Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
VOLUME 3
By
LEIDEN BOSTON
2013
Cover illustration: Sand storm taken by Shai Urman and clear sky by author.
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contents
Contents
List of Figures, Tables and Maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Notes on Transliteration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Geographical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Resources, Environmental Disasters and Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Part One
vi
contents
contents
vii
Part four
viii
contents
ix
xi
xii
xiii
Acknowledgements
This study of climate and history in the medieval Levant is based on my
post-doctorate research at the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. I am most grateful to the members of The Galilee
Project, Dr. Derek Sturdy, Mrs. Nan Godet and Professor Geoffrey King.
This research was generously funded by Dr. Derek Sturdy. I would like to
thank both professor Enzel who sponsored the first part of this study, and
professor Amotz Agnon from the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. Professor Amitai from the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem helped in funding a number of the maps needed for this research.
Special thanks are due to Professor Geoffrey King, from the Institut de
Physique du Globe, Paris, France, Mrs. Tamar Sofer and Mrs. Michal Kidron
both from the Cartographic Laboratory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who drew the maps that accompany this research, without them it
would have been impossible to understand or grasp the scale of environmental disasters in this period. I would like to thank my parents and Mrs.
Evelyn Katrak who edited the work and Noam Tamari and Art Plus who
worked on the photographs and graphics. Special thanks are due to the
librarians at the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem, the librarians at The
School of Oriental and African Studies in London and Mrs. Sharon Lieber
at the library of the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. My colleagues Shai Shir, Amir Mazor and Yonatan Barak
helped translate the Arabic and added valuable information, which they
noted while conducting their own research. Special thanks are due to
Shmulik for suggesting the title.
Any mistakes and faults in this study are entirely my own. This study is
dedicated to the shadow dancers of Tell Jezreel.
xiv
xv
Notes on transliteration
Arabic terminology is italicized and transliterated according to Mamlk
Studies Review. Common Arabic words such as amir and sultan are written
without diacritical points. Most of the sources in Arabic are translated into
English by the author unless otherwise noted.
Name places are brought in the Arabic version as they appear in contemporary medieval sources. The Frankish names are mentioned in brackets, for example isn al-Akrd (Crac des Chevaliers). When the context
deals explicitly with Frankish historical events, the name place appears in
the Latin or the old French version.
Well known place names appear in their current usage in English
(Aleppo, Cairo, Damascus, etc).
The Mongol and Turkish names of are transcribed as if they were Arabic.
xvi
xvii
Abbreviations
BASOR
BSOAS
DI
EI2
JESHO
JRAS
MSR
PPTS
SI
xviii
introduction
Introduction
In late November 2010 a small group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian clerics gathered at the spring of Ein Heniya between Jerusalem and Bethlehem
and prayed for rain. A month later, the grand mufti Mohammed Rashid
Kabbani conducted rain prayers at the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque in
downtown Beirut, hundreds of people attended.1
Fluctuations in precipitation and severe droughts have been known to
occur in the past. While modern western societies have learnt how to cope
with long dry periods by using advanced technology, in the past, a succession of droughts left a trail of ruin: crop-failures, large-scale migration,
famine, epidemics and high death tolls. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a substantial rise in the number of droughts throughout the
Levant. This coincided with some of the most violent tectonic activity the
region had witnessed. Nature, however, could conjure numerous other
powerful and destructive calamities: flash floods, swarms of locusts, armies
of mice and rats, scorching winds and thick dust storms.
The data for this study was drawn from Arabic and Latin sources, which
date from 1100 to the Black Plague (1346). Contemporary authors often
include a short line or a passage that refer to extreme or unusual weather
events and natural disasters. In some cases they give a clear and detailed
picture, which allows one to grasp the full scale of environmental disasters
and assess their impact on the local population and regional affairs.
Medieval societies, like the population of developing countries in modern times, relied to a great extent on environmental resources.2 Many
scholars argue that environmental scarcity often was and still is the main
cause for violent conflicts. Reuveny sums this idea clearly:
Environmental scarcity can cause conflict through interrelated social,
economic and political channels. A decline in the quality or quantity of
natural resources may lead to economic decline. Another channel involves
contests over scarce resources, particularly when they have no readily
1OSullivan Arieh, Praying hard to make the rain fall. 2010-11-26 http://www.middleeast-online.com. Lebanese Muslims hold prayers for rain. Associated Press published: Dec
3, 2010 23:44. http://www.arabnews.com.
2Homer-Dixon, T. F. Environmental Scarcity and Violence (Princeton, 1999), 12.
introduction
introduction
introduction
past climate in the Levant has attracted little attention.15 Some historians
briefly mention an event, but most ignore the subject.
The development of a natural disaster into a full scale crisis depends on
the size of the area afflicted, the severity and length of the event, the state
of regional economics, the regional balance of power, the populations
strength and the abilities of the local rulers. In a few instances severe
natural disasters changed the balance of power almost overnight, albeit
usually for a short space of time. It is thus important to examine each casestudy independently in order to receive a balanced perspective of the role
of environmental disasters in the regional affairs throughout this period.
Historical Background
During much of the twelfth century the Franks16 dominated the political
and military scene in the Levant. The unification of Egypt and Syria under
the rule of Sala al-Dn (Saladin, d. 1193) gradually changed the balance of
power in the region. Though the Franks had lost much of their military
strength, Saladins successors could not maintain a firm united political or
military front against the Crusader states. During the next sixty seven years
(589/1193-658/1260) the Franks and the Ayyubids managed to maintain
relatively long periods of calm. Although the two sides were engaged in
raids and counter raids, the capture of hostages, and the building of fortresses, few large-scale open-field battles took place. The balance of power
tilted in favor of the Franks only when a new Crusade arrived and the local
armies received substantial reinforcements.
The fall of the Ayyubid dynasty and the rise of the Mamluks to power
stretched over a decade (1250-1260). The establishment of al-Muaffar
Quuz (r. 1259-1260) as sultan coincided with the Mongol invasion of Syria
led by Hleg (1260). The first Mamluk-Mongol clash occurred in the Jezreel Valley, near the spring of Ayn Jalt, on the 3 September 1260. The
Mongols suffered a humiliating defeat. Their forces in Syria and those who
survived the battle fled back east across the Euphrates.
15Lewis, B. The Middle East, 2000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the
Present Day (London, 2001), 84; Kennedy mentions the earthquake of 1170 and 1202, the
damage and construction that followed at the fortress of Crac des Chevaliers. Kennedy, H.
Crusader Castles (Cambridge,1994), 150-3; Prawer describes the peace treaty between the
Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem and the Muslim sultan in Cairo in 1204, following the severe
three year famine in Egypt and the earthquake damage in Syria. Prawer, J. A History of the
Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1963), 114.
16The term Franks refers to Europeans who settled in the Levant after the first Crusade.
introduction
During the next thirty one years (1260-1291) the Mamluks slowly eradicated the Frankish settlement and fought to prevent the Mongol-khnids17
from crossing the Euphrates and invading Syria. The Crusaders, who had
been the main political and military entity in the region during the Ayyubid period, played a lesser part in the politics of the thirteenth-century.
After the fall the Crusader enclaves along the coast, the Mamluk sultanate
ruled over the entire Levant. Although the Mongol invasion had been
repelled, once the khnid state was established it became the Mamluks
chief opponent and remained the main threat to the sultanates existence
until 1323 (the year the final Mamluk-lkhnid peace treaty was signed).
The first half of the fourteenth century was dominated by the strong and
centralized reign of the Mamluk sultan al-Nr Muamad (r.1310-1341). It
was characterized by political stability and economic prosperity. His
death, considered by many as a turning point in Mamluk history, ushered
a period of weak rulers that were often subject to the power of high ranking
officers. This study concludes with the outbreak of the Black Plague (1346),
which reduced the population of the Levant by a quarter or a third. According to Dols the Levants economical and technological progress came to a
halt soon after the plague.18
The Geographical Framework
Most of the data refers to Greater Syria, (Bilad al-Sham), which correlates
with the modern state of Syria, south east Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel
and the Palestinian Authority. Environmental disasters in Cairo and Baghdad have been incorporated in this study because of their political importance and prominant position as centers of government. While Baghdad
was the seat of the caliphate until 1258 when it was conquered by the
Mongols; Cairo served as the capital of both the Ayyubid and the Mamluk
sultans. It was from Cairo that the sultans conroled and supervised the
large grain growing regions of Egypt and the grain prices. The impact of
poor crops in Egypt was often felt in many of the urban markets throughout the Levant. The manipulation of grain surpluses is best witnessed in
the relations between north Africa and the Christian Kingdom of Sicily,
I therefore decided to include both these region in the study.
17The khnid state was established by Hulegu east of the Euphrates in what is today
Modern Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan. lkhn was the title of the Mongol ruler literally meaning
subject khn. Morgan, D. Medieval Persia 1040-1797 (London and New York, 1988), 178.
18Dols, Black Death, 154, 169, 231-2, 280.
introduction
Resources, Environmental Disasters and Conflict
Did environmental disasters spur or hinder conflict? How if at all did the
frequent droughts and earthquakes influence internal and international
affairs in the Levant? How and what decisions did rulers make in times of
crisis related to environmental disasters? Did the sedentary populations
cope better than the nomads? Which political entity fared better, who
fared worse and why? This research examines environmental disasters in
a broader historical context. The aim of this study is to determine the long
and short-term reprecussions of environmental disasters on the political,
military and social affairs in the medieval Levant.
introduction
Part one
introduction
part one
10
part one
the populations dependence on rain places droughts as one of the harshest and most frequent environmental disasters.
The chapter that follows surveys and analyzes the droughts that struck
Greater Syria from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, identifying their
type, severity and frequency. A decline in yields or complete crop failures,
lack of grazing and death of livestock could result in partial or complete
economic ruin, from which recovery was long and slow. How, if at all, did
these extreme conditions, affecting Crusader and Muslim lands, which
incorporated both nomad and sedentary populations, influence the development of regional affairs? Is scarcity the cause of unrest and violence? Is
there a pattern of behaviour among rulers in times of severe shortages?
Contemporary medieval works usually provide some details concerning
the meteorological events in a particular year; if they were of unusual
intensity or duration, leaving a trail of destruction, they were described in
greater detail. Their scale was judged according to previous events in the
chroniclers lifetime. There are a few rare examples, however, where a
chronicler discusses changes in the weather pattern or concentrates on a
particular disaster, giving a detailed analysis of its development into a
crisis.
In an interesting observation, William of Tyre, (c. 1130-1185) compares
water sources in Jerusalem and its surroundings to a description of the
region he had read in the Polyhistor, a work written by Gaius Julius Solinus
(c. mid 4th century Ad).6 William of Tyre was probably born in Jerusalem
and lived in the Levant all his life except for the years he spent studying in
Europe. He was thus both qualified and capable of making such a comparison.
The city [Jerusalem] lies in arid surroundings, entirely lacking in water.
Since there are no rills, springs or rivers, the people depend upon rain water
only. During the winter season it is their custom to collect this in cisterns,
which are numerous throughout the city. Thus it is preserved for use during
the year. Hence I am surprised at the statement of Solinus that Judea is
famous for its waters. He says in the Polyhistor Judea is renowned for its
waters, but the nature of these varies. I cannot account for this discrepancy
except saying either that he did not tell the truth about the matter or that
the face of the earth became changed later. (William of Tyre, vol. 1, Book 8:
346-347)
part one
11
The above description tallies with recent paleo-climate research conducted in the Dead Sea basin. Since the Dead Sea has no outlet, it serves
as a large rain gauge for the drainage area of the Judean hills, the Galilee,
Mount Hermon and northern Jordan.7 From the third century Bc until the
third century Ad the Levant went through a cool and humid phase. During
this period both Lake Van and the Dead Sea rose, the latter by more than
30 m above the present level, attesting to a higher rainfall.8 The level of the
Dead Sea started to decline in the middle of the eleventh century, and this
trend continued until the fourteenth century attesting to a continuous
drop in precipitation throughout the Levant (Figure 1.1; Map 1.1).9
7Enzel, Y., Bookman, R., Sharon, D., Gvirtzman, H. Dayan, U., Ziv. B. and Stein, M. Late
Holocene climates of the Near East deduced from Dead Sea level variations and modern
regional rainfall, Quaternary Research 60 (2003):263-72. It is difficult to apply both pollen
and dendrochronology studies for the period under discussion. Most pollen studies refer
to prehistory periods. It is important to note that the dating and analysis of pollen cores
still contains many uncertainties. The interpretations of pollen assemblages in terms of
vegetations of the past differ considerably. Van Zeist, W. Past and present environments
of the Jordan Valley, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, ed. A. Hadidi
(London, 1985), 2:201.
8Issar, A. S. Climat Change during the Holocene and Their Impact on Hydrological Systems (Cambridge, 2004), 25.
9Issar, Climatic Change, fig. 1.3, page 9.
12
part one
Map 1.1:The Dead Sea basin, hydrological gauge of the Levant region
13
Chapter One
The Jazira, the land between the central sections of the Euphrates and the
Tigris, is referred to by medieval Muslim chroniclers as an independent
geographical area. It is a barren zone, mostly pasture growing on a stony
10Ashbal, D. Climate of the Near East (Jerusalem, 1973), vol. 2: 22.
14
chapter one
plain. However, if irrigated, the soil could support farmers. Due to the
mountain ranges to the north and east, the Jazira suffers from extreme
aridity. While the northern section receives sufficient rain to maintain
farming, agriculture in the center and south is irrigated by the two large
rivers.
The region referred to as Iraq (also referred to as al-Sawd, meaning the
black ground) runs from Baghdad south to the mouth of the Gulf.11 The
alluvial plain was formed by silt brought mainly from the Karun River,
which flows from the east. Today as in the past, this is one of the most
intensively farmed areas, the principal crops being, wheat, barley, dates
and rice.12 In good years the area receives 300 mm of rain, but the annual
average is usually below 150 mm. Although the soils are suitable for farming, rainfall in the region between the Euphrates and the Tigris is hardly
enough to sustain winter crops without an irrigation system.13 Large-scale
agriculture has always depended on a strong central government that
could maintain the complex infrastructure of irrigation and drainage
canals. The two rivers that are the basis of the populations livelihood could
also become its source of ruin. The devastating force of spring floods
caused by melting snows could destroy the crops just when they were due
to be harvested.14 Houses, roads, orchards and fields were washed away
and river fords were impossible to navigate. Furthermore public health
was threatened by disease caused by stagnant waters, which created
humid conditions optimal for bacteria, insects and rodents.
Mosul is often referred to as an independent geographical and political
entity during this period. Although the city sits on the Tigris, the area also
receives sufficient rain to grow cereals.
An important aspect in the Euphrates and Tigris region is soil salination,
which over time reduces yields and eventually turns much of the arable
land into wasteland. According to Jacobsen and Adams, by the mid twelfth
century a large percentage of the alluvial soils around Baghdad were
destroyed by salination of the soil due to the silting of canals and drainage
problems.15 Much of the land was taken over by nomadic populations,
since it was suited only for grazing. Thus the abandonment of the area by
11Le Strange, G. The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (London, 1966), 24.
12The Middle East, A Geographical Study, eds. P. Beaumont, G. H. Blake, and J. M. Wagstaff, 2nd edition (London, 1988), 349-50, 355.
13Ashbal, Climate, vol. 1:18-19.
14Ibid., vol. 1:20, 24.
15Jacobsen, T. and Adams, R. M. Salt and silt in ancient Mesopotamian agriculture,
Science 128 (1958): 1251-1252, 1257.
15
farmers begun a few decades prior to the Mongol invasion, due to the
decline in the lands productivity and was not solely a result of the Mongol
invasion.16 The reclamation of saline land is a long and slow process; Framers began to return to these lands only in the nineteenth century.17
The most important environmental factor in this region was and still is
the availability of water.18 Fresh water sources included annual precipitation, springs, lakes and rivers. The three large rivers that dominate the
region, the Nile, the Euphrates and the Tigris, were the source of large-scale
irrigated agriculture. The amount of water drawn from these rivers was
relatively small, and irrigated fields were limited to areas close to the rivers.
Dry farming, which is practiced throughout Syria, North Africa and much
of Iraq, depends solely on rainfall and requires no less than 300 mm a year.
Much of the region is defined as arid or semi-arid. The humid Mediterranean climate dominates northern Israel, Lebanon and Western Syria;
but even these areas are known to have gone through periods of drought.
The central Syrian cities of Aleppo, Hama, Hims and Damascus mark the
border between the semi-arid and arid regions. Iraq and Jordan lie within
the arid climate. Cairo and the Delta lie within the semi-arid climate, while
most of Egypt is defined as arid. The North African coast all the way west
up to Tunisia is largely semi-arid. A small section along the coast of Tunisia
and Algeria is defined as humid (Map 1.2) But like the coast of the Levant,
the North African coast has its own share of droughts. Rainfall measurements taken in Libya during modern times show that almost every decade
has had two years of drought.19
Annual precipitation throughout the region varies considerably; Eastern Syria, southern Israel, northern Jordan and Iraq receive less than 250
mm a year. Rainfall along the North African coast ranges, between 250 and
500 mm (Alexandria has 175 mm while Tripoli receives close to 400 mm).
The narrow coastal strip of the Levant, backed by mountain ranges receives
the highest annual rainfall in the region, running between 500 and 750 mm.
As one moves along the coast from the north Syrian highlands to the south16Khazanov, A. M. Nomads and the Outside World, 2nd edition (Madison Wisconsin,
1984), 80.
17Beaumont, et al., Geographical Study, 362.
18Allan, J. A. and Olmsted, J. C. Politics, economics and (virtual) water: A discursive
analysis of water policies in the Middle East and North Africa, in Food, Agriculture and
Economic Policy in the Middle East and North Africa, ed. H. Lofgren (Oxford, 2003), 53-4;
Blake, G. Dewdney, J. and Mitchell, J. The Cambridge Atlas of the Middle East & North Africa
(Cambridge, 1987), 25.
19Fisher, W. B. The Middle East, 7th edition (Cambridge, 1978), 66.
16
chapter one
17
20Blake, Atlas of the Middle East, 19; Beaumont, et al., Geographical Study, 65; Goldreich,
Y. The Climate of Israel, Observation, Research and Applications (New York, 2003), 56.
18
chapter one
hardly any water left in his cisterns, and that it was not raining, he was
much distressed and feared that the good work he had begun would be
wasted. Then he remembered how he had heard that men who dwelt there
in former days said that close to the pool of siloan there was an ancient
well, the well of Jacob, which had been filled in and covered over, so that
now one walked over it and it would be extremely difficult to find. So this
prudent man went and prayed to Our Lord that He would give him the grace
to find this well and help him continue the good he had begun, and that by
His Grace the poor people might enjoy the blessing of water. When the next
morning came, he arose and went to the monastery and prayed God to
counsel him. After that he immediately went and got workmen and went
to the place where he had been told the well had been. He had so much
tapping and boring done that the well was found. When he had found it he
had it emptied and walled anew, all at his expense. (The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, 16)
For villages that depended on rain-fed agriculture, and for many communities that are still farming in these arid and semi-arid regions today, a shift
of 50 mm per year in the rainfall can make the difference between a plentiful crop and famine.21
Since rain is confined to the winter and spring months, and summers
are hot and dry, cereals are sown in the early winter. During the months
of February to May one can almost watch the crops grow. The timing of
the rains is thus of the greatest importance. If the rains come early there
is more time to plough and a larger area can be prepared. After the sowing,
if the rains are late, or there are long dry intervals between the rains, the
seeds will sprout, shrivel and die. On the other hand if the rainy season
continues well into the spring, the yields will increase.
Climate fluctuations were significant during the late Pleistocene and
Holocene (13000-1500 bpe); long dry periods as well as moister periods than
those of the present are known, but even in these moist episodes, droughts
were a threat.22 As noticed earlier, research carried out at the Dead Sea
shows that in comparison to the Roman and Byzantine periods the Medieval Levant saw a substantial drop in precipitation.23 Nevertheless, it
seems that even during this period of relatively low rainfall, much of the
Levant was intensively farmed. One of the few regions that were abandoned in the medieval period was the Negev (southern Israel), which was
well known for its agricultural prosperity in Late Roman and Byzantie
21Miller-Rosen, Civilizing Climate, 5.
22Ibid., 7.
23Enzel et al., Late Holocene, figure 2A page 265.
19
periods.24 There is no evidence to date that this region was settled by sedentary farming communities during the Crusader, Ayyubid or Mamluk
periods.
The Definition of Drought
Drought is a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently long to cause
serious damage to agriculture and other activities in the affected area.25 A
narrower definition is: a condition relative to some long-term average state
of balance between rainfall and evaporation in a particular area. The definition of drought is however more complex and problematic. It is a relative
term, and its definition refers to an arbitrary threshold. It may be caused
by a sharp drop in rainfall or irregularity in the normal seasonable distribution. Droughts cannot be predicted, and in most cases they are only identified once they are well established. Some claim that a drought can only
be identified in retrospect. As Greater Syria is mostly semi-arid or arid, one
should probably perceive winters with high rainfall as unusual and a year
or more of drought as a common climatic feature.26
The World Meteorological Organization defines a drought as a period
of two consecutive years in which rainfall is less than 60 percent of the
normal in half the country.27 In general, droughts can be divided into three
types.
1. Meteorological drought: When there is no rain or insufficient rain over
a long period; a significant decrease from the climatologically expected
and seasonally normal precipitation over a wide area.
2. Agriculture drought: When soil moisture and rainfall are inadequate
during the growing season. Extreme crop stress prevents the plants
from reaching maturity. Agricultural drought can also be caused by
bad timing of rainfall with regard to the growing seasons in an otherwise above-average year of rainfall.
24Watson, Agriculture Innovation, 129.
25Ahrens, C. D. Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate and the Environment, 7th edition (Forest Grove California, 2003), G-5; Beaumont, et al., Geographical
Study, 357; For a discussion on the definition of drought see Goldreich, Climate of Israel,
76-77.
26Wilhite, D. A. and Glantz, M. H. Understanding: the drought phenomenon the role
of definition, Water International 10 (1985):111; Glantz, M. H. and Katz, R. W. When is a
drought a drought? Nature 267 (1977): 192.
27Inbar, M. and Bruins, H. J. Environmental impact of multi-annual drought in the
Jordan watershed, Israel, Land Degradation and Environment 15 (2004):243.
20
chapter one
21
22
chapter one
Table 1.1:Droughts in the 12th-14th centuries (italic: droughts that resulted famines. See maps 1.3 and 1.4 )
12th century
13th century
14th century
1200-1 Egypt
1113 Edessa
1310 Egypt
1227 Jazira
1319 Syria
1139 Iraq
1323 Syria
1141-1142 Ifriqiya
1293 Egypt
1393-1394 Egypt
1149 Hawran
1168 Baghdad
1297 Damascus
1174-1179 Syria
1178 Syria (The Nile during
this year reached: 16.19
cubits)
1179 Syria, Jazira, Iraq,
Diyar Bakr, Mosul, Khilat,
Egypt
1180 Ifriqiya
1181 Egypt
1185 Kingdom of Jerusalem
1199 Egypt, Holy Land and
the coastal plain
s-Syria
da- Damascus
h-Homs
d-Dyiar Bakir
t-Terra Santa
z-Hijaz
ki-Akhlat
e-Egypt
i-Iraq
bg-Baghdad
m-Mosul
b-Basra
j-Jazira
sw-Swad
if-Ifriqya
sp-Steppe
s-Syria
z-Hijaz
ki-Akhlat
e-Egypt
i-Iraq
m-Mosul
j-Jazira
if-Ifriqya
cy-Cyprus
jr-Jerusalem
ed-Eddessa
24
chapter one
25
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
Figure 1.3: Annual rainfall in Jerusalem 1847-2000 (white low line: ten driest years, annual
average 390mm; white high line: ten wettest years, annual average 700mm)
26
chapter one
During the first half of the eleventh century neither droughts nor famines
were recorded in Syria. Whether Ner Khosraw was relying on what he
saw or on information acquired from local inhabitants, his statement
should be taken at face value. In the second half of the eleventh century
Syria was afflicted by three famines, in 1056, 1077 and 1086. The first was
the worst; it stretched over the entire eastern Mediterranean Basin as well
as Persia, and the central Asian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Plague
soon followed, claiming in some regions a third of the population.36
This is probably a suitable place to stop and explain how one goes about
determining the severity of droughts without having measurements of
rainfall. Droughts vary considerably. Unlike in Egypt, where the Nilometer
gave an exact reading of the water level and revealed to all the future of
the coming harvest, in Syria measurements of rainfall began only in the
early modern period. Thus the assessment of droughts relies solely on the
descriptions of chroniclers. Contemporary historical sources will describe
the length of the drought, rain failure or scarcity or the late arrival of rains.
This will sometimes be followed by an account of the damage caused to
the regions crops. The geographical regions affected are usually well
defined. Sometimes, towards the end the account, the writer will become
somewhat vague and conclude his description by saying drought struck
Iraq, Mosul, Jazira, Diyar-Bakr and many other countries.
The Arabic terminology used in the various accounts often helps in the
evaluation of droughts, although certain terms have more than one meaning.
) drought, food shortage, starvation, famine
maja (
27
inibs al-maar (
rains
( ) rain failure/a delay or interruption of the rains
inq al-ghth
) lack of rain,
28
chapter one
29
Chapter Two
30
chapter two
invading armies or weak rulers that could not afford to maintain such
systems.3
The Agricultural Hinterlands of the Syrian Cities
During most of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the fertile coastal
lands were settled and cultivated by the Crusaders. Each of the large Muslim urban centres in Syria was supported by its own agricultural hinterland. Agriculture was carried out in Aleppo and further south, where the
annual rainfall reaches 300 mm. Farming around Damascus was supported
by perennial springs and two rivers, the Barada and Awaj, which come
down from the Anti-Lebanon.4 The large irrigated areas of intensive cultivation bordering arid land are known as the ghta; fields and orchards are
sown and planted on terraces watered by an irrigation system fed by the
perennial springs and the two rivers. The ghta of Damascus was renowned
for its abundant water, fertile soil and agricultural produce. Cereals,
legumes and animal fodder were grown in the winter. During the hot dry
summers, vegetables were cultivated close to the springs. Several types of
deciduous fruit trees grow well in this region: apricot, almond, cherry, fig,
pomegranate, hazelnut, walnut, peach, pear and plum. Olive groves and
vines, which require less water are planted beyond the fruit orchards at a
greater distance from the source of the spring.5
The oasis of Tadmor and the Orontes River running between Homs and
Hama supported numerous villages where wheat, barley and beans were
the main crops. Further south lay the flat basalt plains of the Hawran,
where summers were mild and winters cold, with snow.6 The annual precipitation is 250 mm. Jabel Druze, which dominates the eastern region of
the Hawran, was known in the thirteenth century for its vineyards; the
eastern slopes, which overlook the Syrian Desert are famed for their lush
winter pastures. Oak trees can still be seen today on the summit. The main
crop on the Hawran however was wheat. In a report written in 1855 the
surveyors concluded that Were it to be efficiently protected sufficient
3According to Issawi, the irrigation system in southern Iraq was left in ruins for five
centuries after the Mongol invasion, for lack of a strong and efficient government. Issawi,
C. ed. The Economic History of the Middle East 1800-1814 (Chicago and London, 1966), 129,130,
205.
