbinden, , Die Djinn der Islam, 17–18 Google Scholar, 24-25, 30, 40, 48, 49, 53, 54. Cf. also Gallagher, Nancy, Egypt’s Other Wars: Epidemics and the Politics of Public Health (Syracuse 1990) 120–121 Google Scholar.

31. See, for example, my ‘Seven and the Tasbī‘: On the Implications of Numerical Symbolism for the Study of Medieval Islamic History’, JESHO 31 (1988) 62-70.

32. See Conrad, Lawrence I., ‘The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1981), 105–107 Google Scholar, 124-125, 132, 154.

33. Evagrius, , Historia ecclesiastica IV. 29 Google Scholar; ed. Bidez, J. and Parmentier, L. (London 1898) 177–179 Google Scholar.

34. See Koder, Johannes, ‘Ein inschriftlicher Beleg zur ‘justinianischen’ Pest in Zora (Azra‘a)’, in Kominis, A.D., ed., Timitikos Tomos Bruno Lavangnini Google Scholar, forthcoming. I am grateful to Professor Koder for providing me with a copy of his article prior to publication.

35. See Sartre, Bostra; and on the Islamic period, Abel, A., art. ‘Bosrā’ in EI 2, I (Leiden 1960) 1275b–1277b Google Scholar; Schick, Robert, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: an Historical and Archaeological Study (Princeton 1994) 274–276 Google Scholar.

36. Thābit, Ḥassān ibn, Dīwān, II, 172 Google Scholar. Thilo, Ulrich mentions a Rumāh in his Die Ortsnamen in der altarabischen Poesie (Wiesbaden 1958) 87 Google Scholar, and this place is often mentioned in Umayyad poetry. See, for example, Jarīr (d. ca. 111/729), Dīwān, ed. Ṭāhā, Nu‘mān Amīn (Cairo 1969-1971), I, 87 Google Scholar v. 3, 458 v. 2; II, 749 v. 13; l-Rumma, Dhū (d. ca. 117/735), Dīwān, ed. Henry, Carlile Macartney, Hayes (Cambridge 1919) 432 Google Scholar v. 12, 549 v. 9; ‘Ubayda, Abū (d. 211/826), Naqā’iḍ Jarīr wa-l-Farazdaq, ed. Bevan, A. A. (Leiden 1905-1912), II, 801 v. 19b Google Scholar, vocalized ‘Rimḥ’. But this site is located in the sand desert of al-Dahnā’ in Arabia, and so cannot be the place referred to by Ḥassān.

37. al-Bakrī, Abū ‘Ubayd, Mu’jam mā ’sta‘jam, ed. al-Saqqā, Muṣṭ afā (Cairo 1364-1371/1945-1951), II, 673 Google Scholar, citing also a verse by Ṭahmān ibn ‘Amr al-Kilābī.

38. al-Ḥamawī, Yāqūt, Mu’jam al-buldān, ed. Wüstenfeld, Ferdinand (Leipzig 1866-1873), II, 816 Google Scholar.

39. See Dussaud, René and Macler, Frédéric, Voyage archéologique au Ṣāfâ et dans le Djebel ed-Drûz (Paris 1901) 178–182 Google Scholar; Dussaud, René, Mission scientifique dans les régions désertiques de la Syrie moyenne (Paris 1903) 29–30, 267–268 Google Scholar; PAES, I, 29; Poidebard, André, La trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie (Paris 1934), I, 54 Google Scholar, 60, 67; II, Plate XLV; Dussaud, René, La pénétration des arabes en Syrie avant l’Islam (Paris 1955) 81 Google Scholar; Sartre, Maurice, Trois études sur l’Arabie romaine et byzantine (Brussels 1982), 103, 105, 133, 186 Google Scholar; Kennedy, D. L., Archaeological Explorations on the Roman Frontier in North-East Jordan (London 1982; British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 134) 81 Google Scholar.

40. See Villeneuve, François, ‘L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans le Hauran antique (Ier siècle av. J.-C.-VIIe siècle ap. J.-C): une approche’, in Denzer, J.-M., ed., Hauran I: recherches archéologiques sur la Syrie du Sud à l’epoque hellenistique et romaine (Paris 1985), I, 118 Google Scholar.

41. Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter and Abdulfattah, Kamal, Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century (Erlangen 1977) 219 Google Scholar, where the register names a village called Imrah in the Nāhiya Banī Nashīya in the qadā’ of the Ḥawrān. The authors were not able to identify this place with any known village in the Ḥawrān, but the official who transcribed the register has probably written Imraḥ in error for Irmāḥ, which was how the site was colloquially known even in the early twentieth century.