4Beaumont, et al., Geographical Study, 371-373.
5Elisseff, N. Gha, EI 2 2: 1104-1106.
6Ashbal, Climate, vol. 2:11.
31
grain could be raised in the Hawran alone to supply the whole of Syria.7
While orchards were widely cultivated, wheat and barley were the most
common crops throughout Syria. In the early twentieth century eighty
three percent of the cultivated area of Syria was sown with cereals.8
In Jordan wheat and barley were grown on the plateau and the uplands
of northern and western Jordan; the mountain ranges were more suitable
for fruit orchards; natural forest covered large parts of the area near
Amman and Ajlun.9 Rain in these regions is limited to the months of
December to February, and in general the rainy season is relatively short.
The southern Jordan Valley lies in the rain shadow and thus receives considerably less rain than the uplands. To a certain degree the high water
table in the valley floodplain compensates the low rainfall. An important
factor in the agriculture of the Jordan Valley is the high salinity of the soil.
During the Mamluk period both Karak and Shawbak were used as granaries, but it is not clear whether the wheat was grown locally or brought
from Egypt.10
Recent and past surveys have shown that the eastern Jordan valley was
most densely settled under Ayyubid and Mamluk rule. According to the
waqfiyyat in Cairo, Mamluk investment in agriculture properties in southern Jordan grew considerably during the fourteenth century; there is sufficient evidence to show that water intensive crops were cultivated
throughout the Jordan valley and the wadis to its east. It was only towards
the end of the Mamluk period (late fifteenth century) that the number of
villages dropped and was replaced by pastoralist or a combination of herding and small scale farming. The reason for this change in the settlement
pattern was related to the political instability in Cairo, withdrawal or
reduction of garrisons in Jordan and Palestine along the main routes and
the rise of the beduin tribes in the region. According to Ghawanmeh the
decline in Trans-Jordan in the late Mamluk period was due to natural
disasters specifically earthquakes, droughts and plague. However, the
number of droughts as well as earthquakes was on the whole smaller during the late Mamluk period. It thus seems that the lack of a strong central
7From Wood to Clarendon, Damascus 12 February, 1855 FO 78/1118. in Issawi, C. The
Fertile Crescent 1800-1914 (Oxford, 1998), 272.
8Issawi, Fertile Crescent, 303.
9Beaumont, et al., Geographical Study, 409.
10The fortress granaries will be discussed in greater detail in the following pages. Van
Zeist, W. Past and present environments of the Jordan valley, in Studies in the History and
Archaeology of Jordan, ed. A. Hadidi (London, 1985) 2:199-202.
32
chapter two
regime and financial support triggered this decline.11 Rainfall along the
Mediterranean coast is high and the soils fertile. In comparison to the
Muslim territories in Trans-Jordan, and in central and eastern Syria, the
Crusader settlements along the coast were bound to suffer less from
droughts. The coastal plains were divided between the principality of
Antioch, the county of Tripoli and the kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter
controlled land from Beirut all the way south to Gaza, as well as territories
in the Jordan valley and southeast of the Dead Sea. The administration of
Trans-Jordan was handed over in the early 1140s to the lord of Karak, who
resided in a small, well fortified-town. The Crusader county of Edessa was
the only political entity established in an arid region, its land stretching
east of the Euphrates (Map 2.1).12
Although trade and the pilgrim industry flourished, the vast majority of
the Frankish population settled in villages and lived off the land, combining their European agricultural knowledge with local farming practices.13
Two new agriculture crops were introduced into the Levant during the
tenth century: sugarcane and cotton. Both developed considerably during
the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods.14 Cotton grew mainly in
northern Syria and was exported to southern Europe.15 Both sugarcane and
cotton require large amounts of water, but unlike cotton, sugarcane needs
a regular supply of water throughout the growing season. Most plantations
were irrigated and thus required a reliable water supply (spring or river).16
The profits to be made on the local markets and by exporting sugar to
Europe gave this agricultural crop a considerable boost. Shortly after the
11Ibrahim, M., Sauer, J. A. and Yassine, K. The east Jordan Valley survey, 1975, Bulletin
of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 222 (1976):63-4; Lawrence, T. G. and ystein,
S. L. The local environment and human food production strategies in Jordan: The case of
Tell Hesban and its surrounding region, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan
ed. A. Hadidi (London, 1985), 2:328; Walker, B. Mamluk investment in southern Bilad alSham in the eighth/fourteenth century: the case of Hisban, Journal of Near Eastern Studies
62, 4 (2003):241-261; Ibid., Militarization to nomadization: The middle and late Islamic
periods, Near Eastern Archaeology 62, 4 (1999):214; Ghawanmeh, Y. The effect of plague
and drought on the environment of the southern Levant during the Mamluk period, in
Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, ed. A. Hadidi (London, 1985), 2:315.
12It was also the first Crusader entity to fall, conquered by Zengi, ruler of Mosul in 1144.
13Prawer, J. The Crusaders a Colonial Society (Jerusalem, 1985), 435-59. [Hebrew]
14Watson, A. M. Agriculture Innovation in the Early Islamic World (Cambridge, 1983),
28.
15Ashtor, E. The Crusader Kingdom and the Levant trade, in The Crusaders in their
Kingdom 1099-1291, ed. B. Z. Kedar (Jerusalem, 1988), 34-5. [Hebrew]
16Watson, Agriculture Innovation, 35, 40; Peled, A. Sugar in the Kingdom of Jerusalem
(Jerusalem, 2009), 7-8.[Hebrew]
33
34
chapter two
35
Tower, a small fort on the plain of the Sharon.23 Hard Wheat grows well in
dry regions where common bread-wheat will not grow. The low water
content in the grain lengthens the storage period of Hard Wheat without
it spoiling.24
Wheat was the main crop throughout Egypt. Although it was cultivated
in both Upper and Lower Egypt, the western Delta and Upper Egypt were
the natural granaries of the country (Map 2.2).25 According to al Masd
(d. 349/956) the best wheat is al-qam al-ysuf, it was the largest, heaviest
and longest grains. Ibn Jubayr (d. 614/1217) states that wheat cultivated in
Manfal, was famous for its quality, and was shipped to Fustat. Irrigation
was and still is almost universal in Egyptian agriculture. Today more than
three-quarters of the wheat grown on farms is irrigated by water pumped
from a canal.26
In Syria, the Hawran was the main supplier of wheat.27 In the late nineteenth century surplus wheat was exported to Egypt, Greece and Western
Europe.28 Although the Hawran was known for its high wheat yield during
the Mamluk period, in times of shortage Syria imported grain from Egypt.
According to Lapidus, most of the militarys grain supplies in Syria were
shipped from Egypt in order not to burden Syrias population.29 Wheat was
also cultivated in Baalbek, Tripoli, Tyre and the Baqaa Valley.
The granaries of the Crusader Kingdom were the Galilee, Banyas, Acre,
the Jezreel Valley, Ascalon and the regions around Hebron. Ner-e Khosraw describes the barley and wheat grown at Hebron, the latter being less
widely cultivated.30 The southern coastal plains were famous for their
23Pringle, D. The Red Tower (al Burj al Amar) Settlement in the Plain of Sharon at the
Times of the Crusades and Mamluks A.D. 1099-1516 (London, 1986), 187; Amar, Z. Agricultural
Produce in the Land of Israel in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem, 2000), 65.
24Watson, A. M. Agriculture Innovation in the Early Islamic World (Cambridge 1983),
20.
25Shoshan, B. Money, Prices, and Population in Mamluk Egypt, 1382-1517. PH.D dissertation, Princeton University 1977. unpublished, 6.
26Kherallah, M., Minot, N. and Gruhn, P. Adjustment of wheat production to market
reforms in Egypt, in Food, Agriculture and Economic Policy in the Middle East and North
Africa, ed. H. Lofgren (Oxford, 2003), 138; Tsugitaka, S. State and Rural Society in Medieval
Islam (Leiden, New York and Kln, 1997), 201.
27From Wood to Clarendon, Damascus 12 February, 1855 FO 78/1118. in Issawi, Fertile
Crescent, 272.
28Issawi, Fertile Crescent, 311, note 1.
29Lapidus, I. M. Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1967), 18.
30Ner-e Khosraw, Book of Travels (Safarnama), tr. from Persian W.M. Thackston
(New York, 1986), 36.
36
chapter two
37
wheat crops, and prior to the Crusader period surpluses were sent to Jerusalem.31 Cereals were also cultivated on the plateau, on the highlands of
northern and western Jordan and in the lower Jordan valley (Ghor).32 In
1191 Cyprus had come under Crusader rule. Wheat and barley were among
the main crops grown on the island, the Mesaoria plain being one of the
highest-yielding areas. Its contribution to the grain reservoir of the kingdom and its principalities was of the greatest importance.33 In addition,
revenues were collected from Muslim farmers who paid no less than half
their harvests.34 After the battle of Hattin (1187), the Franks lost to Saladin
the highlands of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, the plateaus of Trans-Jordan and
the lands of al-Sawd (the black land, a district east of the Sea of Galilee).
Although the Franks still rulled the fertile coast, the area could not provide
sufficient cereals. Thus the most important item imported into the kingdom during the late twelfth century and throughout the thirteenth century
was grain (Map 2.3).35
Matters became worse under the Mamluk rgime. By the mid 1260s
Mamluk policy towards the remnants of the Crusader states became
aggressive and uncompromising. Between 1265 and 1268 Caesarea, Arsuf,
Haifa and Jaffa were in turn besieged and destroyed by the Mamluk sultan
Baybars.36 The villages on the coastal plain were distributed among his
high-ranking amirs.37 But as was tradition in Mamluk military elite, none
resided in their newly acquired villages. To this one may add the loss of
Safad with its rich agriculture lands;38 Hunin, Beaufort and the Western
31Prawer, J. The Crusaders A Colonial Society (Jerusalem, 1985), 439-40; Amar, Agricultural Produce, 54-8.
32Ghor [Arabic] literally means bottom or lower.
33Boas, A. Crusader Archaeology (London, 1999), 76; Richard, Agricultural Conditions, 274, 283.
34Boas, Crusader Archaeology, 61.
35Prior, J. H. In subsidium Sanctae: Exports of foodstuffs and war materials from the
Kingdom of Sicily to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1265-1284, Asian and African Studies 22
(1988), 131; Abulafia, D. The Levant trade of the minor cities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: Strengths and weaknesses, Asian and African Studies 22 (1988),198.
36Ibn al-Furt, Ayyubids, Mamluks and Crusaders: Selections from the Trkh al-duwal
wal-mulk of Ibn al-Furt, ed. and tr. U. and M. C. Lyons; Introduction and notes J. S. C.
Riley-Smith (Cambridge, 1971), 72.
37Amitai-Preiss, R. The Mamluk officer class during the reign of sultan Baybars, in
War and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean, 7th-15th Centuries, ed. Y. Lev (Leiden, 1997),
267-300.
38Richard, J. Agricultural conditions in the Crusader states, in A History of the Crusades, ed. K. M. Setton (Wisconsin, 1985), vol. V, 262-4.
38
chapter two
Galilee region surrounding the Teutonic castle of Montfort (Qalat alQurayn) were conquered in the summer of 1271.39
The sedentary farming population along the coast was partially replaced
by Kurdish, Trkmen and Mongolian nomadic tribes, whose loyalty to the
sultan must have been unquestionable. They were entrusted with the
guarding of the coast against a possible Crusader invasion from the sea.40
Some of the tribes may have maintained a pastoral economy.
39Ibn Abd al- hir, Raw, 385-6.
40Ayalon, D. The Mamluks and naval power: A phase of the struggle between Islam
and Christian Europe, in Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1/8
39
Destruction of the ports along the Crusader coast reduced direct contact and commerce with the southern European merchants.41 In 1280 a
letter was sent from Acre by Godfrey, Bishop of Hebron (who was temporarily replacing the patriarch of Jerusalem) to Edward I, king of England,
recounting the problems faced by the local Frankish population. The
bishop complained about the high price of food, the locusts that hit Armenia
and Cyprus and that no grain was being transported from Italy because of
the wars of Charles of Anju.42 The kingdom was not suffering from drought
or from plagues of mice or locusts; it was simply not growing sufficient
grain and was gradually becoming dependent on outside sources.
The trade in grain gradually replaced much of the commerce in luxury
goods, which had previously played a more dominant role in East-West
trade along the Palestinian coast. European imports of grain now came via
Alexandria and smaller ports such as Damietta; the only ports left along
the Palestinian coast were Ghaza and Acre. Unlike Baybars, his successor,
Qalwn (r. 1280-1290) maintained the northern Levant ports of Tyre,
Tripoli and Latakia. Although these ports were modest in size, he clearly
saw the profits that could be derived from taxes and commerce.43
Although Iraq is not directly included in the present research, the most
important wheat-growing area since the early Abbasid period was
al-Sawd, the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates south of Baghdad.44 The question still remains whether the agriculture infrastructure
that had brought prosperity to this region was being maintained by
Mongol-lkhnid rule (1260-1325). The arable lands may well have lost
much of their value due to salination prior to the Mongol invasion. During
the later medieval period up to the Ottoman conquest a large percentage
of grain was grown in Mosul, which was considered the granary of Baghdad
and much of Iraq.45
1967:1-12. [Rpt. in Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1250-1517), London, Variorum, 1977, no.
VI], 5; Irwin, R. The Mamluk conquest of the County of Tripoli, in Crusade and Settlement,
ed. P. W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), 249.
41Drory, J. Chapter 1: The Land of Israel under the Mamluk state (1260-1516) in The
History of Eretz Israel under Mamluk and Ottoman rule (1260-1804), (Jerusalem, 1990),
19 [Hebrew].
42Tomas Rymer, Foedera I 2 188-9, cited in Prawer, Latin Kingdom, 2:506-7, note 59.
43Northrup, L. S. From Slave to Sultan: The Career of Al -Mansur Qalawun and the Consolidation of Mamluk Rule in Egypt and Syria (678-689A.H/1279-1290 A.D) (Wiesbaden, 1998),
127-130.
44Waines, D. Cereal, bread and society, an essay on the staff of life in medieval Iraq,
JESHO 30, pt. 3 (1987), 247.
45Shields, S. D. Mosul before Iraq (New York, 2000), 4, 128; Issawi provides a description
of the large grain crops in the region of Mosul in the late nineteenth century. The grain
40
chapter two
Among the islands of the Mediterranean the two main cereals growers
were the Kingdom of Cyprus and the Kingdom of Sicily. The latter had
become the chief supplier of grain to Italy during Roman times. A drop in
cereal production seems to have occurred under Muslim rule due to the
introduction of new agricultural crops. The growing number of European
land owners and farmers on the island in the twelfth century brought an
important rise in the cultivation of wheat; preference was given to this
crop, probably because it offered both high yields and high profits.46 In the
early twentieth century almost a third of the cultivated land was still sown
with wheat.47 Sicilian wheat was well suited to a hot dry climate. Its greatest advantage was its long shelf-life, which enabled it to survive long storage without fermenting. According to Lamb, precipitation in Sicily during
the twelfth century was higher, resulting in better crop yields.48
In contrast to the modern Middle East, which is far from self-sufficient,49 much of the Levant grew its own grain and was able to meet the
requirements of its population. Supplies were imported only in times of
scarcity. Within the Levant, grain was mainly shipped from Egypt to Syria.
When the entire Levant was experiencing a shortage, grain was imported
from Cyprus, Sicily and southern Italy.
The diet of the population in the region was based on cereals as well as
seasonal fruits and vegetables; however as agricultural crops were often
poor and insufficient, hunting and gathering were an important source of
food in nomadic, farming and urban communities.50 Although a large portion of the land in the Levant was cultivated, vast areas could still be
described as open wilderness where wild animals roamed freely.
Salination, Soil Erosion and Black Winds
The type of soil largely determines agricultural activity. Alluvial soils,
found all along the large rivers, provide some of the most fertile agriculraised here is more than sufficient for local consumption and the consumption of a large
portion of the beduin Arabs Issawi, Fertile Crescent, 194.
46Abulafia, D. The end of Muslim Sicily, in Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean, 1100-1500 (Variorum, Aldershot Hampshire, 1993), III, 112.
47Basile, D. B. Agriculture in Sicily, Economic History, 17, 2 (1941):109, 114 -115.
48Abulafia, The Two Italies, Economic Relations between the Roman Kingdom of Sicily
and the Northern Communes (Cambridge, 1977), 36-7; Lamb, Climate, 8.
49Fisher, Middle East, 209; Beaumont, P. Conflict, coexistence, and cooperation,
A study of water use in the Jordan Basin, Water in the Middle East, eds. H. A. Amery and
A. T. Wolf (Austin Texas, 2000), 21.
50Allsen, T. T. The Royal Hunt in Euroasian History (Philadelphia, 2008), 4-7.
41
42
chapter two
afternoon, evening and late night prayers by supposition and guesswork.
People turned to submissiveness, repentance and seeking forgiveness. They
thought that the day of Judgment had arrived. When the first quarter of the
night had passed, that darkness and gloom that covered the sky, ceased. We
looked up and could see the stars. We realized how much of the night had
elapsed because there was no further increase in the darkness by the onset
of night-time. Everybody who arrived from whatever direction told the same
story. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:268)
A number of seasonal winds of different strengths blow through the Eastern Mediterranean during the year. The simoon, also known as fire wind
and the breath of death, blows from Syria and the Jazira. The khamsin
blows over the Nile Delta and the Sinai, carrying large quantities of dust.55
Dust from North Africa is commonly associated with spring winds where
as dust from the Middle East is deposited in the Mediterranean region
during the autumn.56 Contemporary Arabic accounts resemble some of
the descriptions written during the Dirty Thirtiesthe period of the Dust
Bowl (1930-1941)-a decade of drought that struck the southern plains of the
United States, driving thousands of farmers off their lands. The dry soil,
high temperatures, intensive agriculture and grazing had left the soil bare,
enabling the strong winds that characterize this area to sweep away vast
amounts of soil. The descriptions and photographs tell of huge, thick
clouds of dust that choked animals and plant life.57 They also carried a
peculiar odour A sharp peppery smell that burnt the nostrils to heavy
greasiness that nauseated.58 The sun was blocked out and the world
55Worster, Dust Bowl, 24, 240; Wainwright, J. and Thornes, J. B. Environmental Issues
in the Mediterranean (London, 2004), 80-1.
56Goudie, Saharan dust storms, 188.
57Worster, Dust Bowl, 13-22.
58Ibid., 15.
43
became black, dark and forbidding. Dust storms can be red, yellow, black
or brown depending on the soil source.
The six-year drought in the Sahel (1968-1974) brought similar extensive
dust bowls.59 The dust storms on the Southern Plains and the Sahel were
first and foremost the result of long severe droughts; in both regions
removal of the natural vegetation by intensive farming and grazing
increased the scale of damage substantially. In contrast, the methods of
medieval Levant farming can hardly be described as destructive and the
scale of farming was relatively small, playing an almost negligible part in
soil erosion. Some of these black winds are clearly the result of drought
conditions while others may be caused by seasonal winds like the simoon
or the khamsin characteristic of arid regions. Although the Levant dust
storms caused agricultural damage, killing people and domestic animals,
none of the sources mentions rural migration on a large scale, and on the
whole they do not appear to have been a frequent hazard. Once the dust
settled and the damage cleared, life picked up again.
Unlike full-scale dust storms, dust devils are a common feature in arid
regions and areas that have suffered from drought. The rainfall throughout
the region during the winter of 512/1118 was exceptionally low. Ibn al-Athr
describes poor yields and a food shortage.60 William of Tyre describes a
strong dust devil during a battle against Il-Ghazi, ruler of Aleppo, which
took place nearby Antioch in August 1119.
An event worthy of mention happened during this battle. In the midst of
combat, while both sides were fighting furiously, a terrible whirlwind came
forth out of the north. Before the eyes of all, it clung to the very centre of
the battleground. As it writhed along, it swept with it such clouds of dust
that men of both armies were blinded and could not fight. Then it soared
aloft in circles, bearing a close resemblance to a huge jar ablaze with sulphurous flames. Because of this unlikely occurrence the enemy won the
victory. The Christians were defeated and nearly all of our soldiers fell by
the sword. (William of Tyre, vol. 1, Book 12: 530)
Few dust devils are of sizeable dimensions, extending upward for many
hundreds of meters. Such whirlwinds are capable of causing considerable
damage and can exceed 75 knots.61 Most, however, are small and last only
a short time.
44
chapter two
The land suitable for cultivation in the Levant is limited. In the 1980s it
was estimated that less than 7 percent of the entire Middle East was cultivated.62 Until the development of better irrigation technology, farming
machinery and fertilization methods, the scale of agriculture remained
relatively small, allowing nomadism to develop as an alternative to agriculture in many of the regions where farming could not be practiced.
Nomadic living patterns are, however, also strongly linked to geopolitical
changes. Invasions by numerous nomadic tribes from the Eurasian Steppe
in the eleventh century disrupted and at times altered urban and agricultural patterns.63
Animal Husbandry and the Role of Nomadic Tribes
Until the establishment of modern independent states and for several
decades after, nomadic tribes dominated the vast arid regions that bordered the sedentary settlements. Mixed farming, livestock and cultivation
of crops, were rarely practiced in the Middle East. Fodder was only provided for draught animals.64 Herds were traditionally kept on pasture and
reared in arid and semi-arid regions that could not support agriculture.
The term used in contemporary medieval Arabic sources for nomads of
Arab origin is urbn or arab.65
The socio-economic organization of nomadic tribes was based on private ownership of livestock and corporative ownership of pasture.66 Large
herds were not only a source of food and income but also a sign of status,
prosperity and prestige. Camels symbolized strength and were a primary
source of food. Sheep and goats were kept for meat, milk and wool. Most
of the meat in the urban markets came from animals raised by nomadic
herders. It is noteworthy that in the Near East, in contrast to Central Asia,
milk and vegetables are a more important component than meat in the
population's diet.67 Surplus animal by-products such as wool and hides
were sold in urban markets. Animals of burden, mainly camels, required
62Beaumont, et al., Geographical Study, 166.
63Khazanov, Nomads, 83, 104.
64Lewis, N. N. Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800-1980 (Cambridge, 1987),
174.
65Ayalon, D. The auxiliary forces of the Mamluk sultanate, DI 65 (1988):23-25.
66Khazanov, Nomads, 123-124.
67Anfinset, N. Metal, Nomads and Culture Contacts, the Middle East and North Africa
(London, 2010), 84.
45
46
chapter two
demand for wheat remained high while both the demand for and the supply of meat were relatively low. The death of animals represented a real
loss of capital goods, food supply and traction power.75 Exchange rates
between grain and animals were prone to dramatic changes. Because grain
was a basic component in the diet of both rural and urban populations,
the demand for grain was always high. During times of shortage in pastoral
areas (as opposed to agricultural regions), the price of animals will usually
drop considerably in comparison to grain.76
During this year (624/1226-1227) the famine persisted in the Jazra. Prices
continued to go up and down a little. There was no rain for all of Shub
[February] and ten days of dhr [March] and famine increased. Wheat
reached a dinar and two qrs for two makkks in Mosul and barley also
a dinar and two qrs for three makkks of the Mosul standard. This year
everything was in short supply and expensive.
In the spring there was little lamb to be had in Mosul and it became expensive, so that a Baghda ral of meat cost two abbas by weight. For some days
it possibly cost more than this. Those engaged in the sale of lamb at Mosul
told me that one day they sold nothing more than a single lamb and on some
days five or six head, sometimes more, sometimes less. This is something
quite unheard of and something we have never witnessed in all our lives. We
have never been told anything like it, because spring is when one expects
meat to be cheap, as the Trkmens, Kurds and Klakn(?) move from the
places where they have wintered to Zuzan and sell sheep cheaply. Every year
at this season meat used to cost a qr for every six or seven rals. (Ibn al-Athr,
Kmil (Richards), 3:285-6)
Even in the mid twentieth century, meat markets of the main Syrian cities
bought a large number of sheep and lamb from local beduin tribes. After
the long drought of 1958-1961, merchants from Hama, Aleppo and Hims
helped herdsmen that had lost their flocks to purchase a number of sheep
and start anew, knowing that within a short space of time meat prices
would rise and business would once again prove profitable.77
Few tribes reared horses; although prestigious and always in demand,
horses were difficult to rear in this region.78 During the fourteenth century
the al-Muhann and al-Fal tribes in northern Syria and southern Jordan
in the region of Karak made their living solely from the sale of mounts. The
75Stone, Decision-Making, 18
76Sen, A. Poverty and Famines, an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford, 1982),
106, 110-11.
77Lewis, Nomads and Settlers, 173; Issawi, Economic History, 273.
78Khazanov, Nomads, 26.
47
al-Muhann gained much of their wealth, power and honour through the
excellent horses they bred and the direct trade with the sultans court.79
Unlike sheep, goats and camels horses, are fussy eaters and cannot go
for any length of time without water. They are also among the most wasteful of grazing animals. In their search for the most edible grasses they tend
to trample and destroy a great deal of good grazing.80 Since they were
reared on pasture it was probably in regions of central and western Syria
in areas known as marj- a term refering to pasture land or meadow, a wide
open tract of land abounding in herbage81 and close to a secure and steady
water supply. Furthermore, horses are more susceptible to infection and
disease than sheep and cattle. In 703/1303-1304 vast numbers of horses died
throughout the Levant. This affected mainly the Mamluk military forces,
whose most important contingents were the mounted archers.
There was a high mortality among horses and the number that perished
cannot be reckoned, so that most of the stables of the amirs and soldiery
were empty. (Abl-Fid, Syrian Prince, 44)
Herds will consist of either sheep and goats or just one type of animal,
depending on the quality of the grazing and the availability of water. Sheep
are more selective eaters and must be grazed close to a source of water;
goats are hardier and can survive on relatively poor grazing and little
water. Their ability to climb allows them to make the most of grazing areas
in steep and harsh mountain terrains. Camels are the best equipped for a
severe desert climate; they move faster than sheep, need less water and
will feed on desert shrubs that sheep will not eat. Although camel meat
was an important part of the diet, in most parts of the Levant camels served
primarily for transport.82 Thus the plague that spread among camels in
590/1193-1194 and led to the death of thousands of camels must have been
a severe blow to the entire region.
And in this year there was a great plague among the camels in all the lands
and 100,000 camels died. (Imd al-Dn, al-Bustn al-Jmi, 454)
48
chapter two
mm of rain a year provide fairly good grazing during the winter and spring
months; but by the end of the summer the area is over-grazed and water
sources scarce. During the summer most of the tribes move west to the
foot of the mountain ranges.83 If drought conditions force a tribe to migrate
from its territories, its rights to pasture will be maintained by virtue of
tradition.84
Migration patterns among the nomads in Jordan, who were completely
dependent on livestock, ran according to the same rationale. During the
winter months tribes would move into the eastern desert or down to the
Jordan valley. The summer months would have been spent in the west and
the uplands, which are better watered.
In years of good grazing herdsmen try to improve their stock and enlarge
their herd in an attempt to safeguard their existence during periods of
drought. This policy seems rather questionable, since large herds increase
the pressure on the land and water sources, and in the long run reduce the
quality of grazing. Over-grazed pastures that leave soils with little or no
vegetation are easily eroded and slow to recover.
In times of drought the number of animals will drop sharply and rebuilding a herd in the aftermath of a drought may be extremely difficult.85
Contemporary medieval sources do not allow one to gauge the numbers
of animals lost during droughts. During the severe drought of 1958-1961 the
number of camels in Syria fell from 80,000 to 11,000.86 The following
account is of the drought that struck Syria in the winter of 2007-2008. This
example conveys the scale of damage and threat to the livelihoods of
herdsmen.
the drought (winter of 2007-2008, Syria) has resulted in decreased
vegetation in the natural ranges, where contribution to feed resources
dropped to zero. As a result herders sold their animals for 60-70% below
the average of the original prices and in many cases they even exhausted
their herds. 59,000 small herders (owning less than 100) lost almost all their
herds and 47,000 herders (owning 100-300 heads) lost 50-60% of their
livestock. The government has responded by distributing amounts of feed
on loan to be repaid next season, as well as providing veterinary medicines
and vaccines for free. Most recently, the government distributed emer-
49
gency aid to 29,000 families. However, the needed assistance is far beyond
the government capacity.87
The conditions of nomadic tribes in times of extremely cold winters had
similar results to those of drought. In 1030 Iraq was struck by a severe cold
spell that led to disease and high mortality throughout a vast area.
And in [that] year (1030) the water froze in Baghdad, and red sand descended
as rain, and trees were destroyed and produced no fruit at all that season.
And there was so great a famine in the wilderness that the nomads who
lived there ate their camels and their horses, and even their children. And
man would exchange his child for that of his fellow so that he might not
suffer (or, feel it) when he pounded him up. And they were in tribulation
not only because of the famine (or, want of food) but also through thirst
which was due to the scarcity of water, and they came and camped by the
rivers (or, canals) which were in the neighborhood of the towns and villages
(Bar Hebraeus, vol. 1: 193-4).
Heavy continuous rains put an end to this period of acute shortage and
this years drought was relatively short.
When Nr al-Dn reached Baalbek, it happened by the predestined decree
and celestial mercy that the heavens opened their fountains with rains,
dews, out pourings, and heavy showers lasting from Tuesday (3rd Dh
al-ijja/4th April) until the following Tuesday. The water courses overflowed,
the pools of Hawran were filled, the mills turned, and the crops and plants
that had been withered were restored to fresh green shoots. The people
clamored with blessings upon Nr al-Dn, saying This is due to his blessed
influence, his justice, and upright conduct. (Ibn al-Qalnis, Damascus
Chronicle, 297)
50
chapter two
51
secure major routes used by merchants, pilgrims and the Mamluk pony
express (bard). The nomadic tribes that guarded the main roads were
called the arbb al-adrk. The sultan provided them with land at the side
of those roads and they lived on or near the routes they guarded. After
Baybars took Karak, he entrusted the safety of the pilgrim routes leading
to the Hijaz to the southern Jordanian tribes.94 Once the Crusader territories along the coastal plains had been conquered, Trkmen tribes were
settled there in order to safeguard the coast from any possible landing of
Frankish ships.
It was thus important for many of the Muslim rulers to reach a basic
understanding with nomads and secure their allegiance. This was done by
assisting the tribes in times of scarcity, providing them with grain or allocating sufficient pastures for their flocks in regions where the grazing was
of better quality all year round. In the long run, this policy no doubt
reduced raids and the acts of violence that the urbn carried out.
In 1261 the entire region of Aleppo suffered from a shortage of food.
Following the Mongol invasion the previous year many villages were
destroyed, causing some farmers to abandon their land; crops were ruined
and the sowing season missed. The available grazing was no doubt demolished by the Mongol armies, leaving the local herdsmen with little or no
pasture. According to Ibn Abd al-hir, the sultans personal biographer
and secretary, Baybars ordered his local governor to take care of the
nomadic tribes and see to their immediate needs.
The Sultan had ordered the issue of a diploma of investiture for the amir
Ala al-Dn al-Bunduqdr as the governor of Aleppo. It was issued, and he
stayed in this town at a time when its territories were suffering from an
excessive rise in prices and lack of food. The (Mamluk) army suffered heavily owing to the lack of food, and it was not possible for them to stay there.
The sultan (Baybars) issued a commission for the amir Sharaf al-Dn Isa b.
Muhann, giving him the rank of amir over all the bedouin and he released
grain from Aleppo for the bedouin(Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw, (Sadeque),
123)
94Ibn Abd al-hir, Srat al-Malik al-Zahir in Sadeque, S. F. Baybars I of Egypt (Pakistan, 1956), 181; Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw, 294; Maqrz, Sulk, 1, pt. 2, 51; Poliak, A. N. Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the Lebanon, 1250-1900 (London, 1939), 9; Ayalon, Naval
Power, 10; Thorau, Baybars, 188; Amitai-Preiss, Mongols, 70; Irwin, R. Iq and the end of
the Crusader states, in The Eastern Mediterranean Lands in the Period of the Crusades, ed.
P. M. Holt (Warminster, 1977), 71. In later decades groups of Wfidiyya were also settled
along the Syro-Palestinian coast. This policy was established at the end of the Ayyubid
period. Ayalon, D. The Wafidiyya in the Mamluk Kingdom, in Studies on the Mamluks of
Egypt (1250-1217) (London, Variorum, 1977), II, 94, 99-100.
52
chapter two
Drawing the Line: Defending Sedentary Interests
The above account explains the villagers fear. The sheer number of their
herds was enough to leave a village with little pasture and a serious water
deficit. During the eleventh century the Fatimid sultan had a diploma of
investiture drawn up according to which they (the urbn of Syria) were
not to enter the cultivated area unless it was impossible for them to live
on the steppe.96
In 661/1263 the fortress of Karak came under Baybars rule. The sultan
stayed for a number of days and saw to the garrison and the administration
of the town and fortress. During his stay he was called upon to intervene
in the water dispute between the local villagers and the bedouin.
The inhabitants of these territories used to drink only the rain water which
gathered in the water tanks, and when the Bedouins drank and watered
their horses from them they were soon exhausted. The inhabitants of the
village were thus exposed to the torment of thirst. So the Sultan issued
orders that no one from among the Bedouin should drink or water his horse
from the tanks. He entrusted them with the responsibility of guarding the
territories up to Hejz. (Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw (Sadeque), 181)
53
who describes this incident, criticizes the sultans decision and says that
the destruction of Shawbak showed poor judgment.97
The frequency and/or severity of raids among the nomadic tribes and
between them and the sedentary population did not increase dramatically
in years of drought. A study concerning the relation between violence, food
shortages and dwindling grazing in Africa shows the connection between
these factors is far from clear.
Take the widely cited case of the war in Darfur, the western region of Sudan.
Ban Kimoon, the UN secretary-general describes it as an ecological crisis,
arising at least in part from climate change. Average rainfall in the region
fell abruptly (by a third or more) in the early 1970s and Darfur repeatedly
suffered droughts. Clashes over grazing and then displacement of villagers
were followed, from 2003, by horrific wars. Yet the connection is elusive.
Roughly three decades elapsed between the rain stopping and war starting.
Many other factorspolitical, ethnic, demographic and economic conspired
to stoke violence. Those were specific to Darfur, whereas the sharp drop in
rainfall hit the whole Sahel, without intensifying conflict elsewhere.98
Although severe and fast climatic changes may induce violence, conflicts
are seldom caused by one factor. Climatic fluctuations and scarcity of
natural resources rarely seem to be the main cause of social, political or
military tension.
97al-Ayn, Badr al-Dn Mamd b. Ali, Iqd al-jumn f tarkh ahl-zamn, ed. M. M.
Amn (Cairo,1988-1992), vol. 3, 164-5.
98Anonymous author Security and the environment climate wars The Economist July
8th 2010; See also Davies, S. Adaptable Livelihoods, Coping with Food Shortage in the Malian
Sahel (London, 1996), 8-9.
54
chapter three
55
Chapter Three
56
chapter three
57
the ability to maneuver quickly and utilize sound diplomacy to secure food
from neighboring countries.
Building granaries and storing grain was a long-term investment that
required continuous management; the risk involved was by no means
small or trivial. Grain in storage had no current use value, and its storage
was limited by its shelf life. The storage area had to be large, well-aired,
dry and protected from both rodents and potential raiders. The safe limit
of moisture for grain in storage is 10-15 percent, depending on the type of
grain, the climate and the length of storage. Temperature should be below
600 F to avoid vermin, which tend to breed if grain overheats.11 Granaries
had to be located in a central place where transport could reach with ease.
The history of granaries in the ancient Near East shows the rulers' different approaches to the power behind and the control of grain stocks. In
Mesopotamia, temples played a dominant part in the economy until the
end of the third millennium.12 During the rule of the second King of Ur,
ulgi (2094-2047 bc), temples were gradually turned into state institutions
responsible for cultivating public fields, storing and distributing agricultural products. Management was seen to by temple staff who in fact had
no role in its religious function. Governors were appointed to supervise
the cultivation of public fields.13 Much of the arable land was owned by
either the palace or the temple.14 By the end of this period the temples
served as piggy banks to be emptied in times of need.15 Part of the cereal
was stored for future use and part was exported and exchanged for raw
materials.16 Some of the grain was distributed among the poorer socioeconomic classes, cripples, orphans and widows.17
Granaries from the mid third millennium were excavated in the city of
Shuruppak in central Babylonia. Thirty silos were found, each measuring
8 m in depth and 4 m in diameter. They were faced with brick and were
11Rickman, G. Roman Granaries and Store Buildings (Cambridge, 1971), 1-2.
12Frankfort, H. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient 4th edition (London and
New Haven, 1970), 43-4.
13Maekawa, K. The temples and the temple personnel of Ur III Girsu-Lagash, in
Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East, ed. K. Watanabe (Heidelberg, 1999), 61-2.
14Renger, J. Interaction of temple, palace and private enterprise in the old Babylonian
economy, in State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near East (Leuven, 1979), vol. 1, 250;
Van De Mieroop, M. The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford, 1997), 146.
15Kraus, F. R. The Role of Temples from the Third Dynasty of Ur to the First Dynasty of
Babylon, tr. Foster B. Monographs on the Ancient Near East, vol.2:4 (Malibu, 1990),11, 15.
16Oppenheimer, A. L. Ancient Mesopotamia, Portrait of Dead Civilization, 2nd edition
(Chicago ,1977), 84, 187.
17Renger, Interaction, 254.
58
chapter three
probably roofed. A simple clay seal protected the granary from thieves. As
suggested by Van De Mieroop, This provided a psychological barrier
rather than a physical one.18 This method of sealing was still used by the
sultans in Mamluk Egypt, probably for much the same reason.19
In Egypt, under the reign of the New Kingdom (1152-1070 Bc), granaries
became one of the most prominent institutions. The temple belonged to
the pharaoh but operated as a specialized branch of the government.20 In
ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt large granaries were tightly controlled by
either the temple or the rulers themselves.21 A later example from the
Levant shows granaries were incorporated into the urban fortifications. In
a well-preserved granary excavated in the capital city of Geshur (10th-8th
century Bc), located in the southern Golan on the Jordan River, a fourchamber gate served for the storage of cereals. It was further protected by
a large double curtain wall, the external wall measuring 6 m in width. A
large tower protected the gate (Figures 3.1, 3.2). A thick layer of ash containing both wheat and barley bears evidence of the violent conquest of Tiglat
59
Palesser III (732 Bc). Geshur may well have served as the central granary
of this small kingdom.22
During the Roman period granaries were often built in auxiliary forts
flanking the headquarters. They were also positioned near the gates, particularly on sites located on a river and used as regular transportation
routes. Granaries were long narrow rectangular buildings strongly constructed with buttresses.
To resist the pressure of the grains weight, the walls were relatively
thick (the lateral pressure of grain is about two thirds of the vertical pressure),23 a raised floor allowed a current of air. A large granary was excavated at the Roman port of Caesareaa complex of barrel vaults (14
individual units) each measuring 30 m long, 5 m wide and 5 m high. The
vaults opened on to one of the main harbour streets. Built by King Herod
the Great (d. 4 Bc), it continued to serve as a warehouse during the Byzantine period.24 A second horrea of seven vaults was found below the Temple
22Arav, R. A chronicle of a pre-known destruction, analysis of the stages of conquest
and destruction of the city of Bethsaida by Tiglat Pilesr III 732-734 bce, in Eretz-Israel, eds.
J. Aviram, A. Ben-Tor, I. Ephal S. Gitin and R. Reich (Jerusalem, 2009), vol. 29:333.
23Rickman, Roman Granaries, 2.
24Blakely J. A. et al., The Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritma Excavation Report. The
Pottery and Dating of Vault 1: Horreum, Mithraeum and Later Uses (New York, 1986), vol.
IV:150-51.
60
chapter three
horrea, granary,
was later incorporated into the Arabic language hur
(singular) ahra (plural).26
During the early Fatimid period (696-1169) the regime was responsible
for buying 100,000 dinars worth of grain every year. This policy practiced
by the Fatimid rulers, known as the matjar, was later abandoned due to
the losses in both income and grain in years when prices dropped and the
rulers held stocks of grain that could not be sold. During the late Fatimid
period there were three granaries in Cairo, two of which were located in
ports along the river, one for wheat and one for barley. The three granaries
together could contain 300,000 irdab.27 According to Lev, the granaries in
Cairo were better stocked and maintained during the Fatimid period than
in the late twelfth century under Saladins rule.28 This may well be true,
but as the following case demonstrates, the Fatimid rulers were often
reluctant to distribute their own grain in times of shortage. During the crop
failures of 397/1007 caused by the low Nile, the caliph al-Hkim ordered
the removal of taxes on grain and rice. He publicly threatened those who
hoarded grain, promising: I will cut off the head of whoever possesses any
grain whatsoever. I will burn his house and confiscate his wealth.29 Those
who failed to comply were not allowed to sell until the new crops were
harvested. This policy however is tainted by a large measure of hypocrisy,
as taxes on cereals were introduced a year later, long before the crisis was
over. The caliph himself did not release grain from the state granaries.30
The Franks storage system and policy was differnt from that of the
Fatimids. There is some evidence rulers built granaries within their urban
citadels or added large warehouses to existing fortresses.31
25Holum, K. G. et al., King Herods Dream, Caesarea on the Sea (New York and London,
1988), 88-9.
26Sharoni, A. The Compressive Arabic-Hebrew Dictionary (Tel-Aviv, 1987), vol. 1, 217;
Ayalon, D. and Shinar, P. Arabic-Hebrew Dictionary of Modern Arabic 7th edition (Jerusalem,
1975), 397.
271 Irdabb = 2.500 pounds. Hava, J. G. Arabic-English Dictionary (Beirut, 1970), 7.
28Lev, Y. State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden, New York and Kln, 1991), 162-4.
29Allouche, Mamluk Economics, 33.
30Lev, Fatimid Egypt, 168-9.
31Avitzur, S. Man and His Work, Historical Atlas of Tools and Workshops in the Holy Land
(Ramat Gan, 1976), 38. [Hebrew]
61
The Russian abbot Daniel (d. 1122), who traveled in the Holy Land c.
1106-1107, describes the large grain stocks in the Tower of David, which
served as Jerusalems citadel.32
It (the Tower of David) is curiously built in massive stone, is very high, and
of square, solid impregnable form. It contains plenty of water, five iron
gates, and two hundred steps lead to the summit. An immense quantity of
corn is stored in this tower. It is very difficult to take and forms the main
defence of the city. (Russian Abbot Daniel, PPTS, 4:17)
Although the Crusader kingdom was relatively small, it seems they seldom
stored enough grain to see them through times of crisis. The 1154 acute food
shortage in the kingdom was prevented from turning into famine due to
the Egyptian grain supplies found after the conquest of Ascalon from the
Fatimids.
In the following year, a severe famine spread over the whole land (Kingdom of Jerusalem). The Lord, filled with anger towards us, took away our
main support, bread, so that a measure of wheat was sold for four gold
pieces. In fact, had it not been that a supply of grain was found in Ascalon
when that city was taken, famine would have invaded the land and the
people would have almost wholly perished. (William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book
18:236)
It is important to note, however, that few strongholds were owned by
the king and in general he had little control of grain surpluses. Most fortresses were initially built by wealthy families who owned large agricultural estates. In the late twelfth century many of the fortresses were sold
to the military orders, who may have maintained their own granaries. The
fortress of Safad, rebuilt by the Order of the Templars in 1240, could accommodate 2500 men. It received 12,000 mules laden with barley, wheat and
other foodstuffs every year.33
In comparison to both the Ayyubid and Mamluk sultanates, few famines have been recorded in the Crusader kingdom and its principalities.
One reason, no doubt was their location along the coast, which has relatively high rainfall and rich agricultural land. The kingdom and principalities with their many harbours and merchants were linked to several
grain-growing regions outside the Levant, in southern Italy, Sicily and
Cyprus. Transportation of surplus grain was not impossible; distances were
32Pilgrimage of the Russian Abbot Daniel in the Holy Land 1106-1107 A.D. Annotated by
C. W. Wilson Palestine Pilgrims Text Society (London, 1895), vol. 4, pt. 3, vii-viii.
33De Constructione Castri Saphet: Construction et Functions dun Chateau Fort Franc en
Terre Sainte cited in Kennedy, Castles, 196.
62
chapter three
short and the terrain and roads along the coast were relatively easy to
travel and navigate. Although no exact figures exist, the population in the
cities of Egypt and Syria was larger than that in Frankish cities. In times of
scarcity it was thus probably easier to obtain supplies from the Muslims
rulers, even if this meant turning to your most formidable enemy, as the
following account reveals.
In 1185 Count Raymond of Tripoli, who acted as the regent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was well aware of the drought conditions threatening
the Frankish territories. He called upon his council in order to find a solution. Raymond quickly signed a four-year peace treaty with Saladin, who
then sent food supplies to relieve the Frankish food shortage.34
Grain storage policies did not change or improve under the Ayyubid
rule. There were, however a number of cases where rulers foresaw the
coming calamities and were strong and/or wealthy enough to intervene at
an early stage. The initiative taken by the Ayyubid ruler of Aleppo is a good
example of a quick relief plan in a city that was on the verge of famine:
This year (628/1230-1231) there was little rain in the Jazra and Syria, especially
at Aleppo and its dependencies, for there it was exceedingly sparse. Prices
rose, the rise in prices in Aleppo was the worst, although not as serious as
has been mentioned in the past years. The Atabeg Shihb al-Dn, who was
in charge of affairs at Aleppo, the source of commands and prohibitions,
the regent and guardian for its sultan, al-Azz ibn al-Zhir, produced much
of his own money and corn and bestowed plentiful alms. He administrated
the city so well that there was no obvious sign of shortages and high prices.
May God reward him with goodly reward. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards),
3:310)
During the great famine of 1199-1201 al-dil had acted in much the same
way as rulers before and after him, although it seems his generosity and
care for the poor exceeded that of other sultans.
For three consecutive years, the Nile rose only insignificantly al-dil Ab
Bakr ibn Ayyub released quantities of grain to the poor. He also divided the
latter among the wealthy [to be fed], assembled twelve thousand of them
in the place where camels were fenced, which was adjacent to the palace,
and fed them generously. The commanders and the affluent and wealthy
people acted in a similar manner. (Maqrz, Ighthah (Allouche), 42)
The famine during al-dils reign was remembered for decades, and future
years of food shortage were compared to and measured against it. During
34The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, 1184-97. in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, Sources in translation, P. W. Edbury (Aldershot, 1998), 17.
63
the severe food shortage that struck Egypt in 1263-1264, under Baybars'
reign, his biographer, Ibn Abd al-hir (d. 1292), praised Baybars in the
most obsequious manner, comparing his way of dealing with the poor to
the conduct of al-dil.
The sultan gave orders that the prices of commodities should be fixed for
compassions sake, but the situation became more precarious and bread
was completely lacking. The sultan gave orders for all the poor people to
be summoned to the foot of the citadel. On Thursday, the 7th of the month
of Rab II, he came down to the House of Justice; the first thing that he
discussed there was the question of wheat, and the abolition of the fixed
price. He issued orders to the granaries to sell each day a quantity of five
hundred irdabs of grain, as God the Exalted had ordained, and not to sell
more than two waibah at a time, so that those who hoard could not buy,
but that this should rather be sold to the poor and to widows. His chamberlains went down to the foot of the Citadel and wrote down the names
of the poor. He sent one chamberlain to each quarter of the town to make
the list of all the poor who were in Cairo and Mir, and their surrounding
places. The sultan said by God, if I had sufficient quantity of grain to feed
all these people, I would have distributed it to them. When all these people
were counted and assembled, the sultan took thousands of them and allotted a similar number to the deputies of his son al-Malik Sad. He called the
military chancellery which took down their names. He allotted to each amir
a number of poor in proportion to the number of soldiers under his command, and divided the poor among the amirs, the soldiers, the mufrads of
the alqa, the commanders and the Bars. A separate class was made for
the Trkmens, and also for the Kurds and native inhabitants. He issued
orders that each poor person should be given provisions sufficient for three
months..Then the sultan said: We have to-day assembled these poor
people, and already half the day has passed; let half of one dirham be given
to each of them, so that he can procure bread, and the measure decided
upon should be carried out from to-morrow. In this way a great sum was
distributed specially for this purpose. (Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw (Sadeque),
204-5)
The sultan later admits the task was beyond his ability. Tucker concludes
that the Mamluks response to disasters was ad hoc and haphazard; official
aid to the affected population was indirect and variable.35 And yet the
Mamluk sultans were better organized and appear to have had greater
control over grain surpluses and granaries. Baybars, may have learnt from
his early experiance of famine; he later established a policy were by he
stocked each of the fortresses he conquered and carefully supervised the
35Tucker, Environmental hazards,113.
64
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military granaries. One of the chief responsibilities of each fortress governor, who was nominated by the sultan, was to look after the granaries.36
This policy was established as fortresses were being won from the Crusaders and the Ayyubids and rebuilt by the Mamluks in the 1260s. It seems
previous regimes had less control over the grain surpluses and were poorly
equipped to combat severe food shortages. It is important to note that
during the seventeen years of Baybars reign, both the Levant and Egypt
were almost free of droughts, which no doubt made maintaining grain
reserves an easier undertaking.
A number of Mamluk sultans had large grain supplies transported from
the two main granaries at Fus and Cairo to Syria, Gaza, Safad, the citadel
of Damascus, Karak, Shawbak and cities along the coast.37 The distribution
of grain to several sites no doubt helped reduce the risk of losing the entire
grain stock. At first it seems that much of the grain was stored in these
fortresses in order to supply military campaigns and the local garrison, a
policy that eased the burden on the population, who were thus exempt
from allocating a portion of their crops to the garrisons. The large quantities of grain stored in these fortresses could also be used in times of emergency. This is confirmed by Maqrz, who says that during the severe
drought of 695/1295-1296 that struck Syria, the entire coast and Egypt, the
Mamluk sultan relieved Cairos food shortage by ordering the transportation of grain from the Mamluk military granaries in fortresses along the
coast and in southwest Jordan.38
More than twenty thousand ghiraras that were stored in Karak, Shawbak,
and [along] the Palestinian littoral were sent to the cities, [although] they
had been kept originally as provisions and destined to supply military expeditions. (Maqrz, Ighthah, 28-29)39
During the two-year famine that struck Egypt in 695-696/1295-1296 Baybars al-Manr describes the distribution of the poor among the rich who
36Ibn al-Furt, Nir al-Dn Abd al-Ramn, b. Muammad, Trkh Ibn al-furt, eds.
N. Izzedin and C. K. Zurayk (Beirut, 1942), vol. 7:192.
37Lapidus, I. The grain economy of Mamluk Egypt, JESHO, 12 (1969):6.
38Karak is noted as a grain producer in the Ottoman period. Milwright address the
subject of grain in Karak relying on Khalil al-Zahiri (15th century). Johns examines crops in
Karak according to Ottoman tax records. I have not found Mamluk sources that state Karak
was a grain growing region. Milwright, M. The Fortress of the Raven, Karak in the Middle
Islamic Period (1100-1650), (Leiden and Boston, 2008), 109-111; Johns, J.The longue dure:
State and settlement in southern Transjordan across the Islamic centuries, in Village,
Steppe and State: the Social Origins of Modern Jordan, eds. E. L. Rogan and T. Tell (London,
1994), 24.
39see also Maqrz, Ighthah (Allouche), 44.