42. Wetzstein, Johann Gottlieb, Reisebericht über Hauran und die Trachonen (Berlin 1860 Google Scholar) map.

43. Thābit, Ḥassān ibn, Dīwāh, I, 116 Google Scholar v. 1, 228 v. 2, 255 v. 1.

44. Ibid., II, 107, 193.

45. Al-Bakrī, , Mu‘jam mā ’sta‘jam, II, 510–511 Google Scholar; Yāqūt, , Mu‘jam al-buldān, II, 469 Google Scholar; Strange, Guy Le, Palestine under the Moslems (Cambridge 1890) 484 Google Scholar.

46. Al-Ya‘qūbī, (d. 284/897), Kitāb al-buldān, ed. Goeje, M.J. de (Leiden 1892) 326 Google Scholar.

47. Schumacher, Gottlieb, Across the Jordan (London 1886) 179, 203 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Das südliche Basan’, ZDPV 20 (1897) 75, 138; Brünnow, Rudolf Ernst and Domaszewski, Alfred von, Die Provincia Arabia (Strassburg 1904-1909) III, 46 Google Scholar; Dussaud, René, Topographie historique de la Syrie antique et médiévale (Paris 1927) 336 Google Scholar, also Map II, A2. Steuernagel, Cf. Carl, Namenliste des nördlichen Ostjordanlandes (Leipzig 1927) 144, 145 Google Scholar.

48. al-Athīr, Ibn (d. 630/1233), Al-Kāmil fī l-ta’rīkh (Beirut 1385-1387/1965-1967) VII, 273 Google Scholar.

49. Röhricht, Reinhold, ‘Studien zur mittelalterlichen Geographie und Topographie Syriens’, ZDPV 10 (1887) 267 Google Scholar; Mittman, Siefried, Beiträge zur Siedlungs- und Territorialgeschichte des nördlichen Ostjordanlandes (Wiesbaden 1970) 253–254 Google Scholar.

50. Ephesus, John of, Historia ecclesiastica, II, 310–312 Google Scholar. Procopius, Cf., Anecdota xxiii. 20 Google Scholar; ed. Haury, III, 144.

51. Historia ecclesiastica, II, 310.

52. Ibid., II, 312-319; idem. Lives of the Eastern Saints, ed. and trans. Brooks, E.W. (Paris 1923-1926; Patrologia orientalis, 17–19) 437–438, 531 Google Scholar.

53. De bello persico II.xxiii.3-13, 17, 20; ed. Haury, I, 256-258, 259.

54. See Al-Jāḥiẓ, , Ḥayawān, II, 155–156 Google Scholar; al-Balādhurī, (d. 279/892), Ansāb al-ashrāf, IV. 1, ed. ‘Abbās, IḤsān (Wiesbaden 1979) 465 Google Scholar; al-Dimashqī, Abū Zur‘a (d. 280/893), Ta’rīkh, ed. Allāh, Shukr Ni‘mat, ibn al-Quchānī, Allāh (Damascus 1400/1980) I, 519 Google Scholar; al-Mubarrad, (d. 285/896), Al-Ta’āzī wa-I-marāthī, ed. al-Dībājī, Muḥammad (Damascus 1396/1976) 211 Google Scholar.

55. See Rasson, A.-M. and Seigne, J., ‘Une cistern byzantino-omeyyade sur le sanctuaire de Zeus’, Syria (1989) 149 Google Scholar.

56. I am grateful to Dr. Robert Smith for sharing with me the details of his unpublished finds in rock-cut tombs at Abila.

57. See Sartre, Maurice, ed., Bostra (Paris 1982 Google Scholar; Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, XIII. 1) 246 (no. 9190).

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

59. Kirk, George Eden and Wells, C. Bradford, ‘The Inscriptions’, in Colt, H. Dunscombe, ed., Excavations at Nessana, I (London 1962) 179–180 Google Scholar (no. 112). Although the corpus of available inscriptions is too small for much to be made of the grouping of texts around certain dates, it is at least worth observing that at Nessana the most significant grouping of texts is in October-November 541 (ibid., 168, 179-181, nos. 80, 112-114). The same occurs at al-RuḤayba, where the largest clustering of dated inscriptions is in the period 541-542; see Tsafrir, Yoram et al., Excavations at Rehovot-in-the-Negev, I: The Northern Church (Jerusalem 1988) 157–158 Google Scholar, 160-161, nos. 5, 10A, 11.