65
provided food for the starving. Grain was imported from Sicily and Constantinople to relieve the famine in Egypt.40 The Sultan, al-dil Kitbugh
(r. 1295-1297) acted in a similar way, ordering his high-ranking amirs and
officials as well as wealthy merchants to help provide food for the Sufi
communities, the beggars and the poor population.41
40Baybars al-Manr al-Dawdr, Rukn al-Dn, Kitb al-tufa al-mumlkiyya f l-dawla
al-turkiyya, ed. A-R. S. amdn (Cairo, 1987), 305-6.
41Lapidus, Muslim Cities, 147.
66
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67
sufficient seed for the following sowing season would leave little surplus.
Thus, if a drought were to occur, famine would develop within a relatively
short time. In years of bumper crops, when farmers would have been left
with a fair amount of their harvest, few had large secure granaries to store
their surpluses.
The iqt system,46 practiced throughout the Ayyubid and Mamluk
sultanates, amplified many of the difficulties farmers encountered in times
of drought. The lands with the highest yields were assigned to high-ranking
amirs in the form of an iqt; each iqt could consist of one to ten villages.
The lower-ranking amirs and the beduin tribes sometimes shared the
revenues of one village.47 Most of the amirs dwelt in the large urban centers; they were professional military men who possessed no agricultural
knowledge, and took little interest in the land. Their only concern was the
tribute collected after the harvest. They seldom saw, understood or cared
about the daily hardships of the farming population. Taxes seem to have
remained much the same even when crops were poor. Christian as well as
Muslim farmers in Syria and Palestine under Frankish or Mamluk rule had
to hand over half of their crop to the landowner. In addition, Christian
farmers paid the jeziya tax to their Muslim landlords and Muslim farmers
paid poll tax if they lived under Frankish rule.48 Unless yields were remarkably high, farmers would have found it almost impossible to store large
enough quantities of grain to see them through long periods of drought.
The isolation of many rural areas led to further problems. Villages were
often far from the food relief centres that were organized in the large
Mamluk cities. When prices rose, the necessary products were usually way
beyond their reach. Volney, who traveled through Syria in 1785, reports: if
they (the villagers) are visited by a two year drought and famine, the whole
village is ruined and abandoned.49
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Preparing for and Coping with Droughts among Nomads
The saving and storing of food for bad times is a complex matter even
among sedentary farming communities. In general, grain stocks are much
more adjustable and amenable to control than livestock. If stored in dry
conditions the value of grain will not fall and the profit will be immediate.
Pastoralists savings for the future take the form of storing animals on the
hoof. But even this solution is not always feasible. In times of drought the
condition of a herd will deteriorate rapidly.50 Milk production will fall
considerably; consequently lambs born will perish within a short time. As
conditions worsen and the herd is reduced in size, meat and milk will
become scarce. Moreover, the nutrition and calorie value of lean meat is
very low.51 Pastoral nomads become more dependent on the sale of their
animals and by-produce in order to be able to purchase foodmainly
grain. While in some nomadic tribes bread was part of the daily diet, in
some cereals were turned into flour, mixed with water and salt, and cooked
into porridge.52 Although neither bread nor cereals were a major component of the nomadic diet, in times of dearth they were usually expensive
and beyond reach. Mariam has pointed out that many pastoralists in
Ethiopia will not slaughter and eat their animals in order to survive
droughts. He raised the following questions: Why do people and livestock
die of famine together? Why dont starving people turn their livestock into
food during famine periods? Some contemporary medieval accounts
describe a similar phenomena, the death of people as well as large herds
during a drought. The fact that the herd is a pastoralists capital, his source
of income and savings, will prevent him from slaughtering his animals,
even if his own life could thereby be saved.53
Once the drought is over, the recovery of the tribes economy will be a
slow process. Since many of the older animals are the first to be sold in
times of scarcity, the number of stock suitable for biological reproduction
is reduced; thus rebuilding the herd will stretch over a considerable period.
Having little milk and few animals to sell means that many families continue to struggle long after the drought had ended.54
50Halstead, Banking, 66-67.
51Halstead, Banking, 66; Dahl, G. and Hjort, A. Pastoral Change and the Role of
Drought. Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries (Stockholm, 1979), 16.
52Waines, Cereals, 267.
53Mariam, Rural Vulnerability, 60, 64.
54Dahl and Hjort, Pastoral Change, 9, 16-17.
69
Keeping different species, goats and camels or goats and sheep, will
reduce the risk of total loss.55 Both camels and goats are more resistant to
drought than sheep. Certain animals have a better immune system and are
more resistant to the many diseases that are prevalent in times of drought
when animals are weak. Raiding was one way of supplementing income
among nomads. There is however little evidence that raiding became more
frequent in times of drought.
Rituals, Famine Foods and the Question of Cannibalism
Not surprisingly, the native population of this arid region developed a
particular type of rain prayer, one that addressed the needs, of nomads,
farmers and the urban comunities. These rituals go back to pre-Islamic
times but were adopted and adapted by Islam at a very early stage. Muslim
rain rituals and prayers can still been seen today in Morocco and Sudan.
In Sudan, separate prayers are conducted by men and women accompanied by their children. The men gather under the sun with the droughtstricken animals. The ceremony is led by a pious member of the community
who in addition to the prayer recites a long religious poem in which each
line of invocation is followed by a line of petition.56
You who mete out good and evil, oh God,
In this land we are broken, milk the clouds from above!
The young children who accompany their mothers recite:57
Oh God give us rainwater!
Oh God I have eaten carrion!
Oh God I have stolen water!
The Sudanese rain poems convey the intimate nature of the prayer recited
by a small local farming community. Similar prayers and rituals may well
have been preformed in the medieval Levant in rural regions and among
the nomads.
The pre-Islamic ritual practiced in the Arabian Peninsula is one of many
performed with fire. Oxen pulling a load of dry wild-grape branches were
led to a high hill. A Mudar plant (Calotropis procera) was attached to their
tails and hocks and was set alight on reaching the summit. The bellowing
55Dahl and Hjort, Pastoral Change, 17-20.
56Andrzejewski, B. W. The Roobdoon of Sheikh Aqib Abdullahi Jama: A Somali prayer
for rain, African Language Studies 11 (1970):21, 28, 32. In the Sudan the majority are Sunni.
57Andrzejewski, Somali prayer for rain, 33.
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of the oxen and the mens pleading cries were directed towards the heavens to the gods above.
When Muhammad was alive, the Prophet himself performed rain
prayers, but those were already of a different nature to the one described
above. Raising his hands to the sky, he would turn his cloak inside out and
his back to the crowd.58 This communal prayer is still performed in various
parts of the Middle East. Sura al-Ala is recited after Sura al-Fatihah. Then
the leader of the prayer reads Sura al-Ghashiyah. The three suras emphasize the power and greatness of Allah in the Universe. When the ceremony
is over, each person in the crowed turns his outer garments inside out
while facing the qiblah and raising his hands.59 When the rain comes one
should say: Our Lord a useful rain and reveal part of the body to the rain.
If the rain is too heavy and may cause damage one should say OAllah,
make it upon the woods, farms and trees. Make it around us and not upon
us.60
, rain prayer) was perNuwayr, says that in Cairo the Istisqa (
71
Famine Foods
Famine foods are drawn from a store of folk knowledge.63 They are sometimes mentioned in the Arabic sources and were no doubt used by both
sedentary and nomadic populations, although each probably had a different type of famine foods. They included wild plants as well as parts of
domesticated plants only eaten when food is scarce.
In times of plenty, flour was sifted the remnants usually thrown out; but
when food was scarce these remains were often used. This is frequently
commented:
People fed themselves on what was left after sieving [flour]. (Ibn al-Athr,
Kmil, 10:544)
In times of food shortage, bread was made out of barley which was
cheaper than wheat. When the price of both wheat and barley was high,
ful (Egyptian fava beans) was used as a substitute.64
In several cases, at the height of a prolonged famine, chroniclers mention the consumption of cats, dogs and carrion.
This year the famine at Mosul and in the whole of the Jazra intensified.
The people ate carrion and dogs and cats. Dogs and cats became scarce after
they had been very numerous. One day I had entered my house and seen
the servant girls cutting up meet for cooking. I was struck by the number
of cats I saw, so I counted them and there were twelve. During this famine
however, I saw meat in the house with nobody nearby guarding it from the
cats because there were none. There was not that much time between these
two occasions. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 3:266-8)
It is doubtful whether a hungry man or a starving family will give the matter of Islamic dietary laws much thought. Islamic law, however, clearly
permits the eating of forbidden food including carcasses in times of severe
food shortage.65
Cannibalism
According to Nuwayr, Bar Hebraeus and Maqrz, during the two-year
famine that struck Egypt in 1199-1201 people reverted to cannibalism. The
63Freeman, M. Sung in Food in Chinese Culture, ed. K. C. Chang, 2nd Edition (New Haven
and London, 1978), 144.
64Shoshan, B. Money supply and grain prices in fifteenth century Egypt, The Economic History Review 36, 1 (1983):49, note 19.
65Eisenstein, H. Animal life Encyclopedia of Quran (Leiden, Boston and Kln, 2001),
vol. 1: 100.
72
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73
Chapter Four
74
chapter four
75
Surpluses of grain enabled them to cope with food shortages and control
prices by releasing grain from their own supply. The existence of a wellstocked granary provided rulers with stability as well as economic and
political power at home and in the international arena.
Ayyubid and Mamluk sultans regarded most wealth as their own and
tried to prevent their amirs from controlling agricultural surpluses. This
was done partly by paying salaries to their amirs or providing them with
an iq in return for military service.6 Many amirs, however, bought,
hoarded and sold large stocks of grain for the sheer profits that were to be
made by selling it in times of scarcity.7 The sultans means of controlling
grain hoarding depended almost entirely on his political power and wealth.
The main grain-growing region in the early decades of the Mamluk
sultanate was still Egypt.8 While Egypt managed to create a surplus of
grain, Syrias grain reserves were considerably smaller. However, even in
Egypt the surplus was not always sufficient. The number of droughts and
famines in Egypt and Syria during the Ayyubid period (1170-1250) was
higher than in the Crusader territories. The high number of famines in
Syria may be explained by the limited amount of cultivated lands, the low
precipitation and agriculture being largely dependent on winter rains. If
crops failed or yields were poor the country would find itself on the verge
of famine within a short space of time.
The worst droughts in the Eastern Mediterranean were those of 11781181, 1294-1296 and 1304, when both Syria and Egypt suffered. All three led
to acute famine throughout the region. Droughts are most severe when the
main grain-growing regions are badly hit; when vast areas that include
different political entities are simultaneously struck by drought, rulers will
find it exceedingly difficult to maneuver. Grain will have to be shipped or
carried over long distances, raising costs and risk of loss. The accounts
below describe some of the regions most severe periods of drought and
the political and military events that followed.
6Chamberlain, M. Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus 1190-1350 (Cambridge, 1994), 40, 42.
7Irwin, Middle East, 94.
8This changed shortly after the Black Death (748-750/1347-1349). A third of the population perished and a vast number of villages were destroyed. The maintenance of irrigation
canals deteriorated due to weak rulers and lack of manpower. Borsch, Black Death, 41-4;
Levanoni, A. A Turning Point in Mamluk History, the Third Reign of al-Nir Muammad Ibn
Qalawun (1310-1341) (Leiden, New York and Kln, 1995), 137, 172-3. Dols, Black Death, 282-3;
Dols, M. The general mortality of the Black Death in the Mamluk Empire, in The Islamic
Middle East, 700-1900 Studies in Economic and Social History, ed. A. L. Udovitch (Princeton,
New Jersey, 1981), 416-17.
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1178-1181, the Longest of the Twelfth-Century Droughts
The severity of the drought and the complexity of the regional affairs led
to several military and diplomatic acts between the three main political
entities in the region: the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of
Tripoli and the Ayyubid sultanate. Although Saladin was clearly faced with
greater difficulties, which threatened the population and his army in Syria,
the crisis that was to develop due to this drought did not change the
regional balance of power. The first phase, however, saw a sharp rise in the
level of aggression. Bearing this in mind, it is somewhat surprising that one
of Saladins first moves was to reduce his forces in Syria.10
9This drought is mentioned also by Ab Shma Shihab al-Dn Abd al-Rahmin b. Ismail,
Kitab al-Rawatyn fi Akhbar al-Dawlatin (Beirut, 1997), 3:21; Maqrz, Sulk, vol.1.pt.1, 71-2;
Ibn al-Athr, Kmil, 11: 451-2.
10Saladins orders concerning the evacuation of the army to Egypt can be found also
in Imad al-Din, Barq, 3:376; Ibn Wil, Mufarrij al-Khrb fi Akhbar Bani Ayyub, ed. D. al-Din
al-Shayyal (Cairo,1957), vol. 2:73.
77
The sultan sent his brother Turanshah from Syria to Egypt because of the
weakness of his army due to the drought in the country. (Ab Shma,
Rawatayn, 3:21)
The risk of losing a large part of his army through famine and disease no
doubt prompted this decision. This military group, accompanied by merchants and other Syrian people returned to Syria only four years later, in
578/1182.11
Several Muslim sources mention the drought of 574-575/1178-1179 as
lasting for two years, ending only in the spring of 575/May 1180. Damascus
and its close surroundings, according to William of Tyre, had been suffering from drought for five consecutive years.12 The coastal regions, which
are less prone to droughts, are not mentioned and may have had their
regular annual rainfall. Thus most of the Crusader kingdoms territories
and the principalities along the coast were probably spared.13 This had
several implications for the ongoing Muslim-Frankish conflict. The Franks
exploited this situation in various ways, assuming the sultan, Saladin,
would carefully calculate the risk to his forces, which were somewhat
smaller due to the evacuation of part of his army to Egypt. The drought,
however, did not deter the sultan; Saladin retaliated with great force in
order to maintain the safety along his frontier and his political position in
Syria.
The first Frankish act was triggered by the mass movement of nomadic
herdsmen towards the Frankish-Muslim frontier. Until the early twentieth
century, herds from eastern Syria periodically moved west, some going as
far as Lebanon in search of pasture. During the spring of 1179 Muslim herdsmen entered the region of Banyas, which is rich in water. Not only does it
have a high rainfall, its springs are fed by the snows of Mount Hermon. The
grazing around Banyas must have seemed lush and plentiful in comparison
to the drought-stricken areas in eastern Syria. The movement of large
Muslim herds did not pass unnoticed by the Franks.
News reached the King (Baldwin IV) that the enemy in search of pasture
had incautiously led their flocks and herds into the forest near Banyas. They
were without fighting men on who they might count to repel any attack
made by us. (William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 21: 438-9)
11Ibn al-Athr, Kmil, vol. 11:478.
12William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 22:446-7.
13The only hint of food shortage in the Crusader Kingdom comes from a series of document that tell of a shipment of wheat from southern Italy to Acre. Abulafia, Two Italies,
147-8.
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The nomadic tribes, searching for food, water and pasture, were obviously
not expecting to be attacked by the Franks, Banyas was after all within the
boundaries of Saladins territories. This was apparent even to William of
Tyre who says They were without fighting men. The sheer number of
cattle, sheep and people were both tempting and threatening. An ambush
was organized; the prospect of capturing large herds was a temptation the
Franks found difficult to resist. The ambush was repelled with the help of
a Muslim contingent sent from Damascus under the command of Saladins
nephew Farrukhshah. Many of the Franks were killed, and the king barely
escaped with his life.
This event triggered a series of raids and counter raids that lasted for
several months.14 In April the king raided the district of Damascus. During
the same year the lord of Antioch and Lattakia raided horses in Shayzar.15
At the end of the spring 1179, Saladin invaded the land of Sidon.
He (Saladin) located his camp between the city of Banyas and the River of
Dan and set out skirmishers in large numbers to drive off booty and set fires.
He himself, ready to aid in emergencies, remained in the camp and there
awaited their return and the results of their aggressions. (William of Tyre,
vol. 2, Book 21: 440)
William of Tyre gives a detailed account of the Frankish response. A largescale raid was carried out in June by the forces of the king assisted by
Raymond of Tripoli and the Knights Templars. Saladins camp was
attacked, but the Frankish force eventually retreated, some finding refuge
in the towns of Sidon and Tyre.16 Many were captured and later ransomed
for large sums.
The most extreme military move was made in the winter of 1178 by King
Baldwin IV, who decided to build a fortress on the west bank of the Jordan
River at Jacobs Ford, a days journey from Damascus.17 Baldwin appears
to have counted on Saladin having little time or money to retaliate, given
the severe drought conditions. In October 1178 Baldwin set out with his
entire army to oversee and safeguard the construction of the fortress of
Vadum Jacob. Saladin was quick to realize the threat this fortress would
14This period of raids run by both the Franks and Muslims is described in Prawer, Latin
Kingdom, vol. 1, 452; Ehrenkreutz, A. S. Saladin (New York, Albany, 1972), 161-4.
15Ibn al-Athr, Kmil, vol. 11:452-453; Ibn-al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:262.
16William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 21: 442-3.
17Ab Shma, Kitab al-Rawatyn, 3:19; Ellenblum, R. Frontier activities: the transformation of a Muslim sacred site into the Frankish castle of Vadum Iacob, Crusades 2
(2003):83-97.
79
pose. If completed it would serve as a jumping point for the Franks to raid
the territories of Damascus. According to Ehrenkreutz, it also commanded
the approach to the plain of Banyas, which was the granary of Damascus.18
Saladin determined to put an end to its construction, but trying to avoid a
military conflict, began by offering a peaceful solution. Diplomatic negotiations failed due to Baldwins refusal to accept a cash payment. Saladin
first offered 60,000 dinars, then raised the sum to 100,000 dinars, a sum that
would have covered the kings building expenses.19 Saladin was forced to
gather his armies.
The sultan, who was residing in Damascus at the time, called upon his
council. His advisers were clearly against a campaign, arguing that the
country was suffering from a severe drought, no doubt pointing out the
poor condition of the army and the cost of the campaign, which was currently beyond the means of the sultanates treasury.
The people were suffering from the drought (mujdib) and the drought was
widespread. The Sultan was told: this is not a year to wage Jihad. If they ask
you for safety grant it and if they lean towards peace follow it. (Ab Shma,
Rawatayn, vol. 3, 19)
Saladin did not heed to their advice. After the failure of the diplomatic
negotiations, he turned to his opposition and said:
God has ordered Jihad, and He will guarantee success. (Ab Shma,
Rawatayn, vol. 3, 19)
Despite the severe drought, the scarcity of food and fodder, the rise in
prices and the high mortality rate in Syria, the sultan was determined to
carry out this campaign and demolish the Frankish fortress of Vadum
Jacob before it was completed.20 His first campaign failed. The Frankish
garrison held its ground and the Muslims were forced to retreat. The fortress eventually fell in late August 1179.
The campaign against this Frankish fortress was the largest Saladin
conducted during this period of 574-575/1178-1179. After Saladins success
at Vadum Jacob and the failure of several Frankish raids Baldwin sued for
peace. William of Tyre reveals the details of this treaty:
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Saladin willingly agreed to the suggestion, although not, it is claimed because
he distrusted his own strength or had any reason to fear our forces, which
he had so often defeated during the past year. But for five successive years
extreme dryness and a dearth of rain in the region round Damascus had caused
a scarcity of food of every description for both man and beast. A truce on both
land and sea, for foreigners and natives alike, was accordingly arranged and
confirmed by an exchange of oaths between the two parties. The conditions
were somewhat humiliating to us, for the truce was concluded on equal
terms, with no reservations of importance on our part, a thing which is said
never to have happened before. (William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 22: 446-7)
The raid was not triggered by the need for revenge, it was clearly meant to
ease the food shortage in Damascus. The Muslim forces had set out prepared to harvest Frankish crops in the fields and drive off as many head of
cattle and sheep as they could.
William of Tyre gives a more aggressive description of this same raid.
He (Saladin) burnt all the crops, those that had been gathered into the
granaries, those still stacked in the fields, and the growing grain as well. He
drove off the cattle as booty and lay waste the whole country in every direction. (William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 22:448)
Within days of this raid a peace treaty was signed between the Count of
Tripoli and Saladin.22 It lasted for as long as it took the Ayyubids to recover
from the drought.23 By the middle of 1182 the Franks and the Ayyubids had
resumed their raids.24
Raids and counter raids were carried out by both sides throughout the
Crusader period and were far more numerous than siege warfare and full21This raid is described also by Ab Shma. Ab Shma, Rawatyn, 3:26-7.
22William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book, 22:449.
23Ibn al-Athr: Saladin then set out from Egypt, followed by a large host of merchants,
locals and those who had gone to Egypt from Syria because of the Famine there and elsewhere. Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), vol. 2:281
24William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 22: 468.
81
scale open-field battles. Yet the number of raids carried out during the
drought was higher. The 1178-1179 drought clearly shows an increase in the
level of aggression. It was only after Saladin dealt the Franks two severe
blows (the conquest and destruction of Vadum Jacob and the fierce raid
on Tripoli and its region) that the two sides reached a peaceful solution.
No demands or conditions were made by either side, and both treaties
were settled and signed within a short space of time. The Franks, who at
first refused to accept Saladins diplomatic offers to buy the fortress of
Vadum Jacob, eventually initiated the peace treaty. Runciman may well
have been correct when he concluded that neither side desired raids that
would ruin the meagre crops still waiting to be harvested.25
The raid that ended with the Muslim forces harvesting crops in the
region of Tripoli and driving large herds of cattle back to Damascus shows
the scale of the crisis; it also helps in understanding the problem of storage
or rather the lack of grain surpluses in Syria. If William of Tyre is to be
believed and May 1180 marks the last year of a five-year drought,26 there
can be no doubt that any grain reserves would have long been consumed.
If the drought lasted for two years as Ibn al-Athr writes, then whatever
cereals were stored were obviously not enough to support the local population for more than a year. It also illustrates Saladins inability to mobilize
resources. There is no hint in any of the sources that grain was imported.
This was probably because Iraq and the Jazira were also suffering from
drought and simply could not afford to assist the neighbouring Muslim
territories. It seems more than likely that the scale of the drought, the
famine and the sickness were such that the amount of grain needed to
relieve Syrias population was far beyond Saladins means. The sole solution was to migrate to where food was plentiful (Egypt) and prey upon your
neighbours cattle and crops.
Matters in Syria were further complicated by the low water level of the
Nile. By 1181 Egypt was suffering from low yields. It is therefore quite likely
that Egypt could not help relieve the famine in Syria.
The Nile dried up so that it became but a ford and its waters withdrew from
the banks of Maqs and Misr. Numerous islands of sands formed, and it was
feared that all water would drain from the Nilometer and require a new one
to be built. The water withdrew from the walls of Maqs, and the main stream
now flowed on the western side. (Maqrz, Ayyubid Sultans of Egypt, 63)
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For the Nile to drop as low as this description suggests, there must have
been a considerable decline in the monsoons in the Ethiopian highlands.27
While Syria and Egypt were confronted by drought and were both suffering from food shortages, the central section along the North African
coast was experiencing a drought that led to famine on a similar scale.
Ysuf ibn Abd al-Mumin went to Mahdiyya, where the envoy of the king
of the Franks, the ruler of Sicily (William II, d. 1189), came to him, requesting peace. He made truce with him for ten years. The land of Ifrqiya was
stricken by drought and it was impossible to find food for the army and
fodder for the animals, so he returned speedily to the Maghrib. God knows
best! (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:274)
Diplomatic negotiations prevailed and a long-term peace treaty was concluded. Military clashes did not take place, since the Muslim army from
the Maghrib could not find food for its men and fodder for their mounts.
A similar peace treaty was signed between the North African Muslim
ruler al-asan and the Sicilian king, Roger II (d. 1154), during 536/1141-1142,
when the region of North Africa was enduring a two-year drought. The
Normans set draconicnian conditions,28 al-asan had little choice but to
comply and sign the treaty. Roger posted his own officials in the customs
to guarantee payment for his supply of grain.29 Muslim rulers had been
forced to initiate peace since there were no grain surpluses along the North
African coast. The towns of Bona, Mahdia and Tripoli, facing Sicily, gradually came to rely on the Norman kingdom to supply it with grain during
periods of drought.30 When famine lasted for a considerable time, Muslims
often found refuge in Sicily. The Normans were well aware of the value of
surplus cereals.31 Grain became an important political tool, perhaps even
a weapon, which as shown above, could at times be stronger and more
efficient than military forces.
The lord of Sicily, Roger the Frank, sent a fleet this year to the coast of
Ifrqiya. They captured some ships that had been sent from Egypt to al-asan,
the ruler of Ifrqiya. Al-asan was betrayed by Roger but later made contact
27Hurst, H. E. The Nile (London, 1952), 256-7; Kerisel, J. The Nile and its Masters: Past,
Present and Future, tr. Cockle, P. (Rotterdam, Netherlands 2001), 15, 33. There are several
accounts during the medieval period describing the low water levels that caused mass
famines in Egypt: 944-953, 1059-1066, 1180-1181, and 1201; Said, R. The River Nile (Oxford,
1993), fig. 2.28 p. 162, 164-6; Collins, R. J. The Waters of the Nile (Oxford, 1990), 3-4.
28Talabo, M. Al-Mahdiyya, EI2 5:1246.
29Matthew, D. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Cambridge, 1992), 58.
30Abulafia, The Two Italies, 222.
31Matthew, The Norman Kingdom, 58.
83
with him and renewed the truce for the sake of transporting grain from
Sicily to Ifrqiya because there was a serious famine there and high mortality. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 1:365)
This year (537/1143-1144) there was a famine in Ifrqiya, which lasted a long
time. It had begun in the year 537 (1143-1144). It had a terrible effect on the
population, who even resorted to cannibalism. Because of the starvation
the nomads sought out the towns and the towns people closed the gates
against them. Plague and great mortality followed. The country was emptied
and from whole families not a single person survived. Many people traveled
to Sicily in search of food and met with great hardship. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil
(Richards), 2:16-17)
Back to the Levant, in 1185, the Crusader kingdom was experiencing a trying period of drought. Although it lasted only one year, springs in Jerusalem became saline and some dried up. This may indicate that the previous
winters had seen a marked drop in rainfall, as the drying up and salination
of springs require more than one poor winter.
In the first year after the death of King Baldwin the leper [1185] it did not
rain at all in the kingdom of Jerusalem with the result that in Jerusalem
there was no water and hardly anything to drink . The spring of Silwan
which was close by this well was not good to drink because it was salt. They
used the water for tanning hides in the city, for washing clothes and watering gardens that were down in the valley. (Continuation of William of Tyre,
16-17)
With the kingdoms grain surpluses consumed and no help from Europe
via the Italian maritime communes,32 the Frankish ruler acted with surprising haste and determination and turned for help to the Ayyubid Sultan,
Saladin.
When he [count Raymond of Tripoli who was regent of the kingdom of
Jerusalem] saw that there was no rain in the land and that the corn that
had been sown was not growing, he feared that there would be shortages,
and so he called the barons of the land and the masters of the Temple and
Hospital and said to them Lords, what advice will you give me seeing as
there is no rain and the corn will not grow? I fear that the Saracens will
realize that we are in difficulties and will attack us. What counsel will you
give me? Should I make truces with the Saracens through fear of famine? The
barons advised him to make truces with the Saracens and especially with
Saladin. Saladin willingly agreed to a four year truce. After the truce had
been concluded between the Christians and the Saracens, the Saracens
32According to Abulafia the Crusader Kingdom and principalities received grain supplies from Southern Italy from as early as 1104. Abulafia, The Two Italies, 76-7.
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brought the Christians as many supplies as they would normally have had
in good times. If there had been no truce, they would have all died of hunger. So the count of Tripoli was much loved by the people of the land, and
because of the truce he had made with the Saracens they greatly honored
him and gave him their blessings. (Continuation of William of Tyre, 17)
This truce like the previous one was not initiated by Saladin. Count Raymond of Tripoli, well aware of his position, opted for a truce. Saladins
reaction was surprising, not so much because he agreed to the truce but
because of his generous offer to supply the Crusader kingdom with all the
food it needed.
The size and wealth of a political entity that found itself in crisis was of
the greatest importance. The fact that Saladin could supply the kingdom
suggests that his granaries were well stocked; it may also indicate the
rather modest size and needs of the Crusader kingdom. The main question
in this particular case, however, is why Saladin chose to assist the kingdom
that he had been so determined to destroy. Why did he not seize the opportunity and wage war on the Crusader kingdom, which had neither a king
nor wheat? According to Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman rational decision makers are motivated by their values and constrained by their
power.33 Did Saladins firm and uncompromising policy against the Crusader states give way to his values? Or were his forces simply not fully ready
to meet the Franks? One way or the other, he chose not take advantage of
his neighbours poor state and waited for two more years, until 1187.
The geopolitical changes that occurred at the end of the twelfth century
had a strong and lasting impact on agriculture and grain production in the
Crusader kingdom. After the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin (1187) and
the loss of the Crusader territories, the kingdom relied to a much greater
extent on the import of grain from southern Italy and Sicily.34 This was not
because of long or frequent droughts but a direct result of the loss of valuable arable lands due to Saladins conquests, which had reduced the Crusader kingdom to a narrow strip along the coast (see map 2.3).
At the turn of the century (1199-1201) the region of Jerusalem, the Frankish coast and Syria were suffering from a prolonged drought. Matters in
Egypt were considerably worse; drought was followed by famine, and
epidemics spread throughout the country.
33Bueno de Mesquita, B. and Lalman, D. War and Reason, Domestic and International
Imperatives (New Haven and London, 1992), 19.
34Abulafia, The Two Italies, 76-7.
85
Villages were abandoned. Many people fled to Cairo, where food was distributed; some left for Syria, the Maghrib, the Hijaz and Yemen.35 According to Nuwayr people left Egypt and migrated to the Palestinian coast.36
The migration of people from Egypt to Syria would soon prove futile, as
drought struck Syria during the same year. Along the coast and the region
of Jerusalem farmers had missed the sowing season due to the late rains.
In Jerusalem the spring of Silwan dried up.37
In Cairo food was handed out by the sultan, charity foundations and
high-ranking amirs. Although this could not save the masses, the distribution of food was well organized. There is no mention of the Frankish
population receiving aid from the king, the military orders or the local
nobility. Jerusalem (still under Muslim rule) and the Frankish coastal cities
were left to fend for themselves.
The truce signed in 1198 between al-dil and Aimery II of Lusignan king
of Cyprus and Jerusalem (d. 1205) before the famine began, was maintained
until 1203.38 This treaty was signed first and foremost to settle the outcome
of the Crusade initiated by the German emperor Henry VI. His army recaptured Beirut and Sidon;39 Beirut was to remain in Frankish hands while
the sultan was to retain Jaffa. Revenues from Sidon were to be divided
between Aimery II and the sultan. On the whole these territorial adjust35Baghdd, Al-Ifda wal-Itibr, 204-206; Rabie, Agriculture, 75-6; Nuwayr, Nihyat
al-arab, 29:12-13; al-Zahabi, Sir Aalam, vol. 22:219; Ibn al-Dawdri, Kanz, 7, 149.
36Nuwayr, Nihyat vol. 29:12-13.
37Maqrz, Ighthah, 26-7; Ab al Fida, Tarikh Ab al Fida al-msama al-Mukhtaar f
akhbr al-bashar (Beirut, 1997), vol. 2:187, 190; Ibn Wil, Mufarrij al-Khrb, 115.
38Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards) 3:31.
39The Atlas of the Crusades, ed. J. Riley-Smith (New York and Oxford, 1990), 64.
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ments were relatively minor,40 but this peaceful period must have made
dealing with the drought slightly easier.
A year after the long famine had ended a devastating earthquake struck
the Levant (May 1202). Cyprus suffered a strong tidal wave. The damage
was felt in Egypt, along the Frankish coast from Acre to Tyre, and in
Samaria, Safad, Banyas and Hnn. The large fortress of Crac des Chevaliers
and several other Frankish fortresses in Syria were damaged, as were the
central Muslim Syrian cities Baalbek, Damascus, Hims, Hama and Aleppo.
This earthquake occurred before the 1198 peace treaty had expired (expiry
date spring 1204). Within less than six months a new peace treaty was
signed.
al-dil made peace with the Franks for Damascus and its dependencies
and for what he held in Syria. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards) 3:79)
87
88
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classes. The poor were driven to eat carrion because of the high price of
wheat, whereas wealthier people could still afford to buy meat.
The people ate carrion and dogs and cats. Dogs and cats became scarce after
they had been very numerous. One day I had entered my house and seen
the servant girls cutting up meat for cooking. I was struck by the number
of cats I saw, so I counted them and there were twelve. During this famine,
however, I saw meat in the house with nobody nearby gaurding it from the
cats because there were none. (lbn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 3:266)
For the Euphrates to freeze, temperatures had to stay well below zero
for a number of weeks. The result of this cold spell was similar to a regular
drought. Although Bar Hebraeus is considered by modern scholars to be a
reliable chronicler, his account is the only evidence we have for this event.
By 1250 the Mamluks had risen to power; within a decade they had
established a firm and uncompromising policy towards the Franks. Nevertheless, the sultan, Baybars, abandoned this policy when food shortage
or famine threatened the local population. Military campaigns were postponed and peace negotiations took place in order to save the crops.
46Ibid., 3:266-8.
47Ibid., 3:281, 286.
48Ibn Abd al-hir, Srat al-Malik al-hir in Sadeque, S. F. Baybars I of Egypt (Pakistan, 1956); Prawer, J. A History of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1963), 2:443.
[Hebrew]; Thorau, P. The Lion of Egypt (London and New York, 1992), 149.
89
In December 1263 a treaty (hudna) was signed between Baybars and the
Franks, so that the Franks could sow and harvest their fields.
In this month (afar 662) the Franks asked the governors of the sultan for
permission to put the lands under cultivation, and sow them with large
quantities of grain. A treaty was concluded with them lasting until harvest
time... When this was ripe, the swords of Islam would reap their heads before
the harvest, and the command of God would be carried out before they
could carry out the harvest. (Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw, (Sadeque), 203)
Ibn Abd al-hir reveals here the aggressive Mamluk policy against the
Franks.48 The same steps were repeated during the harvest of 662/1264.
A similar account is given by Ibn al-Frat, who says the Mamluk governor of Palestine had asked Baybars to reschedule his campaign so that the
Franks could harvest their crops and avoid famine.49 Mamluk interests
went beyond immediate care for the Frankish population, part of the harvest was bound for Egypt, which was suffering from severe food shortage.50
Baybars promptly gave his permission, and the harvest was collected and
secured by the Franks.
Important agricultural changes took place in Egypt during the second
half of the thirteenth century and the early fourteenth century. Wheat
production increased through adding substantial tracts of arable land. This
led to a significant rise in grain yields and a gradual fall in grain prices.51
Under Mamluk rule each province in Egypt had an office manned by a
high-ranking amir that took care of irrigation and dams (Kashf al-Jusr).
The first two Mamluk sultans, Baybars and Qalwn, occasionally supervised exceptionally large irrigation projects, while their officers watched
over the annual maintenance of irrigation canals.52 Izz al-Dn Aybak alAfram (d. 1295) played an important role in building and maintaining
irrigation systems. He himself held large estates in southern Egypt,53 and
served as an amir jndr under Baybars, Qalwn (d. 1279) and al-Ashraf
Khall (d. 1293).54 During his long years in office he improved existing
49Ibn al-Furt, Trkh al-duwal wal-mulk of Ibn al-Furt/ Lyons, vol. 2:82.
50Irwin, R The supply of money and the direction of trade in thirteenth century Syria,
in Coinage in the Latin East. The Fourth Oxford Symposium and Monetary History, eds. P. W.
Edbury and D. M. Metcalf, BAR international series, 77 (1980), 78, note 38; Ibn Abd al-hir
(Sadeque), Raw, 205.
51Borsch, Black Death, 91-2.
52Rabie, Agriculture, 61-2.
53Irwin, Middle East, 38.
54Ibn Shaddd, Tarkh, 242. During the Ayyubid and early Mamluk periods this post
of amir jndr was considered one of the most important offices in the Sultanate. It was
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irrigation systems, building new canals that allowed for the expansion of
agricultural land. Aybak al-Afram acted as master of public works and as
senior military engineer until the reign of al-Ashraf Khall, who removed
him from office and confiscated his lands.55
The idea of combating periods of famine by increasing the cultivated
land was further improved and developed by the Mamluk sultan al-Nir
Muammad (d. 1340).
Mega Droughts across the Middle East
The worst thirteenth-century drought lasted almost four consecutive
years; it began in 694/1294-1295 and ended in 697/1297-1298. Both Egypt
and Syria suffered severely. The coastal plains, which at times managed to
escape regional droughts, were badly hit. According to Maqrz, Yemen and
the Hijaz were also affected.56
Before describing the development of this drought, it is important to
examine the political changes that occurred in the region. By 1291 the
Mamluks had eradicated the last Crusader enclaves in Palestine. Most of
the region between the Euphrates and the Nile was now under Mamluk
rule, governed from the sultanates two capitals: Cairo and Damascus. The
Mamluks main threat was the Mongol-lkhnid state east of the Euphrates. In this particular period the two entities were occupied with internal
governmental difficulties that led to considerable tension in each court.
While in Cairo rival factions were fighting to establish their leading amir
as sultan, the Mongol-lkhnid treasury was empty and large herds
throughout Persia were dying in great numbers. According to Boyle the
depletion of cattle and sheep was not the result of an epidemic but simply
the consequence of a cold spell following abruptly upon a period of mild
weather.57 Geikhatu, the lkhnid ruler (r. 1291-1295), was both weak and
corrupt, and like his Mamluk rival, the Sultan al-Ashraf Khall (r. 1290given only to an amir of a hundred or an amir ablkhna (an amir of forty). Under the
Ayyubids the officer who held this post was not involved in building projects, military or
civilian. He officially commanded the doorkeepers and esquires; he was the chief of the
royal guards and was in charge of the zaradkhna (arsenal and prison). He was also one of
the inkwell carriers. According to Ayalon the post declined in importance during the
Mamluk period.
55al-Ayn, Iqd, vol. 3, 164.
56Maqrz, Ighthah (Allouche), 44-5.
57Boyle, J. A. The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1968), vol. 5, 374.
91
1293), he remained in power for only a few years.58 Although this drought
was long, causing severe famine and high mortality, it had no real impact
on regional politics; the main reason being that most of the area was now
controlled by the Mamluks.
The first report of the Niles failure is provided by Abl Fid (d. 732/1298),
an Ayyubid prince, governor of Hama, who transferred his loyalty to the
Mamluk regime.59 Nuwayr (d. 732/1332) only briefly describes the drought
in Syria during 693/1294-696/1296,60 while Bar Hebraeus makes clear that
the drought struck both Syria and Egypt simultaneously.61 Later chroniclers give longer and more detailed accounts of the condition in Egypt. Ibn
al-Furt (d. 807/1405) describes the dire situation in Cairo during 694/12945. Prices of grain rose beyond the reach of most people. Dogs, cats, and
donkeys were eaten by many. The death toll rose to a thousand people a
day.62
Ibn Taghr Bird (d. 874/1470) and Maqrz mention economical instability and political unrest stirred by the famine.
and the prices rose and there was destruction throughout Egypt and its
regions and this spread in all of Syria during Shawal of this year. And the
price of flour rose until each irdab fetched 120 dirhams. It had previously
been twenty five dirham per irdab. And in the following year 695 the price
of flour rose to 160 dirham per irdab. As for the death, it spread in Cairo in
great numbers. And the numbers were confirmed by the diwan of inheritance
in Dh'l-ijja it became known that 17,500 died, and this was equal to those
that did not register in the diwan, the foreigners, the poor and those who
are not included in the diwan. Many died from the population of the land
of Egypt, it was the worse price rise and it destabilized the situation/rule in
Egypt. (Ibn Taghr Bird, Nujm 8:57)
Disturbances occurred in the conduct of affairs of the state because of the
lack of revenues and the increase of expenditure. The confiscation of the
wealth of governors and administration increased. (Maqrz, Ighthah
(Allouche), 43-4)
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were destroyed in Misr and Cairo. The price of an irdab of flour reached
two hundred dirham. Many people died throughout Egypt, Upper Egypt and
the Delta. (afad, Nuzhat, 172)
Ibn al-Furt is the only chronicler who gives a detailed account of the situation in Syria.
The rain was late in Damascus, Horan, Nablus, Jerusalem and the villages
in most of Syria. Due to the fact that winter came in afar 695 (December
1295) and ended in Kanun I, people [suffered] great shortage and pain. Prices
rose to the maximum especially in the Horan, Jerusalem and Nablus. The
water dried up in the land of Syria. The seeds were empty and dry. Hunger
spread in Syria, there was little grass and pasture. The rain came and people
saw this as a good omen ... after that a lot of snow fell on the first day of
Rabi I (January 1296). (Ibn Furt, Tarkh 8:210-211)
Maqrz gives an account of fierce dust storms that caused crop failure in
Egypt. He is the only source that mentions the Hijaz and the Yemen.
This year 695/1295-96 began with the people distress because of high prices
and diminishing income. However they placed their hopes on the coming
crop, which was almost due. When the crop became ripe, a wind coming
from the direction of Barqah [in modern Libya] blew like a storm and darkened the horizon, carrying a yellow dust that covered the crops in the area.
The crops, which were not extensive at that time, withered and completely
failed. This wind and dust spread to the provinces of al-Buhayrah, al-Gharbiyah and al-Sharqiya, and reached Upper Egypt. The crops withered: the
summer crops, such as rice, sesame colocsia (?) and sugar cane as well as
other irrigated cultures, all failed. Consequently, prices soared. This wind
was followed by diseases and high fevers that afflicted the entire population,
thus causing the prices of sugar, honey, and other products needed by the
sick to soar.
Drought struck the area of Jerusalem, the littoral of Palestine, and the cities
of Syria as far as Aleppo, [there the price of] one ghirara of wheat reached
two hundred and twenty dirhams, while that of barley was half that price
.
More than 20,000 ghiraras [of grain] that were stored in Karak, Shawbak
and along the Palestinian littoral were sent to the cities [although] they had
been kept originally as provisions and destined to supply the military expeditions. Drought also struck Mecca, where the price of an irdab of wheat
reached nine hundred dirams and that of barley seven hundred. (Maqrz,
Ighthah (Allouche), 43)
Ibn al-Dawdr inserts a small measure of black humour into his description of the situation in Egypt, counting the good fortune of the dead and
the dying.
93
And many died, those who were lucky and those who were poor. (Ibn
al-Dawdr, Kanz 8:363)
The drought reached its worst stage in 696/1296-97. By then parts of North
Africa were suffering from a hydrological drought and springs and rivers
had dried up. Maqrz reports that 30,000 people set out from the region of
Barqah (to day modern Libya), to Egypt because of the severe famine,
many perished along the way. While the drought in Egypt and Palestine
continued, in Syria the rain failed to arrive on time.
In Syria the rains of early spring came so late that the sowing season was
missed. The people prayed for rain three times but their prayers were not
answered. Then the populace assembled and went out to pray for rain; they
shouted and implored God Almighty. He then sent them a succor and rain,
and they returned to the city under a heavy downpour. In Egypt the Nile
ceased to increase and the prices started to rise. In Jerusalem and along the
littoral of Palestine rain was late, the sowing season was missed, wells dried
up, and the spring that was located in Silwan near Jerusalem ran dry. (Maqrz,
Ighthah (Allouche), 43)
There were no other instances in which Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen, the
Hijaz and North Africa were struck by drought. There are only four examples of drought striking both Egypt and Syria simultaneously (1178-1179;
1263; 1294-1295 and 1304). The climatic patterns that affect the rains in Syria
and the waters of the Nile belong to two very different systems. The waters
of the Nile come from two sources. The main source is the White Nile,
which is fed by the rains of equatorial Africa; the second source is the Blue
Nile and the Atbara. The Nile flood maxima is attributed to the monsoon
rains along the Ethiopian Highlands, while the Nile flood minima is due to
rainfall in equatorial East Africa.63 Failure of the Nile to rise meant that the
rains over the Highlands had ceased or were very poor for a number of
years. Crops were bound to fail if the Cairo Nilometer showed the water
level to be below 16 dhir (dhir = 58cm).64 The signal for opening the
irrigation canal was
given when the reading showed 16.20 (16 dhir and 20
fingers: iba ) . This was perceived as the fulfillment of a promise
by Allah and was celebrated in an official ceremony the waf (plentitude).65
63Hassan, F. A. Historical Nile floods and their implications for climate change, Science, 212 (1981):1143; Said, R. The River Nile, Geology, Hydrology and Utilization (Oxford and
New York, 1993), 7.
64Wehr, H. Arabic-English Dictionary, ed. J.M. Cowan 4th edition, 1994, 356; Rabie,
Agriculture, 59-60.
65Popper, W. The Cairo Nilometer (Berkeley, California, 1951), 69-72.
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Chapter Five
The central Asian plains had always been the main source of manpower
for the Mamluk army. The large number of children offered for sale, during
the drought described above, and the low prices led to a considerable
growth in the amirs military forces.1
The only year during the fourteenth century in which both Syria and
Egypt experienced drought was 704/1304-5. Other than an account of some
internal migration, there are no gruelling descriptions of famine or outbreaks of epidemics that are related to food shortages. Maqrz briefly
mentions the difficulties encountered by pilgrims and the deaths of a
number of scholars who went on jj.2
Maqrz and Nuwayr describe the performance of rain prayers in Cairo
and Damascus. Unlike in the previous century where rain prayers are
1Irwin, Middle East, 88.
2Al-Ayn, Iqd, 24: 17; Baybars al-Man Dawdr, Kitab al-tufa, 381; Maqrz, Sulk
(Beirut 1997), vol. 2, pt 1: 12.
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Four droughts occurred during the third reign of al-Nir Muammad (r.
709-41/1310-1340) 1310, 1318, 1319 and 1323. The first is briefly described.
And no rain fell in Egypt and the Nile failed [to rise] and in the east of the
country the prices rose. (Ibn Taghi Birdi, Nujm, 9:10)
In 1316 Egypt, Syria, Diyr-Bakr, Mayyfarn, the Jazira, and much of Iraq
suffered from a harsh winter that killed many date palms and crops.3 In
Diyr-Bakr matters were made worse by a wave of locusts that devoured
what little had survived.4 Severe famine spread in the Jazira and Mayyfarn;
carrion and human corpses were eaten and children were sold. The heavy
rains, floods, hailstones and severe cold were soon followed by drought.
The two-year drought that began in 718/1318 struck Diyr-Bakr and
Mosul; a year later it reached Damascus.5
Each group returned to its own area. Most of this wilderness and Islamic
territory was barren because of the slight rainfall: the Arabs perished and
innumerable beasts were stricken. (Abl-Fid, Syrian Prince, 75-6)
High mortality occurred, mainly among the nomads and their herds. Tensions rose and fighting broke out between the nomadic tribes over the poor
pasture and drying water sources. In Damascus people gathered for prayer;
the region then went from one extreme to the otherfrom drought to a
devastating flood.
Lack of rains in Syria brought people to despair, thus in Damascus they
prayed for rain they later had a strong flood, such as has rarely been seen.
(Maqrz, Sulk 1997 3:18)
Abl-Fid described the events that took place five years later in Syria;
the title given by him to the year 723/1323 is The Red Year:
The land of Syria was stricken by drought from Damascus to Aleppo, rainfall
was withheld and only a very little of the crops grew. The people of the
country prayed for rain, and rain did not come. As for the coastlands from
3afadi, Nuzhat, 32: 231-234.
4Nuwayr, Nihyat, 32: 284
5Ibn al-Wardi, Tarikh Ibn al-Wardi (Najaf, 1969), 387.
97
Tripoli to Latakia and Jabal al-Lukkam the rain did not cease to fall in these
districts and their crops ripened. (Abl-Fid, Syrian Prince, 83)
It was during this year that the longest of the regional conflicts ended. The
cold war between the Mamluk sultanate and the Mongol-lkhnid state
came to an end with the signing of a peace treaty.6 None of the contemporary chroniclers relates this political move to the drought. It is possibly just
a coincidence. But as has been shown periods of severe drought often
induced rulers to resort to diplomacy.
Long and Short-term Relief Programs Initiated by al-Nir Muammad
One of the most important changes in agriculture during this period was
the large tracts of arable land added in Egypt and Syria by the sultan
al-Nir Muammad.7 Although the sultans own coffers and the welfare
of his military elite were the first to profit, this long-term agricultural
investment was partly carried out with the idea of increasing the grain
supply throughout the sultanate and reducing its dependence on imports
in times of shortages. Once his rule was secure, extensive land reforms
were carried out (al-rawk al-Nir). The sultan redistributed the land
among his Mamluk amirs, first in Syria and then in Egypt; he also increased
the size of his own cultivated lands. The reforms were carried out in four
stages. The first stage took place in the region of Damascus (713/1313); the
second in Egypt (715/1315); the third along the coast in the region of Tripoli
6The term cold war referring to the Mongol-lkhnid and Mamluk frontier wars
along the Euphrates was first coined by Professor Amitai. Amitai-Preiss, R. The aftermath
of Ayn Jlt: The beginning of the Mamlk-lkhnid cold war, Al-Masaq 3 (1990):1-21.
7al-Nir Muammad b. Qalwn ascended to the Mamluk sultanates thrown three
times before he managed to secure his reign in 709/1310.
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99
famine, by adding arable land and increasing the yields? His keen interest
in agriculture clearly made him more aware of the small farmers hardships. Some taxes were reduced and farmers were exempted from taxes on
sugar cane, cereals and pasture. Taxes were further reduced in years of low
yields resulting from natural disasters. In addition the sultan kept a close
watch on the taxes extracted by his Mamluk amirs.15 Could a ruler reduce
the impact of droughts and lessen the death toll in times of famine? It
seems that beyond looking after his personal wealth and keeping his treasury full, al-Nir Muammad was consciously trying to increase surpluses
and prepare for times of scarcity in both Syria and Egypt.
At this particular stage of Mamluk history, under a well-organized
administration and a centralized Mamluk military rgime, change and
adaptation could gradually be achieved. It would have been more difficult
to carry out such reforms during the reign of Saladin and his successors,
who were organized in what resembled a loose family federation that
stretched over Syria, parts of Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. And although
the Crusader kingdom and principalities in the Levant were considerably
smaller political entities, its kings, dukes and princes seldom possessed the
required strength or wealth to allow them to initiate large-scale reforms in
the economy or the agricultural infrastructure.
Al-Nir Muammads investments proved worthwhile. When an acute
food shortage struck Egypt in 736/1336 and prices soared, the situation was
dealt with by transporting grain from Karak, Shawbak and the region of
Damascus, which could now spare large quantities of grain.16 Karak and
Shawbak had supplied Cairo in previous emergencies, but Damascus had
rarely been involved in sending aid. In addition the sultan organized his
amirs, allocating to each of them a group of poor people to care for. Using
his authority to regulate prices in the market, the sultan sold his own grain
at an afordable low price. This required grain surpluses, a firm policy, and
a strong and wealthy sultan who could stand against the high-ranking
amirs and the merchants all of whom were determined to make a handsome profit on the backs of the poorer population.
The populace appealed to the sultan earnestly and called for his help. The
sultan gathered the commanders and said to them: commanders, one month
upon you; the second upon me and the third upon God! There upon the
commanders opened the silos and sold wheat at thirty dirhams per irdab.
15Levanoni, Turning point, 143; Tsugitaka, Rural society, 171.
16Maqrz, Sulk, vol. 2.2: 394. According to Ibn Taghr Bird and Ibn al-Hijz, the Nile
failed in 738/1338 and 1339/739. Popper, Cairo Nilometer, 137.
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This relieved the populace. In the month of Shaban 736/15 (March 12 April
1336) the sultan released his reserves and sold wheat at twenty five dirhams
an irdab. Then came the new crops of beans and barley, of which the populace ate . the new crop of wheat became available and prices decreased.
(Maqrz, Ighthah (Allouche), 48-9)
Al-Nir Muammad was not the first or the last to exercise this idea of
recruiting his officers and the wealthy citizens to relieve a food shortage.17
But his long-term planning and investment in irrigation and cultivated
land, the increase in yields and the policy of reducing the burden upon
villages by abolishing or reducing taxes made dealing with Nile failures
and droughts in Syria a somewhat more feasible task. It is important to
emphasize that the number of famines in Syria and Egypt was smaller during the first half of the fourteenth century. This was partly because the
number of droughts was significantly less and partly due to the Mamluks
centralized government that was better organized than that of past and
future rulers. As noted above the geopolitical changes undoubtedly played
an important role.