60. Thābit, Ḥassān ibn, Dīwān, I, 255 no. 123 Google Scholar.

61. l-Faraj, Abū al-Iṣfahānī, , Kitāb al-aghānī, ed. al-Hūrīnī, Naṣr (Cairo/Būlāq A.H. 1285) XIII, 170 Google Scholar.

62. See, for example, al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥamza (wr. 350/961), Ta’rīkh sinī mulūk al-arḍ wa-l-anbiyā’, Part X ed. Gottwaldt, J.M.E. (Leipzig 1844) 117 Google Scholar.

63. Ibn ‘Asākir in fact offers the impossible suggestion (on the authority of some earlier source, no doubt), that Version I refers to the battle of al-Yarmūk. See his Al-Ta’rīkh al-kabīr (Amman 1988) IV, 382.

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.

66. See Burckhardt, John Lewis, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (London 1822) 103 Google Scholar; Porter, , Five Years in Damascus, II, 189–198 Google Scholar; Wetzstein, , Reisebericht, 121 Google Scholar; Waddington, W.H., Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie (Paris 1870)Google Scholar nos. 1962-1968; Clermont-Ganneau, Charles, Recueil d’archéologie orientale (Paris 1888-1924) I, 14–15 Google Scholar; Rindfleisch, Georg, ‘Die Landschaft Ḥaurān in römischer Zeit und in der Gegenwart’, ZDPV 21 (1898) 13, 27 Google Scholar; Dussaud, , Topographie, 365 Google Scholar; Brünnow, and von Domaszewski, , Die Provincia Arabia, III, 267, 313, 331, 338, 342, 353 Google Scholar; Butler, H.C. et al., Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-05 and 1909 (Leiden 1911-1943) I, 19–20, 40 Google Scholar; IIIA, 299.

67. See al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥamza, Ta’rīkh, 116 Google Scholar; also Wetzstein, Reisebericht, 121; Nöldeke, ‘Ghassânischen Fürsten’, 50; Dussaud, Topographie, 365.

68. Hütteroth, and Abdulfattah, , Historical Geography, 219 Google Scholar.

69. See al-Bakrī, , Mu’jam mā ’sta‘jam, I, 271 Google Scholar; Yāqūt, , Mu‘jam al-buldān, I, 708 Google Scholar; Strange, Le, Palestine under the Moslems, 237, 416 Google Scholar. Cf. also the scholia in Thābit, Ḥassān ibn, Dīwān, II, 193 Google Scholar.

70. Dussaud, Mission, 12, idem, Topographie, 296.

71. Waṣ fī, Aḥmad Zakarīyā, , Al-Rīf al-sūri (Damascus 1374-1376/1955-1957) I, 373–374 Google Scholar.

72. Al-Balādhurī, , FutūḤ al-buldān, ed. Goeje, M.J. de (Leiden 1866) 120 Google Scholar.

73. See Zakarīyā, , Al-Rīf al-sūrī, II, 131 Google Scholar; Kurd ‘Alī, Muḥammad, Ghūṭat Dimashq (Damascus 1368/1949) 24, 125, 186 Google Scholar.

74. ‘Alī, Kurd, Ghūṭat Dimashq, 165 Google Scholar.

75. Al-Idrīsī, , Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfáq, ed. Cerulli, E. et al. Naples 1970-1984) 366 Google Scholar.

76. See al-Muqaddasī, (wr. ca. 375/985), Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī ma‘rifat al aqālīm, ed. Goeje, M.J. de (Leiden 1877) 156 Google Scholar; al-Bakrī, , Mu‘jam mā ’sta‘jam, II, 539 Google Scholar; Jubayr, Ibn (d. 614/1217), RiḤla, ed. Wright, William, 2nd ed. by Goeje, M.J. de (Leiden 1907) 302 Google Scholar; Yāqūt, , Mu‘jam al-buldān, II, 536–537 Google Scholar; l-Fidā’, Abū (d. 732/1331), Taqwīm al-buldān, ed. Reinaud, J.T. and MacGuckin, William Slane, de (Paris 1840) 271 Google Scholar. Cf. also Strange, Le, Palestine under the Moslems, 39, 237, 419 Google Scholar, 436.