Al-Nir Muammads agrarian reforms and the general prosperity of
the region were a marked climax in the political and economic affairs of
the first half of the fourteenth century. Seven years after his death (d. 1340)
matters changed dramatically. A gradual decline was brought about by
political strife and weak sultans with poor ruling skills. Moreover, the
arrival of the Black Death in the Levant (1346) and the numerous outbreaks
of the plague over the next decades were accompanied by significant fluctuations in the regional climate.18 It is almost impossible to arrive at a
clear-cut conclusion which of these factors played a more significant part
in the changes the region underwent. Would a strong competent ruler
have managed the sultanate in a better way? Would favourable climatic
conditions reduced or prevented the political and economic decline?
The lack of strong rulers and the rivalry among the high-ranking Mamluk officers led to general disorder throughout the sultanate. One of the
17The Nile failed once more during this century, in 776/1374. The famine lasted two
years. ajar al-Asqaln describes a strong hot wind that burnt the leaves on the trees.
Again the sultan, al-Ashraf Shaban (r.764/1363-778/1377), ordered the expenses of feeding
the poor to be divided among the wealthy merchants of Cairo and the amirs. Maqrz,
Ighthah(Allouche), 49; Ibn ajar al-Asqaln, Amad ibn Al, Inb al-ghumr bi-anb
al-umr, ed, H. Habashi (Cairo, 1969), vol.1: 59-60.
18Although climate plays an important role in the development and transfer of disease
there is not always a clear correlation between the two. This unusual climatic instability,
however, may have played an important role in the arrival of the plague in the Levant.
Appleby, Epidemics and famine, 648.
101
results was poor maintenance of irrigation canals along the Nile. Floods
and cold spells throughout the Levant brought considerable destruction
to both crops and property (see table 5.1). The high death toll wrought by
the plague and its reoccurrence led to a sharp decline in the size of the
population. An acute shortage of agricultural labour was felt all across the
region, and the large tracts of arable land that had been added were abandoned. Although the price of wheat did not rise, the fact that labour was
in short supply and expensive drove up the prices of basic processed foods,
such as bread and sugar.19
The End of the Medieval Warm Period in the Levant (?)
Chroniclers accounts of the fourteenth century portray a relatively higher
number of cold and wet winters in comparison to previous centuries. They
also show an increase in the number of floods. Studies of the Dead Sea
reveal a rise in the water level during the fourteenth century indicating an
increase in the precipitation throughout the Levant (Figure 5.1).
Flash floods were not unknown, but their force and frequency appear
to be greater in the fourteenth century. Several accounts describe the damage caused by flash floods along the Euphrates, the Tigris and other, smaller
rivers in the Levant (see table 5.1).
In this year (775/1373) Baghdad was flooded. The Tigris flooded and destroyed
many houses. And it was said that the number of houses ruined was 60,000.
Much of what people had was ruined and the people moved from place
to place from Tall to Tall until the water reached them and they drowned.
(Asqaln, Inba 1:62)
Flash floods of incredible force also struck southern Syria. Sections of the
fortifications of Baalbek were washed away by the strong current of a
spring flood in 717/1317.
19Dols, Black Death, 160-9, 259-263, 281-282; Tsugitaka, Rural Society, 237-9. Irwin,
Middle East, 125-49.
102
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Figure 5.1:The rise in the Dead Sea level at the beginning of the 14th century
1298-9
1300-1
Snow and heavy rains in Syria for 41 days Ynn, Dhayl (Guo)1:175177; Nuwayr, Nihyat 32:13
1305-6
1307-8
1315
1316
1317-18 Floods and hailstorms in Baalbak, Aleppo Ibn al-Dawdr, Kanz, 9:290and Damascus
291
1324-5
1326
10
1344-5
11
1348
104
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Table 5.1:Continued
Year
12
1352
13
1361
14
1373-4
15
1374
16
1377
17
1382
Flooding in Damascus
18
1384
19
1393
20
1397
21
1400
22
1401
Snow and ice in the Biqa and all the way Ibn Q Shuhbah, Dhayl,
north of Damascus. Temrs forces in
1:612, 654
Asia Minor lose 3000 men due to the
cold
The number of cold winters and floods in the thirteenth century is twelve.
A similar number is recorded in the twelfth century. Although the rise in
the number of floods, cold winters, heavy snow and rain in the fourteenth
century is visible, another clear mark of this shift in the weather pattern is
indicated by the drop in the number of droughts.
12th century: 17 droughts
13th century: 10 droughts
14th century: 8 droughts
A similar period of extreme fluctuations characterized Western and Northern Europe as well as America. In contrast to the Mamluk sultanate, which
21Ibn abb, Tadhkirat al-Nabn f Ayym al-Manr wa-Banh, British Library, MS or.
Add. 7335, fols. 40a-b. Cited in Tucker, Environmental, 115, 117.
106
chapter five
quakes. From the Chinese annals it is clear that the second quarter of the
fourteenth century witnessed an unusually large number of damaging
environmental disturbances. These natural disasters may have destroyed
rodent shelters and food supplies and forced rodents beyond their very
restricted habitats into contact with domestic rodents and human settlements, carrying the epizootic with them. He later adds: The progress of
plague is influenced by climate, harvests and natural ecological
changes.27 Although there is evidence of the arrival of the plague at a time
of considerable cooling, the connection between the two, climatic fluctuations and the arrival of the plague, has yet to be proved.
The early Mamluk period presents an interesting case study; the mid
fourteenth century is seen by many as a turning point. While the Mamluk
sultanate up to the early 1340s saw a long period of prosperity and agricultural growth, the second half of that century witnessed a decline in agriculture production, economic crisis, a sharp drop in population and
substantial political instability.28 This decline closely coincides with the
gradual cooling of the climate, wet and cold winters, and the arrival of the
plague. Although the climate played an important role, there is never one
element that influences, controls or determines the development of a
crisis. As in most periods of crisis and transition the picture is more complex.
Rare and Unusual Weather Tales
To conclude this chapter I have brought a number of unusual weather
reports that are occasionally mentioned in contemporary sources; hailstones in fabulous human and animal shapes, rains of blood and scorpions
falling from the sky. They can not be attributed to a particular author,
although, Ibn al-Kathr has more examples included in his texts than other
contemporary authors. While some have a scientific explanation, some are
amusing and resemble tall tales of a miraculous type.
Pillars of Fire and Flying Scorpions, Frogs and Red Fish
One of the first unusual weather accounts during this period is given by
William of Tyre, who describes and explains the defeat of the Frankish
27Dols, Black Death, 39 see notes 7 and 8; 70
28Ashtor, Social and Economic History, 288-319.
Dust devils are quite common in arid regions during dry seasons. Although
they can reach a strong force as well as impressive heights (Figure 5.3), the
second half of the description below is most striking. A sulphurous blaze
of flames erupted. Pillars of fire are described once again when a strong
black wind and clouds of red dust blew over Iraq.
And in this year (522/1128) the black wind blow strongly over Iraq, and it
brought red dust mixed with sand. And in the sky there were pillars of fire,
and the people were scared . (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil, 10:653)
Arid regions with poor soil or a very thin dry layer of top soil are more
prone to strong dust storms. Thus regions, which have suffered from
drought may experience heavy dust clouds that reduce visibility, if they
are extremely thick they may block the sunlight until the dust settles. The
most formidable dust storm in Sudan is the Haboob (Haboob, Arabic to
blow or to burst into flames, catch fire). It is typical to desert regions
and is usually associated with thunderstorms (Figure 5.3).
The wind force can reach 100 km per hour and will kill people, damage
property and up root trees.29 It is difficult however to explain how or why
the fire was produced in the two cases presented above unless the storm
included bolts of lightning. The Arabic for lightning is iqah ( ) can
also translate as fire from the sky.30
29Eagleman, J.R. Severe and Unusual Weather (New York, 1983), 256-265, 234
30Ayalon, D. and Shinar, P. Arabic-Hebrew Dictionary of Modern Arabic (Jerusalem,
1991), 197.
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In this year (524/1129-1130) a severe earthquake struck Iraq and many houses
were destroyed in Baghdad. And in the land of Mosul it rained heavily and
fire fell and set light and burnt many houses and people fled from the rain.
And flying scorpions with two stings (
shktn) were found. And
people were very scared. (Ibn al-Kathr, Bidya, 12:248)
And when the rain fell in Azz it was said to have brought with it large and
small red fish. This was seen by the people, and praise be to the almighty
for every thing. (afad, Nuzhat al-Malik, 232-4)
Red Rain
Coloured rain is caused by a combination of dust particles which serve as
condensation nuclei in a thunderstorm. In many desert areas dust particles
are red because of iron content. Copper minerals colour the raindrops in
shades of blue or green.31
In this year (545/12th December 1151) it rained blood in the Yemen (Ibn
al-Kathr, Bidya, 12:284; Ibn al-Dawdr, Kanz, 6:556).
In this year (549/1154-1155) a strong wind blew in the evening and it [carried]
fire and people were scared at the time. And there was an earthquake and
the water (of the Tigris) changed to red. And blood was found on soil in the
center of earth and no one knew the reason. (Ibn al-Kathr, Bidya,12:289)
In Muharram of this year [6 December 1195- 4 January 1196] a violent wind
blew in Iraq, all the sky became black and red sand fell. The people were
31Eagleman, Unusual Weather, 235-6.
110
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greatly disturbed and proclaimed God is great! Lights were lit during the
day. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards) vol. 3:27)
part two
Part two
111
112
part two
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113
Srah Zilzl
1.
2.
3.
4.
1The Holy Quran, Text, translation and commentary, A. Yusuf Ali (Cambridge Massachusetts, 1946), 1770-1772. Sra Zilzl (279).
114
part two
2Ibid.,
3Ambraseys, N. N. and Barazangi, M. The 1759 earthquake in the Bekkaa valley: Implications for earthquake hazard assessment in the eastern Mediterranean region, Journal of
Geophysics Research 94, B4 (1989):4007-4013; Ambraseys, N. N. and Jackson, J. A. Faulting
associated historical and recent earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean region, Geophysics Journal International 133 (1998):390-406; Ambraseys, N. N. and Melville, C. P. An
analysis of the eastern Mediterranean earthquake of 29 May 1202, in Lee, W. K. H., Meyers,
H. and Shimazaki, K. eds. Historical Seismograms and Earthquakes of the World (San Diego
California, 1988), 181-200; Ambraseys, N. N. and Melville, C. P. The Seismicity of Egypt, Arabia
and the Red Sea: A Historical Review (Cambridge, 1994); Amiran D. H. K., Arieh E. and Turcotte, T. Earthquakes in Israel and adjacent areas: Macroseismic observations since 100
B.C.E., Israel Exploration Journal 44 (1994):260-305; Ben-Menahem, A. Earthquake catalogue for the Middle East 92 B.C.-1980 A.D., Bullettino di Geofisica Teorica ed Applicata 21,
84 (1979):245-310; Ben-Menahem, A. Four thousand years of seismicity along the Dead Sea
rift, Journal of Geophysics Research 96 (1991):20195-20216; Guidoboni, E., Bernardini, F., and
Comastri, A. The 1138-1139 and 1156-1159 destructive seismic crises in Syria, south-eastern
Turkey and northern Lebanon, Journal of Seismology 8 (2004):105-127; Guidoboni, E., Bernardini, F. Comastri, A. and Boschi, E. The Large earthquake on 29 June 1170 (Syria, Lebanon, and central southern Turkey), Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (2004): B07304;
Guidoboni, E. and Comastri, A. Catalogue of Earthquakes and Tsunami in the Mediterranean
area from the 11th to the 15th century, tr. from Italian B. Philips (Instituto Nazionale di geofisica e vulcanologia, Italy c 2005).
4Epicentersthe site on the ground surface above the point from which the waves
originate, usually many kilometres below the earths surface. Bolt, B. A. Earthquakes, 3ed
edition (New York, 1993), 32-3.
part two
115
116
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Not felt accept by very a few people under especially favourable circumstances.
II. Felt only by a few persons at rest, especially on upper floors of buildings. Delicately suspended objects may swing.
III. Felt indoors, especially on upper floors of buildings, but many people
do not recognize it as an earthquake. Standing cars may rock slightly.
Vibrations like passing of truck.
IV. During the day felt indoors by many, outdoors only by a few. At night
some awakened. Dishes, windows, doors disturbed; walls make creaking sound. Sensation like heavy truck striking building. Standing cars
rocked noticeably.
V. Felt by nearly every one, many awakened. Some dishes, windows will
break; plaster cracks in a few places; unstable objects overturned.
Disturbances of trees, poles and other tall objects.
VI. Felt by all, many people run outdoors. Some heavy furniture moves;
a few instances of fallen plaster and damage to chimneys. Damage
slight.
VII. Everybody runs outdoors. Damage negligible in buildings of good
design and construction; slight to moderate damage in well-built
ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly or badly designed
structures; some chimneys break.
VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable in ordinary buildings with partial collapse; heavy damage in poorly built
structures. Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns and walls. Heavy
furniture overturned. Sand and mud eject in small amounts. Changes
in well water.
IX. Damage considerable in specially designed structures; severe damage
in substantial buildings. Damage to foundations. Ground cracked
conspicuously. Underground pipes are broken.
X. Some well-built wooden structures are destroyed; most masonry and
frame structure and foundations are destroyed; ground badly cracked.
Rails bent. Landslides considerable from river banks and steep slopes.
Sand and mud shift.
10Bolt, Earthquakes, Appendix C Abridged and Modified Mercalli (MM) Intensity scale
311-314.
part two
117
11Earthquake Surface waves: seismic waves that follow the Earths surface only. Bolt,
Earthquakes, 152-6, 343.
118
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119
Dangerous, dreadful and terrible earthquakes often take place, not only in
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also in the countries round about, especially
by the sea side, because of the violence of the winds, which being borne by
the breath and impulse of the waves in underground places and caves in
the earth, as the enclosed and rushing air had no free vent, shake the earth
with strong trembling and blows. If the earth cannot resist this force, it
bursts open, and there is a great gulf, so that thereby cities are sometimes
swallowed up in the abyss. When the earth is not burst open it is shaken
with such violent blows by the blowing of the winds that cities, with their
walls and towers and other buildings, suddenly fall down. (Jacques de Vitry,
The History of Jerusalem, PPTS 8:91)
120
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121
ary between the Sinai and the Arabian plates. Looking from Israel, TransJordan is moving left i.e. it is constantly shifting north; thus the Dead Sea
Transform is defined as a left-lateral fault. The Arabian plate moves at a
faster pace in comparison to that of the sub Sinai-Israel plate.19
The most damaging earthquakes are those caused by surface fault raptures. Those sudden movements along fault lines are the source of most
earthquakes.20 Settlements along the fault line suffer most. The force of a
strong earthquake shock along the main fault line may be distributed to
sub faults that branch off it. Thus the faults along the Galilee are affected
by movement along the Dead Sea Transform. Other large active faults in
the region are the Carmel, Jordan gorge, Roum, Hula basin, Yemmouneh,
Serghaya, Rachaya and the Missyaf faults (Map 6.3).
The east west faults between the rift valley and the Mediterranean coast
spread severe damage to settlements off the main fault as well as to inland
towns and the main ports.
The energy released by earthquakes creates two main types of waves: P
wave, a fast primary wave that travels through solid rocks as well as liquid
materials (water and volcanic magma); its motion pushes and pulls the
rock. The slow waves that move through the bed-rock are the S waves,
secondary waves whose speed depends on the property of the rocks and
soils. Most of the damage to constructions is due to the S waves. The secondary seismic wave travels more slowly than the P wave, and consists of
elastic vibrations transverse to the direction of travel. It cannot propagate
in liquid.21 The ground movement can not be predicted, it moves randomly
20Bolt, Earthquakes, 141; Skinner et al., Dynamic Earth, 406.
21S and P waves: S waves are the secondary seismic waves, traveling more slowly than
the P wave and consisting elastic vibrations transverse to the direction of travel. It can not
122
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123
Earths surface rather than through the main body of the Earth. The ground
will move horizontally in patterns similar to ocean waves, which move
both horizontally and vertically;23 the closer to the surface the stronger the
movement. In general, the larger the diameter of the epicentral, the greater
the magnitude and the damage.24
The frequent seismic activity and the widespread damage, during the
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries give a somewhat misleading picture.
The seismic behavior of the northern section of the Dead Sea Transform
is generally dominated by long calm periods, interrupted by infrequent
large earthquakes.25 The Eastern Mediterranean is of relatively moderate
seismic activity compared with the Aegean or the Zagros Mountains.
Circa fifty earthquakes occurred over the course of 425 years (1033-1458).
While the eleventh and fourteenth centuries were relatively quiet, records
showing few destructive earthquakes, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
were dominated by strong earthquakes ranging between 6.9 Ms (-/+ 0.3)
and 7.2 (-/+ 0.3) Ms in force. The twelfth-century earthquakes struck vast
regions, which stretched well beyond the Levant. It seems the earth never
stood still for any length of time. Rulers, during this period, were put to the
test, quick and sound decisions were called for. The dead had to be buried
for fear of spreading diseases, pools and wells were often damaged or
destroyed reducing the citys water supply, thousands of people were made
homeless and food became scarce causing prices to soar. Similar problems
are witnesses even today, in modern times, when aid is relatively easier to
obtain. Full recovery may take months and even years.
In several cases earthquake damage triggered international military and
security issues. Few chroniclers provide information on the economical
damage that followed. While some rulers ignored or did little to help overcome the damage, others invested a great deal of thought and funding to
ease the burden among their subjects, help markets recover and assist local
as well as foreign merchants whose trade was vital to the economy.
The following chapter will survey the most destructive earthquakes that
struck the Levant and their impact on regional and international affairs.
One of the subjects that will be carefully examined is the changes in mili23Bolt, Earthquakes, 17-20; Gubbins, D. Seismology and Plate Tectonics (Cambridge, 1990),
4-5.
24Ambraseys, Earthquakes, 823-6
25Meghraoui, M. et al., Evidence for 830 years of seismic quiescence from palaeoseismology, archaeoseismology and historical seismology along the Dead Sea fault in Syria,
Earth and Science Letters 210 (2003):51.
124
part two
12th century
13th century
14th century
1108 (3)
Ab Shma 1:2412,244
1200 (3)
al-Zahabi 22:220;
Bar Hebrauos 1:
350-1
1303 (3)
Nuwayr 32:57-8;
Ibn al-Dawdr
9:100-2
1114 (3)
Ibn al-Kathr
12:220; Imd al-Dn
319
1202 (3, X)
Ibn al-Dawdr
7:150; Ibn al-Athr
(r.) 3:61
1339 (2)
al-Yafi'l IV:300; Ibn
al-Imd 6:120
1068 (3, X)
Imd al-Dn
al-Ifahn 35
1115 (3)
1203 (2)
Fulk of Chartres 214 Maqrz
(1997)1:276; Ibn
al-Dawdr 7:157
1117 (2)
Ibn al-Kathr
12:220; Fulk 220
1208 (1)
Ibn al-Athr
(R)3:140
1366 (1, V)
Imd al-Dn alHanbali 6:210
1094 (3)
Ibn al-Dawdr
8:135
1121 (3)
Ibn al-Athr 12:233
1130 (2)
Ibn al-Athr 10:666
1225 (1)
Ibn al-Athr
(R)3:266
Total=6
1135 (3)
1226 (2)
Ibn al-Athr(R)1:323 Ibn al-Athr (R)
3:282
1138 (3)
1228 (1)
Ibn al-Athr 11:66, Maqrz, Ayyubid
71; Ibn al-Kathr 12: Sultans 204
267
26Figures in brackets are an estimation of the severity according to the authors survey.
Roman figures estimated maximum intensity according to Guidoboni et al., Catalogue of
Earthquakes, 828-835. In general the author's estimation matches the geological scale. 1=
I-III, 2=V-VIII, 3=VIII-X. However, in a number of cases the historical sources give a detailed
description of the damaged that appeared stronger than the damage recorded by the
geologist.
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125
Table 6.1:Continued
11th century
12th century
13th century
1140 (2)
Imd al-Dn 353;
Ibn al-Dawdr
6:335
Total=8
1259 (1)
Maqrz, Sulk I:420;
al-Ayn 1:224
1149 (2)
1261 (2)
Ibn al-Kathr 12:281 Ibn al-Furt (Lyons)
2:43; Qalqashand,
Maathir, 2:214
1151 (2, VIII)
Ibn al-Qalnis 317
1264 (1)
Ynn 1:553;
Maqrz, Sulk 1:508
1269 (3, X)
Bar Hebraeus 2:526
1157 (3 VII-X)
Ibn al-Kathr 12:
294; Ibn al-Athr
(r.)2:87, 89
1275 (2)
al-Ayn 2:150; Bar
Hebrauos 2:532
1168 (3)
Ibn al-Furt 4, pt.
1:2
1170 (3, X)
William of Tyre 2,
20: 370-371; Ibn
al-Athr (R) 2:185-6
1299 (1)
al-Jazari, Jawahir,
fol. 280v. in Guidoboni II:331-2
1191 (1)
Maqrz, Ayyubid
Sultans 95
Total=16
Total=17
14th century
126
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127
Chapter Six
Walter the chancellor of Antioch describes the destruction in the principality of Antioch and its region:
Then on the feast day of St. Laurence there was an earthquake. Moreover,
in the following season, on the Ides of November, an earthquake at Mamistra overthrew part of the town. Another great and unbelievable earthquake
struck places throughout the region of Antioch in such a way that it overthrew many towns either completely or partially, and brought to the ground
both homes and defences, and in the ruins some of the people were suffocated and died. They say that the quake in Marash, a city which is sixty
miles south of Antioch, I think, was so great that it completely destroyed
homes and defences. (Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, 173-4)
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Unlike similar crises in the second half of the twelfth-century, which were
solved by short term treaties; the 1114 earthquake led to a surge of military
activity. Large forces were gathered and a full-scale open field-battle was
fought. The complex geopolitical situation and the destruction throughout
the Frankish territories destabilized the regional balance of power, leaving
little room for diplomatic maneuvers. The Seljuq ruler had ordered the
amir Bursuq ibn Bursuq, ruler of the city of Hamadhan (to day in modern
Iran) to March into Frankish territory, wage war on them and harass their
lands.27 Many of the independent Muslim rulers in Syria felt threatened
by the coming Seljuq campaign and decided to ally themselves with the
Franks against Bursuqs forces. The Franks had few options left. The prince,
Roger of Antioch quickly ordered his men to repair his fortresses, which
were badly damaged. He received further military support from King Baldwin of Jerusalem and Pons, the count of Tripoli. Seeing the size of the forces
awaiting them, the Seljuqs retreated only to return when the Christian
allied armies dispersed. Roger of Antioch was left to confront the Seljuq
on his own. The armies met in mid September nearby Sarmin, where the
Franks dealt the Seljuqs a crashing defeat.28
Prince Roger visited his own demolished buildings in his castles and elsewhere and, having carefully sought out necessary supplies, he hastened to
repair and fortify those which he knew to be the most useful for the defence
of his land and nearest to the enemy, even if he could not do it fully, nevertheless he would do it sufficiently for immediate protection. When this
was accomplished, as the summer weather returned, as is custom of that
region he made for the borderlands, where he would be able more swiftly
to hear of the approach of the Persians and whence he might more swiftly
meet the hordes of the enemy. So they came to the bridge on the river Far
the iron bridge (10 km NE of Antioch), where he ordered in advance his
army to meet him, and in that place he discussed with his men matters of
common utility, and resolved to send scouts of different races into those
regions belonging to the Persian. (Walter the Chancellor, Antiochene wars,
87, 175)
129
Aleppo. The defences of Bizaah, a small town in northwest Syria were left
in ruins. Tremors were felt in Damascus, Jerusalem and Iraq but no damage
was reported.
And in this year in afar (533 afar/October 1138) there were many terrible
earth earthquakes in Syria, the Jazra and many other lands. The strongest
was in Syria, it lasted several consecutive nights. Every night there were
) . Much of the land was ruined especially
forceful tremors (dafat
in Aleppo. When the tremors became frequent, the people left their homes
and went into the open country. In a single night they counted eighty tremors. In Syria they experienced earthquakes from 4 afar until 19 (11-26 October), accompanied by a roaring and terrible shocks. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil,
11:71)
In 1136-7, Ibn al-Athr described the Franks in northern Syria as weak and
impotent,29 implying that they had lost much of their political and military strength. The Franks were wedged between the Seljuq ruler, Imd
al-Dn Zengi (d. 1146), and the Byzantine Emperor, John II Comnenus (r.
1118-1143), who was trying desperately to regain his hold over Antioch.
Imd al-Dn Zengi was the first Muslim ruler to consolidate the small
independent Muslim entities in Syria and wage a holy war (jihad) against
the Franks. He eventually captured the Crusader county of Edessa in 1144
and established his rule over Aleppo. His son, Nr al-Dn followed his
fathers policy closely. Thus the balance of power in Northern Syria was
gradually changing as the cities of central Syria were conquered and united
under one Muslim rule. Zengi continued his campaign in Syria, conquering
Baalbek and adding it to his growing realm. Damascus was besieged twice,
but to no avail. The impact of the 1138 earthquake on the political affairs
appears to have been negligible. The local Muslim population, on the other
hand, not only suffered severe losses in human life and property, but was
further burdened by a sharp rise in taxes ordered by the Sultan.30
The two strongest earthquakes in the second half of the twelfth-century
occurred in 1157 and 1170, during the reign of Nr al-Dn in Syria (1118-1174).
This period correlates with the reigns of two Frankish kings: Baldwin III
(r. 1152-1163) and Aimery I (r. 1163-1174). The first earthquake caused severe
destruction mainly in the Muslim territories (Map 6.4), disrupting the
regional balance of power almost overnight. The damage caused in 1170
spread throughout the region affecting both Muslim and Crusader territories (Map 6.5).
29Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 1:327.
30Ibn al-Kathr, Nihya fil-tarkh, 12:267.
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131
sader kingdom and a peace treaty was signed between the king and the
sultan in 1155. It was renewed for yet another year in 1156.31
The destruction of urban defenses and the repairs, which followed are
described in detail for both 1157 and the 1170 earthquakes. Although the
number of casualties was high and the damage to private property and
31Prawer, Latin Kingdom, 1: 315.
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public buildings was considerable, the rulers main concern was the state
of their fortifications and defenses.
The earthquakes of the 9 August (2 Rajab) and the 7 September (1
Shabn) 552/1157 were part of a long sequence of earthquakes that began
in the winter of 1156. The last earthquake in the 1150s was recorded in 29
May (9 Jumd I) 554/1159. The intensity of the 1157 summer and fall earthquakes is estimated at VIII-IX MM in the region between Aleppo and
Damascus. In Damascus and along the coast the force is estimated at V-VIII
MM.32 Town walls, towers, citadels and fortress collapsed throughout Nr
al-Dn's territories. There is sufficient evidence to show that in the neighbouring Crusader principality of Antioch and the county of Tripoli there
was little damage.
Table 6.2:1157, distribution of earthquake damage according to Ibn al-Jawzi
Muslim Sultanate
of Nur al-Din
Crusader Principality
of Antioch
Crusader County
of Tripoli
Aleppo
Antioch
Hama
Lattakia
Tripoli
Shayzar
Arqa
Aphamia
Kafar-Tab
Al-Maarra
Hims
Tall-Harn
Damascus
The only repairs carried out by the Crusaders were at the fortress of Crac
des Chevaliers owned by the Order of the Hospitallers. The grand master
of the order, Raymond of Le Puy, received a generous donation from
Wladislas II, king of Bohemia, to finance the reconstruction works.33
Strangely enough, our main Crusader source for this period, William of
Tyre, does not mention the 1157 earthquake at all.
32Guidoboni, et al., destructive seismic crises, 118-120; fig. 5, page 120. MMthe
Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.
33Elisseff, N., Hisn al-Akrad, EI2, 3:503-6.
133
Crusader Principality
of Antioch
Crusader County
of Tripoli
Hama
Antioch
Tripoli
Shayzar
Lattakia
Tyre
Baalbek
Gabala
Hims
Aleppo
Beroea (Barin)
Damascus
The following is an extract from an account written by the Muslim chronicler, Ibn al-Athr who spent most of his life in Mosul. In later years he
moved to Aleppo.
In Rajab this year (9 August-7 September 1157) there were many strong
earthquakes in Syria, which destroyed much of the country and which caused
the death of more people than could be counted. In one moment Hama,
Shayzar, Kafar-Tb, al-Maarra, Homs, in al-Akrd, Arqa, Lattakia, Tripoli
and Antioch were ruined. All Syria suffered damage in most of its parts,
even if the damage was not total. City walls and citadels were demolished.
Nr al-Dn Mumd dealt with this in an exemplary manner. He feared for
the land since the city walls had been destroyed. He assembled the troops and
camped on the frontiers of his land, carrying raids on Frankish territory, while
working on the walls in the rest of his lands. He kept this up until he had completed all the city walls. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:87)
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prince of Antioch and the count of Tripoli. The count of Flanders, who was
visiting the Holy Land joined the campaign with his own men. They
attacked the Muslim fortress of Qalat Yahmur (Chastel Rouge, roughly 20
km northeast of Tripoli) but to no avail; the Muslim garrison held its
ground.34 According to Ibn al-Qalnis, Nr al-Dn was quick to act and
recruited a Muslim army to assist the besieged fortress.
Mention has already been made of the departure of al-Malik al-Adil Nr
al-Dn from Damascus with his troops towards the cities of Syria, on receipt
of news that the factions of the Franks (God forsake them) were assembling
together and proceeding against them, being emboldened to attack them by
reason of the continuous earthquakes and shocks which afflicted them and of
the destruction wrought amongst the castles, citadels and dwellings in their
districts and marches. [Nr al-Dn therefore took measures] to protect and
defend them and to bring solace to those of the men of Hims, Kafr Tab,
Hamah and elsewhere who had escaped with their lives, whereupon there
assembled to join him a great host and vast numbers of men from the fortresses and provincial cities and from the Turkmens. He encamped with
them in exceeding force opposite the army of the Franks in the neighborhood of Antioch and encompassed them so that not one horseman of theirs
could set out to make a raid. (Ibn al-Qalnis, Damascus Chronicle, 340-41)
Soon after, the Muslim army dispersed due to the illness of Nr al-Dn.
Many thought he was on his deathbed and left the field knowing there was
no strong commander that was able to replace him. Once the siege around
the Crusader army was broken, it resumed its march and launched an
attack on the fortress of Shayzar. The fortress was saved thanks to a dispute
that broke out among the Christian commanders, and the strong Isml
force, which managed to defeat the Franks.35 The Crusader forces returned
to their own lands empty-handed.
While the 1157 earthquake led to a rise in tension between Muslim and
Christians, driving the Franks to take advantage of the poor state of the
Muslim defences, breach the peace treaties signed in 1155-1156 and attack
Nr al-Dns lands; the 1170 earthquake had a remarkably different impact
on the regional affairs. It reduced the tension and led to the signing of a
short term peace treaty. It is important to emphasize that by 1170 the balance of power between the two sides underwent significant changes. During 1160s the struggle between Nr al-Dn and the Crusader kingdom
shifted south. Egypts declining Fatimid dynasty (a Shite dynasty) and the
countrys wealth from international trade and agriculture made it an
34William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 13:265.
35Ibn al-Qalnis, Damascus Chronicle, 342; William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 13:226-268.
135
attractive prize. For almost a decade, Aimery I, ruler of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem competed and fought against Nr al-Dns armies for the
control of Cairo and the Nile Delta. The Crusader armies carried out five
successive attacks; on one occasion they allied themselves with the Byzantine emperor in order to receive the assistance of his fleet. The Crusader
campaigns failed, and Aimery eventually had no choice but to acknowledge defeat. Salah al-Dn (Saladin), who was one of the leading officers in
this campaign, became the governor of the newly conquered territory in
Egypt. Officially he remained a dependent of Nr al-Dn. By 1170 Nr
al-Dns rule over Syria was consolidated and Egypt came under his suzerainty. The earthquake of 1170 struck after a decade of intensive fighting in
which large Muslim and Christian armies had marched back and forth
from Syria or the Kingdom of Jerusalem to the Nile Delta and Cairo.
Lengthy sieges were conducted, and a number of open-field battles took
place.36
The 1170 earthquake struck a vast region. The force of the earthquake
varies considerably along the fault. Its strength is estimated at IX-X MM in
northern Syria. South of Damascus it is estimated at VII-VIII MM. Still
further south in Jerusalem it reached V-VI MM The holy city of Jerusalem
shook strongly, but did not collapse thanks to Gods goodness37 In the
large cities of Iraq its strength is estimated at IV MM, and in Mardin and
Edessa it reached VI MM.38
In writing about the 1170 earthquake, both Muslim and Christian chroniclers emphasize the great damage to fortifications. They describe the deep
concern of each ruler for the defense of his territories.
The following is an extract from an account written by Ibn al-Athr:
When Nr al-Dn received the news, he went to Baalbek to repair the damage to its wall and citadel. When, however, the news from the rest of the
towns came to him, news of the destruction of their walls and citadels and
their abandonment by the inhabitants he placed men in Baalbek to repair,
protect and guard it and went to Homs, where he did the same, and then
to Hama and then to Barin. He was extremely wary of the danger for the
towns from the Franks. Then he came to Aleppo, where he saw effects of
the earthquake greater than elsewhere, for it had destroyed it utterly and
the survivors were totally terror stricken. They were unable to shelter in
36Prawer, Latin Kingdom, vol. 1: 328-45; Runciman, Crusades, vol. 2: 299-316.
37Chronicon quod dicitur Guillelmi Godelli, Robert of Auxerre, 1882, section 3.1, cited
in Guidoboni et al., June 1170.
38The strength of the earthquake along the fault is shown in Guidoboni et al., June
1170, table 3.
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their houses for fear of aftershocks. They remained in the open. Nr al-Dn
personally took part in the repair work and so continued until he had rebuilt
its walls and mosques. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:185-6)
The description conveys the fear and urgency of the ruler as he surveyed
his fortifications. Nr al-Dn quickly organized garrisons to safeguard the
towns where the defenses had been destroyed. In some towns the horrendous scale of destruction and the aftershocks drove the citizens away.
Certain sites were, according to the chronicler, completely abandoned.
Nr al-Dn then set out and personally supervised the construction of some
of the main citadels in the towns along the frontier with the Crusaders.
In contrast to the 1157 earthquake which William ignored, suggesting
that the Crusader principalities were hardly damaged; in 1170 he describes
the destruction in great detail.
Strongly fortified cities dating from very early times were completely demolished . The largest cities of our provinces and those of Syria and Phoenicia
as well, cities famous throughout the ages for their noble antiquity were
prostrated. In Coelesyria, Antioch, the metropolis of several provinces and
once the head of many kingdoms, was utterly overwhelmed and its entire
population destroyed. The massive walls and the immensely strong towers
along their circuit fell in ruins. Churches and buildings of every kind were
thrown down with such violence that even now, although much labor and
expense have been devoted to their restoration, they are only partially
repaired. Among other places destroyed in that same province were Gabala
and Laodicea, famous cities on the coast. Of the cities further inland which
were still held by the enemy there were destroyed Beroea, also known as
Aleppo, Shayzar, Hama, Hims and others. The number of fortresses wrecked
was beyond counting.
the great and populous city of Tripoli was suddenly shaken by a violent
earthquake, and scarcely a person within the walls escaped. The entire city
was reduced to a heap of stones and became a burial place and common
sepulchre of the citizens who perished with it. At Tyre, the most famous
city of the province, the earth movement was so violent that several massive
towers were overthrown. There was, however, no loss of life here. (William
of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 20: 370-371)
William reassures his readers that his Muslim neighbours were facing
similar troubles. It is evident that each side was aware of the fact that the
neighbors fortifications were in a state of ruin. Nevertheless, one is left
with a strong impression that each ruler suspected that his enemy might
take advantage of the situation, and launch a surprise attack. This notion
is clearly conveyed by Ibn al-Athr.
137
As for the Frankish territory, the earthquake tremors also had the same
effect there. They were kept busy repairing their towns, fearful of Nr al-Dn
for them. Each side was occupied with repair work for fear of the other. (Ibn
al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:186)
Yet in order to ensure that no side would make a move against its foe a
treaty of some definition was necessary. According to classical Islamic law
a stage of hostility exists between the Muslims (Dr al-Islm) and those
who are not Muslim (Dr al-arb). No long and lasting agreement could
be signed between the two sides.39 This law appears to have been incorporated in most diplomatic settlements throughout the medieval period.
Each treaty that was signed had a clear clause stating when the treaty
ended. If both sides agreed treaties could be lengthened, as was often the
case.
Decision makers in times of crisis are subject to both external and internal pressure, which may force them to make peace.40 Nr al-Dn is
described as committed to the security of his lands and their inhabitants.
William of Tyre presents the treaty as a decision that was made out of sheer
fear: fear of Nr al-Dn and fear of God.
Both in our territories and in those of the enemy were found half-ruined
fortresses, open on every side and freely exposed to the violence and the
wiles of the foe. But since each man feared that the wrath of the Stern Judge
might descend upon him individually, none dared molest his fellow man.
Each was engrossed in his own troubles and weighed down by the burden
of his own affairs; hence none thought of injuring his neighbour. Peace
brought about by the desire of all, ensued, albeit for a short interval, and a
truce was arranged through fear of divine wrath. Each, while momentarily
expecting the outpouring of righteous anger from heaven in punishment
for his sins, refrained from acts of hostility and curbed his own evil impulses.
(William of Tyre, vol. 2, Book 20: 371)
The Crusaders fear of Nr al-Dn can easily be explained after his recent
conquest of Egypt that clearly displayed his military abilities. Williams
Latin terminology is somewhat elusive. Pax hominum studio procurata,
et foedus compositum, divinorum iudiciorum timore conscriptum. Pax
may mean: a pact to end or avert hostilities; a pact granted by God; or a
settlement; or simply peace. Foedus is a formal agreement between states
39Holt P. M. Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260-1290) (Leiden, New York and Kln, 1995),
3-4.
40Randle, R. F. The Origins of Peace, A Study of Peacemaking and Structure of Peace
Settlement (New York, 1973), 430.
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or peoples. Conscriptum may refer here to a charter. The frequent mentioning of divine wrath and anger may well signify that William of Tyre was
referring to a pact granted by God. Thus on this reading, it is possible that
there was no proper legal written document. Williams words and phrasing
seem to indicate that this was a gentlemans agreement, or a quiet mutual
understanding, as suggested by Prawer.41
Ibn al-Athrs report, on the other hand, leaves no room for speculation
concerning the nature of this truce, and whether there was a formal agreement rather than a loose understanding. According to Ibn al- Athr a formal truce was indeed drawn up between Nr al-Dn, the principality of
Antioch and the county of Tripoli. This is made clear in a detailed episode
that took place not long after the truce was concluded. The term used by
Ibn al-Athr is hudna, meaning peace, truce or armistice.42
In the autumn of 1171 a Frankish force from Tripoli and Antioch seized
two Muslim merchant ships. Nr al-Dn was furious and accused the
Franks of violating the truce, demanding that the merchandise be returned.
Between them [the Franks] and Nr al-Dn there was a truce which they
treacherously broke. Nr al-Dn sent to them about the matter and about
their restoring the merchants property they had taken. (Ibn al-Athr, Kmil
(Richards), 2:200)
The Franks ignored the sultans demand. Nr al-Dn did not hesitate to act.
He sent a force to raid the cities of Tripoli and Antioch, and a number of
smaller fortresses in the neighborhood were sacked. Frankish territory was
set ablaze, plundered, and a number of people were killed. The Muslim
force returned with a large amount of booty. Following this destructive
raid, the Franks reviewed their situation and decided to renew the truce.
The Franks made contact with him [Nr al-Dn] and offered to restore what
they had taken from the two ships and to renew the truce. This was accepted.
(Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:200)
139
ing the Muslim victory at the battle of Hattin (1187) and the conquest of
Jerusalem in 1188. The Ayyubid Sultanate founded by Saladin was now
organized in the form of a family federation. The sultan, al-dil (r. 12011218) ruled from the citadel of Cairo, while various members of the family
governed Syria and Trans-Jordan. Other than raids and counter raids, the
frontier with the Franks was relatively quiet. Although the idea of eradicating the Frankish kingdom and states had not been abandoned, it had lost
much of its impetus after Saladins death (d. 1193). The numerous campaigns against the Franks and Saladins war against Richard I, King of
England (The Lion Heart) had exhausted the sultanates coffers. This dire
financial situation may have partially restrained the Ayyubid forces.43
The 1202 earthquake struck Syria, the Crusader Kingdom, the kingdom
of Lesser Armenia, Anatolia, Jezira, Iraq, northwest Iran, Qus (in southern
Egypt), Cyprus and Sicily. Numerous aftershocks were recorded and a
seismic sea wave followed in its wake. The estimated magnitude of this
earthquake is 7.6 Ms.44 Many chroniclers describe this earthquake, the
dates given are, however, somewhat confusing and range between 1201,
1202 and 1203. It is difficult to ascertain whether there was one earthquake
or three consecutive earthquakes that stretched over a period of three
years. Ibn al-Dawdri, cited below, dates the earthquake to the summer
of 1201. Because this earthquake has been studied in depth by several
geologists and historians it will suffice to bring the conclusion reached by
Ambraseys and Melville who analyzed much of the historical and seismological evidence. Despite the conspicuous duality of accounts in almost
all Muslim sources, probably reflecting protracted aftershock activity,
there remains no evidence of more than one principal earthquake.45 The
main earthquake took place in May 1202.
Although Ibn al-Dawdrs date is incorrect his description is one of
the most detailed.46
And in this year there was a strong earthquake in the month of Ramadan
(June 1201). And it struck the area of ad () . And it hit the entire world
in one hour. It destroyed a building in Egypt and a great many [people]
were lost under the ruins. It shifted to Syria and the coast, and destroyed
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Nablus until there was not
a wall left standing in it apart from the neighbor
hood of al-Sumarah, ( ) 3000 people were buried under the rubble. The
same occurred in Ak, Tyre with its fortress on the coast. And it continued
to Damascus where
it destroyed a number of minarets in the mosque of the
Bana Amiyah ( ) and many lime kilns and the devils fire prevailed .
And the people fled to the midn. Sixteen balconies belonging to the mosque
fell and Qubbat al-Nasir ) ) split in two. And it [the earthquake] continued to Banyas and Hnn. A group of people from Baalbek left and went
on their way, the mountain collapsed upon them and they were buried
beneath. Much of the fortress of Baalbek was destroyed. It [the earthquake]
continued to Hims, Hama and Aleppo. It divided the sea of Cyprus and
created a huge mountain (i.e. tidal wave ?) and it hit the boats along the
coast. Several boats were ruined. It [the earthquake] continued to Ikhlat,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and al-Jazira. And it went to the Gulf () . The
number of people dead in the country under the ruins was said to have
reached a thousand thousands and one hundred thousand. And the strength
of this earthquake was seen when its cost of reconstruction was relayed to
the people. (Ibn al-Dawdri, Kanz 7:150)
The grand master of the Hospitallers was concerned for the safety of the
two fortresses under his command, Marqab and Crac des Chevaliers, both
damaged by this earthquake. He was convinced, however, that if assaulted
by the neighboring Muslim forces they would manage to hold their
ground.47 None of the sources mention an immediate change in the political or military affairs. Both sides held their armies at bay and refrained
from violent assaults. It is important to note that the earthquake struck
while the truce of 1198 between al-dil and King Aimery was still in effect.
This truce ended in the spring of 1204, but was renewed almost immediately. The environment played a central role during this period. The severe
three year famine (1199-1201) in Egypt due to the Niles extremely low levels,
the drought that struck most of the Levant and the destruction caused by
the 1202 earthquake, no doubt drove both sides to prolong the period of
peace.
An important and interesting point that can be seen in most of the
earthquakes mentioned above is the fact that the number of Muslim sites
damaged is always slightly higher than that in the Frankish territories. This
uneven pattern of damage can be seen in 1157, 1170 and 1202 (Map 6.6). The
reasons are purely geological and topographical; for the quality of the
Muslim citadels and fortresses in Syria was equal to that of their Frankish
neighbours. The eastern side of the fault was no more densely populated
than the coast; in fact the coast with its natural harbours, trade and fertile
47Ambraseys et al., May 1202, 191.
141
Damage in Muslim
territory
Tortosa
Cairo
al-Jazira
Antioch
Alexandria
Gulf (? )
Tripoli
Damietta
Ikhlat
Tyre
Qus
Armenia
Beirut
Busra
Azerbaijan
Acre
Aleppo
Hims
Marqab
Hama
Damascus
Arqa
Baalbek
Barin (Montferrand)
Hunin
Cyprus
Nablus
Sicily
Banyas
Safad
Samaria
Tibnin
land was probably just as densely settled. When examining the distribution of damage and the force of the earthquakes in central Syria (which
was under Muslim rule) the picture obtained, clearly shows that the eastern side of the fault fared worse than the western side (ruled by the Franks).
A possible explanation may be found if these earthquakes are defined as
supershear earthquakes.
Supershear earthquakes are earthquakes where the rupture velocity is
higher than the sheer wave velocity of the rocks through which they break.
Potentially the damage caused by a supershear earthquake is different
from a classical sub-shear event, a fact which is not considered even today
in current building codes. The effect is similar to the shock wave created
by an aircraft flying at a greater speed than sound. Interest in the subject
has intensified, as a result of laboratory experiments and following the two
large earthquakes in Kunlun (2001) and Denali (2002) that are now thought
to have ruptured at supershear velocities. Long, straight, strike-slip faults
Map 6.6:Earthquake damage to fortresses in the twelfth century (white fortresses = Crusader, black fortresses = Muslim)
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143
such as those along the Dead Sea-Yamouneh faults are likely to host supershear rupture. During such rupture damage is not symmetrical across the
fault. If the three earthquakes discussed above were supershear earthquakes, this may explain the more active and more destructive evidence
on the Muslim side, which correlates to the east side of the fault.48
The impact of large-scale earthquake damage on the political and military affairs depends on the strength of the earthquake, the distribution of
damage and the regional balance of power. Although damaged defences
often tempted neighbouring enemies, Frankish and Muslim rulers tended
to sign short-term treaties that enabled them to divert their efforts, and
invest their time in reconstruction works, which required both peace of
mind and large-scale funds.
Domestic Architecture and Earthquakes
There is an old saying among geologists and engineers that earthquakes
dont kill but buildings do. Shaking ground may make people fall down, but
falls dont kill. However, shaking ground can make buildings collapse, and
collapsing buildings can definitely kill.49
48This idea was first suggested by Dr. Matthew Daron and discussed with Professor
King; both from the Institut de Physique du Globe, Paris, France. I would like to thank them
for their clear explanations and all their help.
49Skinner, B. J. and Porter S. C. The Dynamic Earth, 2nd edition (1992, New York), 405.
50Bolt, Earthquakes, 122.
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Raw Materials and Structural Behaviour
The description below shows the careful choice of materials and building
methods in Kashmir India, a region that often suffers from sever earthquakes.
The general construction in the city of Strinagar (Kashmir) is suitable for
an earthquake country wood is freely used, and well jointed; clay is employed
instead of mortar, and gives a somewhat elastic bonding to the bricks, which
are often arranged in thick square pillars, with thinner filling in. If well built
in this style the whole house, even if three or four stories high, sways together,
where as more heavy rigid buildings would split and fall.51
145
The evidence concerning the damage to rural and urban houses derives
from the contemporary sources that describe the large numbers of people
who were buried beneath their own houses, and the terrified survivors who
were unable to return and shelter in their houses for fear of after shocks.55
The structures described below represent a small selection of domestic
medieval houses. There are no published archaeological excavations to
date that record earthquake damage in twelfth-fifteenth century domestic
buildings. Although house plans and building materials suited the climate,
the flaws and weaknesses that led to their collapse are evident.
The best examples of rural houses from the Crusader period are from
al-Bira (Magna Mahumeria) and al-Qubeiba (Parva Mahumeria) in the
vicinity of Jerusalem. The two planned villages have narrow small houses
(4x10 m), some had two floors. They are arranged in a row along the street,
each house shares its external walls with the neighbouring house.56 Many
houses did not have a foundation trench, the first course of stones was laid
directly on the bed rock.57 The ground floor often consists of a vault, built
of small field stones, stone chips and mortar. The external walls that support the vaults are thick (2 m), constructed with field stones and large
amounts of rubble.58 Walls were coated with a thick layer of plaster or mud
that concealed the crude building methods and the poor building materials. Roofs in both villages and towns were generally flat, supported by
coulombs, vaults or constructed with wooden beams covered in branches
and then coated with plaster or mud. Tiles attesting to gabled roofs are
seldom found.59
Stone and brick courtyard houses were built in both rural and urban
settlements. The courtyard enclosed by the house performs an important
function as a modifier of climate in hot arid regions. The insulation properties of the building materials and the plan of the courtyard house create a
domestic micro-climate. It provides outdoor activities with the necessary
protection from the wind, dust and sun and supplies the rooms around it
with light and air. A stone courtyard house dating to the Abbasid-Fatimid
55Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:185-6
56Bagatti, B. Emmaus-Qubeibeh. tran. Frankish, R. (Jerusalem 1993); Pringle, D. Secular
Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1997), 86-7; Benvenisti, Crusaders, 220, 225-6. Boas, Crusader Archaeology, 62-8.
57Tchalenko, G. Villages Antiques de la Syrie du Nord, I (Paris, 1953), 9; Hirschfeld, Y.
The rural dwelling houses in the Hebron region -a case study of traditional type building
in Eretz Israel, Cathedra 24 (1982):85.
58Boas, A. Domestic Settings (Leiden, 2010), 204.
59Benvenisti, Crusaders, 373; Boas, Domestic Settings, 57.
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147
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All the sites, which received Nr al-Dns attention, were partially damaged
by earthquakes. His Crusader neighbours, who at times raided and threatened his territories, were not the direct reason for the rebuilding of his
fortifications. Nr al-Dn, may have never invested in his defenses if the
fortresses were not damaged by the earthquakes. Al-dils most formidable project was carried out in Damascus. Sections of the town walls were
rebuilt, but the work focused on the citadel. The old structure was raised
to the ground and a new citadel was built in its place. According to Ab
Shma (d. 1267) and Sib al-Jawz (d. 1256) construction work started in
599/1202-1203,70 shortly after the large earthquake. One of the fortresses
badly damaged, in Frankish territories, was Crac des Chevaliers owned by
the order of the Hospitallers. It was reconstructed after the 1157 earthquake
and once again after the 1170 earthquake.71 It probably reached its final size
68Kennedy, Castles, 98; Ellenblum, Modern Histories, 189; Chevedden, P. Fortifications
and the development of defensive planning during the Crusader period, in The Circle of
War in the Middle Ages, eds. D. J. Kagay and L. J. A. Villalon (Woodbridge, U.K. 1999), 34.
69Humphreys, Saladin, 147. According to Gibb Many of the fortifications were strengthened in anticipation of the fifth Crusade in 614/1217. Gibb, H. A. R. al-dil EI2 1:197-8.
70Humphreys, Saladin, 147-48; Chevedden, P. E. The Citadel of Damascus. Ph.D. diss.
University of Los Angeles, California, 1986. Unpublished. 56-9.
71Ibn al-Athr, Kmil (Richards), 2:87; Ibn al-Kathr, Ab l-Fid Abd allh, Al-Bidya
wal -nihya fil-tarkh (Beirut, 1993),12:294.
149
and grandeur after the 1202 earthquake.72 The changes in the plan, building
materials and construction methods can be followed through both the
sources and the archaeological evidence.
Archaeological evidence of anti-seismic construction in the Mediterranean region has been studied and discussed in relation to the Minoan
architecture in Crete, ancient Greece and Islamic monuments in Iran in
later medieval periods. The analysis presented in the following pages
examines Frankish and Ayyubid fortifications that were rebuilt after they
were damaged in one or all of the following earthquakes: 1157, 1170 and 1202.
It also examines later thirteenth century fortifications built by the Mamluks.
One of the methods of reducing damage is by designing a simple plan;
equal stiffness throughout the building and sound structural connections
are recommended as basic principles for safe building. Symmetrical plans
are generally considered a better choice. Irregular shapes are especially
vulnerable to torsion.73 Vaults, which were the most common roofing in
many fortresses, are fairly durable structures. Round, horseshoe and polygonal towers are relatively stronger than square and rectangular shapes.
Although many of the raw materials available and some of the traditional
building techniques used in the Levant were hardly suitable, changes could
be made to insure that structures were more resilient and safer. The
capacity of a structure to absorb energy within limits of deformation and
without failure is one of the most desirable characteristics of earthquake
resistant design.74 It seems contemporary fortress builders only partially
understood these requirements. Methods of construction and planning of
fortifications were probably adjusted by a careful examination of the structures that survived the earthquakes, and by trial and error.