77. See Nöldeke, Theodor, ‘Zur Topographie und Geschichte des damascenischen Gebiets und der Haurângegend’, ZDMG 29 (1875) 425 Google Scholar; Clermont-Ganneau, , Recueil, V, 30 Google Scholar; Chabot, J.-B., ed., Documenta ad origines monophysitarum illustrandas (Paris 1908; CSCO 17, Scr. syri 17) 220, 221, 221–222 Google Scholar; = Lamy, Th.J., ed. and trans., ‘Profession de foi adressée par les abbés des couvents de la province d’Arabie à Jacques Baradée’, in Actes du Onzième Congrès International des Orientalistes, IV (Paris 1898) 117–137 Google Scholar, nos. 86-87, 91, 102-106, 110-112; Zayyāt, Ḥabīb, ‘Adyār Dimashq wa-birrihā fī l-Islām’, Al-Mashriq 42 (1948) 331–332 Google Scholar; ‘Alī, Kurd, Ghūṭat Dimashq, 239 Google Scholar.

78. ‘Asākir, Ibn, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, I, 198–199 Google Scholar.

79. See ‘Alī, Kurd, Ghūṭat Dimashq, 185–186 Google Scholar; Zakarīyā, , Al-Rīf al-sūrī, II, 131–152 Google Scholar; Bianquis, Thierry, Damas et la Syrie sous la domination fatimide (359-468/969-1076) (Damascus 1986) I, 14, 102 Google Scholar n. 1; II, 457, 668.

80. See ‘Asākir, Ibn, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, I, 318 Google Scholar; also Dussaud, Topographie, 297; ‘Alī, Kurd, Ghūṭ at Dimashq, 88, 138–139, 144 Google Scholar.

81. Al-Buḥturī, , Dīwān, ed. al-Ṣayrafī, Ḥasan Kāmil (Cairo 1963-1978) II, 709 Google Scholar.

82. Al-Ṣanawbarī, , Dīwān, ed. ‘Abbās, IḤsān (Beirut 1970) 289, 514 Google Scholar.

83. al-Khawlānī, ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. ca. 365/975), Ta’rīkh Dārayyā, ed. al-Afghānī, Sa‘īd (Damascus 1395/1975)Google Scholar. On this author and his work, see Sezgin, Fuat, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, I (Leiden 1967) 348 Google Scholar.

84. Al-Harawī, (d. 611/1215), Al-Ishārāt ilā ma‘rifat al-ziyārāt, ed. Sourdel-Thomine, Janine (Damascus 1953) 13 Google Scholar.

85. Al-Idrīsī, , Nuzhat al-mushtāq, 366 Google Scholar.

86. al-Qalānisī, Ibn (d. 555/1160), Dhayl ta’rīkh Dimashq, ed. Amedroz, H.F. (Leiden 1908) 270, 271, 272, 314, 315, 351 Google Scholar.

87. See Wirth, Eugen, Syrien. Eine geographische Landeskunde (Darmstadt 1971) 407 Google Scholar.

88. See Burckhardt, , Travels in Syria, 53, 311–312 Google Scholar; Porter, , Five Years in Damascus, I, 28, 321 Google Scholar; Zayyāt, , ‘Adyār Dimashq’, 332 Google Scholar.

89. See al-Bakrī, , Mu‘jam mā ’sta‘jam, III, 744 Google Scholar; Yāqūt, , Mu‘jam al-buldāa, III, 105 Google Scholar. Cf. Strange, Le, Palestine under the Moslems, 528 Google Scholar; also the scholia in Ḥassān ibn Thābit, Dīwān, II, 193. Sakkā’ is perhaps the same site mentioned elsewhere by Yā qüt (III, 410) as Ṣakkā’.

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.

97. See Philby, H. St. John, Arabian Highlands (Ithaca 1952) 318 Google Scholar, estimating that in 1936 there were about 750 such quṣūr in Wādī Najrān.

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.

106. Thābit, Hassān ibn, Dīwān, II, 74, 193 Google Scholar.

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. ‘

108. Mu’jam al-buldān, III, 400.

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.

110. E.g. Lammens, Henri, ‘L’avènement des Marwânides et le califat de Marwân Ier ’, MUSJ 12 (1927) 79-80, 101–103 Google Scholar; Donner, Fred McGraw, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton 1981) 315 n. 197 Google Scholar; Rotter, Gemot, Die Umayyaden und der Zweite Bürgerkriég (Wiesbaden 1982) 148 n. 249 Google Scholar.

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.

115. al-Athīr, Ibn, Al-Kāmil fi l-ta’rīkh, X, 639 Google Scholar.

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.