The Ayyubid citadel of Damascus, the Frankish fortress of Vadum Jacob,
the massive glacis and towers at Crac des Chevaliers, and the large Mamluk
towers at Safad, al-ubayba and Karak present some interesting developments in military architecture that were partially triggered by earthquake
destruction.
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The Citadel of Damascus
The city of Damascus was struck by all three earthquakes (1157, 1170 and
1202). It is built on the lower slopes of Mt. Qasiyun that is part of the eastern slopes of the Anti Lebanon Massifs. The Barada River supplies the city
with water and the oasis of the Ghuta provides rich agriculture land.75 It
was during Nr al-Dns reign that the two earthquakes of 1157 and 1170
struck Syria, and it was he who assessed the damage and saw to the reconstruction of many of the fortifications. Damascus had been taken by Nr
al-Dn only a few years earlier (1154), the city became his capital and main
residence. After the 1157 earthquake, the citadel underwent considerable
reconstruction, but after the second earthquake (1170), he clearly lost his
faith in stone buildings. A wooden house was built opposite his living
quarters within the Damascus citadel. He slept, prayed and eventually died
in it.76 Nr al-Dns work on the Damascene fortifications was conducted
during 560/1165 and 569/1174. Large semi-circular towers dominated the
citys fortifications. Semi-circular towers were probably costrcuted also in
the citadel.77
The Damascus citadel underwent extensive building once again during
the reign of al-dil. Several inscriptions commemorating the sultans work
confirm this date. Although assaulted several times by both Frankish forces
and by rival Ayyubid princes, the project of rebuilding the citadel and the
city defenses was due to earthquake damage along the northern wall. The
expenditure was considerable, and the newly established sultan ordered
the Ayyubid princes to sponsor the building of the towers. Work on the
towers begun in 1203, they were completed a decade later. The scale of
building was extraordinary. The work was of the highest quality, executed
by different teams. The outer walls were built by a specialized group of
workers.78 L-shaped towers were constructed in the corners and rectangular towers along the citadel walls. According to Chevedden, The architect
of the citadel relied on sheer bulk and massiveness of construction .79
The new citadel had thirteen rectangular towers (279 m).80 The length of
151
the wall between each tower measured 20-30 m. Long sections of curtain
walls were reduced to the bear necessity, perhaps due to their structural
weakness. Towers were clearly given preference (Figure 6.2). This arrangement not only reduced the dead space below the walls, it provided the
entire outer defense circuit with greater stability. Large parts of al-dil's
work withstood not only enemy assaults, but also the future seventeenth
and eighteenth century earthquakes that struck the city.81
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work carried out during the late twelfth and first half of the thirteenth
centuries and Mamluk work carried out by Baybars in the early 1270s. The
fortress was badly damaged by the 1157, 1170, 1202 earthquakes as well as
the Mamluk siege of 1271. The masters of the order of the Hospitallers in
charge of the fortress rebuilt and improved the construction after each
earthquake, aiming to make it indestructible to both natural and human
forces. It endured later violent earthquakes better than any other stronghold in the region.
The fortress was first built in 1031 by the amir of the city of Hims, who
constructed the fortress out of the local basalt. It was taken by the Franks
in 1109 but was passed over to the order of the Hospitallers in 1142. Although
the fortress was besieged a number of times, it was no doubt more susceptible to earthquake damage than to the Muslim supping units and siege
machines. The site was assaulted by Nr al-Dn in 1163, besieged by Saladin
in 1188, attacked by al-Malik al-dil in 1207 and by the Ayyubid sultan alKamil in 1229. In 1252 it was attacked once again by the Trkmen army.
The Frankish garrison managed to repel each and every assault until 1271
when the fortress eventually fell after the Mamluk siege.83
According to Ibn al-Athr and Ibn al-Kathr, Crac des Chevaliers was
partially damaged by the 1157 earthquake.84 It was restored with a generous
donation given by King Waldislas II of Bohemia.85 The fortress at this stage
had one curtain wall strengthened by rectangular towers. Vaulted halls
lined the inner face of the curtain wall. The renovations were carried out
in basalt; the stones were small and roughly dressed.
Ab Shma gives a short account the 1170 earthquake damage:
The fortress sunk in the sea [i.e. destroyed by the force/waves of the earthquake], nothing was left of its walls. (Ab Shma, Rawatayn, vol. 1, pt.
2:468)
153
change in building material. In contrast to the first fortress that was built
out of basalt stones, after the 1170 earthquake the fortress was constructed
with well dressed, large limestone blocks. Although the lime stone is softer
it may well have more flexible building properties in comparison to the
basalt. It was after the 1202 earthquake that the fortress was significantly
enlarged. A new outer wall was constructed. As in other sites, large semicircular and horseshoe towers dominated this new building phase, their
diameter ranging between 10 m, 15 m and 18 m. The masonry and construction were of higher quality. But it was their shape and dimensions that
made them more resilient to earthquake forces.
It seems the south and west sections of the inner curtain wall were
severely damaged; the restoration work in this area was carried out on a
grand and most forbidding scale. The general idea behind a glacis is to
protect the foundations from sapping units; make scaling the walls with
ladders or standing a siege-tower flash against the wall an impossible task.
The southern and western glacis at Crac des Chevaliers appear to have
been designed against an invasion of giants. The Massive glacis chokes
the base of the towers and continues to run up against almost the full
height of the wall between the towers (Figure 6.3; Figure 6.4). None of the
armies in the region were equipped to tackle structures of this size and
type. Further more these towers are located in the inner core of the fortress
and were therefore not directly exposed to enemy fire, unless the first wall
was breached.
Marqab, owned by the Order of the Hospitallers, was treated in much
the same way. The second phase, dated to the late twelfth-century (after
the 1170 earthquake) or early thirteenth century (after the 1202 earthquake), saw the building of round towers, substantially larger than those
of the previous phase. Although the southern towers are protected by a
fairly steep slope, a large glacis was constructed to provide the foundations
and walls with further support.
It seems, as Kennedy had noted, that at Crac des Chevaliers the architect
was aiming to build monuments that would withstand the wrath of God
rather than the skills of the Muslim sapping units.88
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Figure 6.4:Crac des Chevaliers, the high glacis arround the towers along the walls
155
156
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walls (44 m) and the height of the towers (48 m) in relation to their diameter (22 m).
The Mamluk sultan, Baybars besieged Safad in 1266.97 He rebuilt the
sections of the fortress, which were damaged during the siege and added
a large round tower in the midst of the fortress, at the highest point. This
tower was not incorporated in the fortress curtain walls. Towers of this
type are rare. The best Frankish examples are Chastel Blanc (afitha) and
Gilbert (Jubayl) dating to the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The
great round tower is mentioned by: Ibn Shaddd, al-Dimashq and al-afad.
Though today it is largely in ruins, this immense structure still dominates
the summit.
Al-afad writes: He built in the fortress a huge tower that was very tall
and rose to the height of eighty dir (54.4 m).98 The diameter, according
to al-Dimashq was 40.6 m.99 The sources are not unanimous concerning
the height, figures run between 40.6 and 96.6 m. According to Ibn Shaddd,
it was one hundred dir high (68 m), and from its top one could see whoever walked along the moat or around the fortress (Figure 6.6).100 There
were probably three spacious floors. What remains today is the main
entrance and the cistern carved out of the bedrock below it. The entrance
is encased in a solid stone structure that served as the towers base. It is
built of large triangular flat stones, unlike the neighboring fortresses and
the construction technique known throughout the region where walls are
built with a core of stone and mortar and faced with ashlar (Figure 6.7).
The structure was further strengthened by a rather peculiar technique of
slotting. The large stone blocks are not laid in straight courses one upon
the other, each stone block slots in and fits the one next to it (Figure 6.8).
According to both al-afad and Ibn Shaddd the Mamluks rebuilt the
curtain walls and the gate with Hirqil stone.101 Hirqil stones, meaning
stones of great strength, characteristics attributed to Hercules.102 This term
97Ibn Shaddd, Alq, vol. 2, pt. 2, 149; Baybars al-Manr, Kitb al-tufa al-mamlukiyya
f ldawla al-turkiyya, ed. A. R. S. Hamdn (Cairo, 1987), 57; Ibn al-Furt, Tarkh (Lyons), 2,
95. Ibn Abd al-hir, gives a different account. Ibn Abd al-hir Raw, 260-1.
98afad, Wafayt, vol. 10, 341. Dir ( ) in Syria = 0.68 m; in Egypt = 0.58 m in Wehr,
Dictionary, 356.
99Al-Dimashq, Kitb Nkhbh, 210.
100Ibn Shaddd, Tarkh, 353.
101afad, Wafayt, vol. 10, 341. afad probably borrowed the term Hiraql from Ibn
Shaddd.
102Sharoni interprets Hiraql as being of exceptional/unique strength. Sharoni, A. The
comprehensive Arabic-Hebrew Dictionary (Tel-Aviv, 1987), 3:1375.
157
is used once again by Ibn Shaddd in a description of the Aleppo fortifications built by the Ayyubid prince al-Malik al-hr Ghz in 611/1213. He
tore down the bshra that used to be in it and poured earth on the tall
and rebuilt it with Hirqil stones.103
The tower at Safad partly survived into the late Ottoman period; a series
of earthquakes in 1759 and again in 1837 submitted this massive construction to pressures it was not designed to withstand. Both the Crusader and
the Mamluk experiments failed. Although the base was wide and solid, and
the stones large and heavy, its immense height, the fact that is was perched
on the highest point and above a large water cistern appears to have weakened the structure.
Figure 6.5:
Safad, plan of Crusader fortress
Figure 6.6:
Safad, reconstruction of the round tower
103Ibn Shaddd, Alq, vol. 1, pt. 1, 82; Tabbaa explains bshra in this particular case
as fortified gate. The paragraph from which this sentence is taken explains in detail the
construction of the citadel gate complex. Tabbaa, Y. Constructions of Power and Piety in
Medieval Aleppo (Pennsylvania Park, PA., 1997), 73. The bshra ( ) is a key word in
many descriptions. It has several meanings. The word refers to a whole section of the outer
fortifications; this may include any or all of the following structures: barbican, bastion, a
gate or a fortified tower. In some cases the outer suburb that often grew up beside the
fortress walls is also referred to as the bshra. Aleppo was also badly hit in the 1202 earthquake, and the construction work carried out by al-hr Ghz were probably repairs to
the fortifications damaged by the earthquake.
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Figure 6.7:
Safad, section across the tower
Figure 6.8:
Safad, the tower wall
159
The Mamluk construction at Karak, described below, has similar features to the tower built at al-ubayba and Safad.
Ibn al-Furt (d. 1405) and Qalqashand (d. 1418), both mention the
1261/660 earthquake that struck Egypt, Syria and the Crusader Kingdom.
Among the sites that were badly damaged Qalqashand names Safad,
Karak and Shawbak.105 The citadel of Karak had been damaged in the
previous earthquake of 1212. Repairs may have been conducted by its
Ayyubid governor al-Mughth Umar. But it seems most of the construction
work was carried out after Karak was handed over to Baybars in 1263.
The town was turned into an administrative center (mamlaka) and the
citadel into a military granary. The garrison was reinforced and the southern section of the fortress was rebuilt. As in Safad and al-ubayba the scale
of the Mamluk work exceeded that of the previous owners of Karak, the
Franks and the Ayyubids. A large Mamluk keep was built on the basis of
two Frankish towers. The remains of the Frankish towers with their black
stones can still be seen.
The Mamluk tower has an unusual shape due to the restricted space
available at the edge of the spur. It is a long and narrow rectangle that has
had its corners cut (length 37 m, width 16 m). Its outer walls, measure 6 m,
almost two and a half times the thickness of the original Frankish curtain
walls. It has three floors and large cistern below. A band inscription along
the top of the tower, it mentions Baybars and two of his titles, al-l and
al-hir. The date at the end of the inscription is 673/1277-8, the year the
Sultan died. It was built out of the local limestone, as apposed to the dark
hard flint of the Meishash formation that was used by the Franks. The
quality of the masonry is slightly inferior to that at al-ubayba and Safad.
The southern Mamluk keep at Karak still stands to its full height; unlike
Safad it withstood later earthquakes (1293, 1303, and 1453) successfully.106
It seems it was its polygonal shape rather than its sheer mass that gave
this structure stability. It is somewhat surprising that polygonal towers can
not be found in other sites or in later fortifications (Figures 6.9, 6.10, 6.11).
105 Amad Ben Abdellah al-Qalqashand, Mathir al-Inafa fee Malim al-Khilapha, ed.
A. S. A. Ferraj (Kuwait, 1964), 2:214; Ibn al-Furt, Tarkh (Lyons), 2:43.
106 The 1212 earthquake described by Ibn al-Katr, Bidya, 13:62; the 1293 Earthquake is
mentioned by Ibn al-Furt, Tarkh 8:145; the 1303 earthquake Baybars al-Man, Kitb
al-tufa, 379; the 1458 earthquake mentioned by Ibn Taghr Bird, Nujm, 16:127.
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161
162
chapter six
Vadum Jacob
Map 6.7:
Figure 6.12:
Fault systems in the region of the Crusader fortress Plan of the Crusader fortress Vadum
of Vadum Jacob
Jacob and the fault below
163
understanding of seismic forces one may say they fared well. Although few
strongholds remain standing to their full original height, many Crusader
and Muslim fortresses can still be seen throughout the Levant.
164
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Part three
165
166
chapter six
167
Chapter Seven
1Costa, M. The Insects, ed. V. Stroker, 2nd edition (Raanana, 2006), 306-7.
2Ibid., 290.
3Costa, Insects, 14; Howard, L. O. The Insect Menace (London, 1937), 137; Lamb, Weather,
172.
4Howard, Insect, 142.
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Locusts
The word for locust in Arabic is jard () . Jarada ( ) literally means
to strip, to be bare, or to peel. According to Lane the insect received its
name because of its ability to strip the ground.5 ajrad ( ) and jurd ()
mean: desolate, bleak, without vegetation or bald.6 The root is similar to
the Hebrew word Gered ( )to scratch or to scrape.
The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is the most common species
mentioned in the ancient world and still known today (Figure 7.1).
169
tive humidity).9 The temperature of the soil is more important than that
of the air.
A mature locust requires a temperature that will guarantee a body heat
of 40 degrees Celsius during 8-12 hours a day, and a certain level of dampness. Small changes in quantity or timing of the rains will have an immediate impact on the development of Locust.10 If eggs are laid in moist and
soft earth, in optimal humidity and temperature, the larva will hatch
within three weeks. The eggs may remain in the soil for a long time before
hatching. Imd al-Dn (d. 1202) describes such case in the mid twelfthcentury:
And in this year (547/1152-1153) there was locust in Mosul, al-Jazira and
) in
The eggs must come in contact with water at least once before they hatch.
The larvae eat whatever lays in their way. The period of growth lasts 40-50
days and a mature locust lives 198 days.12 Severe heat or cold weather will
prevent the females from laying eggs, and destroy the eggs if they have
already been laid.
Swarms will number millions and even billions. An average size locust
cloud covers ten square kilometers. But locust clouds that cover 250 square
kilometers have been known. The wind force determines the direction of
flight as well as the distance; swarms are known to have flown 5-130 km or
more a day.
The winds during the migration season move the locust clouds from
East Africa to the northeast regions of the Red Sea and further north to
Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iraq. They will usually arrive in
Israel and Syria in winter or spring just before the wheat and barley are
harvested.
On Friday 5th a strong wind blew in Cairo and its surroundings. Many date
palms fell and a number of houses were swept away. Many ships sank.
A group of people were killed below the rubble and it was a terrifying night.
In this month [Shawal-May 770/1369] the Mudar ( ) locust entered Syria.
And a great number of mice were to be found in the granaries. And the
plague spread. (Maqrz, Sulk 3, pt. 1:171-2)
9Ibid., 28.
10Ibid., 33.
)-may also mean
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The only forces able to slow or stop locust are low temperatures and
slow winds. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. The winter of 1316
is noted as exceptionally cold by a number of chroniclers, and yet a swarm
of locust arrived in Diyr Bakr (southeast Turkey).
The density of the population and the need for food are the main cause
for migration. Locusts eat almost every type of plant and can devour huge
crops in short periods of time, causing agricultural catastrophes. They feed
at a rate of four bites per second when feeding continuously.13 In Libya
(1944), 7 million vines were destroyed; Sudan (1954), 55 thousand tons of
grain were destroyed. In Ethiopia (1958) 167 thousand tons of grain, enough
to feed about one million people, vanished. A cloud of locust numbering
between 40-80 million will consume 80-240 tons of plants in one day.14 A
swarm will consume over-night an amount of vegetation equal to the
weight of the entire swarm (the weight of a locust = 1-2 gr).15 They are
insatiable eaters of vegetation throughout their young and adult life.16
The damage to cereals is irreversible. Orchards may take years to recover
(Figure 7.2).17 In ancient and early modern times farmers fought locust
with noise, fire or smoke, plowing the land in order to expose the eggs to
sunshine or digging trenches driving the locust into them and burying
them.18 But there was little one could do, and in most cases the locust won.
When a region was attacked by three swarms of locusts in less than
five months, farms were left in complete ruin. During the spring and early
summer of 1401 the area between Ghaza to the Euphrates was struck by
locusts three times.
On the second Shaban 803 (March 1401) many locusts arrived in Damascus
and remained for days. (Maqrz, Sulk 3, pt. 3: 1056)
Flour became expensive [in Damascus]. (Maqrz, Sulk, 3, pt. 3:1058)
On Monday 23 Shawwal 803 [May 1401] locusts came to Damascus. There
were so many that the sun could not be seen. They destroyed much of the
plants in the whole of Syria until no green was to be found neither tree nor
anything else. From Ghaza to the Euphrates. (Maqrz, Sulk 3, pt. 3: 1064)
In Dh al-Qada [June 1401] came to Damascus a different [type] a wandering ( )locusts. And trouble became greater. (Maqrz, Sulk 3, pt. 3: 1065)
13Chapman, R. F. The Insects, Structure and Function, 4th edition (Cambridge, 1998), 20.
14Amar, Locust, 22.
15Costa, M. Insects Anti Man (Tel Aviv, 1978), 26; Amar, Locust, 22.
16Richards, O. W. Imms General Textbook of Entomology, 10th edition (New York, 1977),
vol. 2:551.
17Amar, Locust, 24.
18Ibid., 29.
171
The amir Mankal Bgh al-Shams (
) governor of Syria sent
to have some of this water brought over. When it arrived there came with
it to Damascus many samrmar and they destroyed what there was of the
locusts, until none were left. They left the water bottle hanging in that place.
(Maqrz, Sulk, 3, pt. 1:101)
Although the existence of mature locust and the development of the larvae
depend on favorable weather conditions, they arrived in cold wet weather,
during years of drought and during years of plenty (Map 7.1 and Figure 7.1).
Locusts were no doubt one of the greatest hazards to the medieval agricultural world. They are great destroyers in their very own right, but what
seems to have made many of these locust plagues worse is the fact that in
several cases they were accompanied by other various disasters (see
below), which intensified the already existing agricultural crisis, turning
food shortage into famine.
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Recipes for Disasters
While locust eat whatever is growing in the fields, orchards and grazing
areas, mice will also make their way into domestic and central granaries.
Thus the combination of the two could demolish the populations entire
food supplies.
Locust and Drought
This year (621/1224-1225) the rains were sparse in the lands. None came until
February (Sub). Then they came at scattered times over a short period
but not sufficient to irrigate the crops. The crops grew sparsely and then
they were attacked by locusts. There was not enough [natural] vegetation
in the country to keep the locust busy, so they consumed all but little of the
crops. They were numerous, more than could possibly be counted. Prices
rose in Iraq, Mosul and in the rest of the Jazra and Diyr Bakr and elsewhere.
Foodstuffs were in short supply, although the scarcity was worse in Mosul
and the Jazra. (Ibn al-Athr, (Richards) Kmil, 3:250)
173
fields may have been saved as harvest takes place in June. The damage was
mainly to fruit trees.
Locusts hit Syria: in this year (1301) God released locusts upon Syria. In some
areas, the great number of locusts were devastating. They ruined fruits, trees,
grapes, and figs. This occurred in Bur, Zur, and the suburbs of Damascus.
There were many reports of damage in Shawwl (June 1302). The heat was
so intense that the trees lost their leaves. [Then the locusts] came back in
Dh al-Qada (July 1302) to hit the Gha area in the suburb of Damascus.
There is no power and no strength save God! (Ynn, Dhayl (Guo) vol.1:
207)
Palm trees were an important part of the diet and the agriculture economy
throughout the region. The loss of palm trees described above was due to
the cold temperature that destroy the terminal bud at the top part of the
tree. If the bud freezes the tree, in most cases, will die. The swarm of locust
that descended on Diyr Bakr was clearly not the cause of this famine, it
merely worsened the already difficult situation.
Matters in the early twentieth century were much the same and methods of dealing with a swarm of locust hardly changed or improved. Probably the worst locust wave in the region occurred during the First World
19For the winter of 714-5/1315 see Nuwayr, Nihyat 32:231. For the winter of 1316 see
also afad Muammad, Nuzhat al-Malik, 231-4. For the winter of 717/1317-18 see Abl-Fid,
Syrian Prince, 73 and Maqrz, Sulk, vol. 2, pt 1:171.
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War, it lasted eight months (March to October 1915). The vast cloud of
locust was so dense some said it blotted the sun in mid afternoon. Luckily
both wheat and barley were harvested before the locust arrived.
Food in Palestine were already in short supply due to the war, the swarm
of locust brought matters to an extreme. The population was panic stricken.
The vegetation throughout the region was destroyed. Vines, citrus and
olive groves were demolished; even Eucalyptus trees were stripped bare.
Rabbis in Jerusalem conducted special prayers to try and remove the
swarm, and ordered the community to fast. The Turkish governor, Djemal
Pasha ordered each man between the age of 15 and 60 to collect 20 kg each
of locust eggs. Those who did not obey were fined. It was an impossible
task. A few weeks later the eggs hatched and the region was covered with
a thick layer of larvae. A year later (1916) the country was struck once again
by swarms of Red Locust.20
Today international organizations such as Desert Locust Control Organization for East Africa and the United Nation Food and Agriculture
Organization have survey teams that warn farmers across East Africa and
the Middle East. Although locust outbreaks are quite rare, some regions
have seen the return of locusts in recent years (1986 East Africa). The last
large scale locust plague in the Levant occurred in 1959. Small swarms
arrived in southern Israel in 2004, but caused no damage.21
Table 7.1:Waves of locust in the 12th-15th centuries
Year and
weather conditions
Geographical region
Source
1114
(April, May)
1120
Kingdom of Jerusalem
1146/7
Iraq
1147 (May)
Salkhad, Bosra
1152-3
drought in
Diyr Bakr
175
Table 7.1:Continued
Year and
weather conditions
Geographical region
Source
1174-5
drought
In the east
1223-4
1224-5
drought
10 1226
drought
11 1274
Baghdad
12 1280
13 1302 (June)
intense heat
14 1302 (July)
Damascus (Gha)
15 1316
cold winter
Diyr Bakr
16 1363-4
Syria, Damascus
17 1369
Syria, Damascus
19 1401 (May)
20 1401 (June)
Damascus
21 1437
Egypt
Table summary: Syria (11). Iraq, Mosul and Baghdad (7); The Jazira (4) Diyr
Bakr (4). There is a very slight difference in the number of locust waves in
each century. The twelfth century had five waves of locusts recorded. Both
the thirteenth and the fourteenth had six each while the fifteenth century
had four. The fourteenth century saw less of these locust swarms because
i-Iraq
b-Basra
m- Mosul
d-Dyiar Bakir
j-Jazira
da-Damascus
s-Syria
bo-Bosra
ty-Tyre
jr-Jerusalem
e-Egypt
sh-Sharqiyya
ae-K. Armenians
c-Cyprus
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177
178
chapter seven
Waves of Mice and Rats
Genetic changes in a species and extreme changes in the weather are also
known to influence the number of rodents. In Europe, during medieval
and early modern times there were on average three outbreaks per century. Elton, one of the most prominent scholars on the subject of rodent
dynamics, suggested that the biggest outbreaks coincided with other environmental disasters.27 Population densities in times of outbreaks can, at
their peaks, become 1000 times higher than at the lows of the cycles.28
Other than the outbreak of 1077, the ten waves of mice that are recorded
during the period under discussion are concerned with damage to crops
and granaries.
179
Wheat growing regions are a natural habitat for rodents. The Levant
vole (Microtus guentheri) and its subspecies are responsible for most of the
agriculture damage (Figure 7.3).
180
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it, but Gods decree is not to be averted. The water rose up from drains and
wells on the east side and much of it was flooded. (Ibn al-Athr (Richards),
Kmil, 3:182)
In most cases cereals suffered greater damage than other crops, but sugar
cane and dates were occasionally given preference especially by mice. Date
groves give little shelter exposing rodents to animals and birds of prey;
wheat and barley fields, on the other hand, provide cover and protection.31
During the 1931 outbreak in the Jesrael valley, losses reached 50 percent in
wheat fields. The only way to save the crop was to harvest it as early as
possible, and turn over the earth with a deep plow that will destroy their
burrows.32
During the 1985 outbreak of mice (microtus socialis guentheri) in the
Golan, the population reached 1000 mice per dunam! The average regular
numbers of mice per dunam is between 100-200.33 Both the Golan and the
Horan were badly plagued by mice in 1261. The Horan was well known as
one of the most important grain growing regions. Syria, which at the time,
was gradually being incorporated into the Mamluk sultanate, was caught
with low grain supplies.
And in this year (659/1261) a multitude of mice set against the crops in the
Horan the Jolan and its surrounding region and what they consumed was
estimated at a total of 300,000 sacks (ghirara) of flour other than barley,
and the price of a ghirara of flour rose to 400 dirham in Damascus.... And
the Franks imported grain and brought it to the Muslim regions. (Ibn Abd
al-hir, Raw (Sadeque), 139-140)
The Franks cooperation with the Mamluk sultan, in this particular case,
was a clear sign of weakness. The shortage of grain in the Muslim territories
in Syria was an opportunity to make a profit and offer helpa quite
acknowledgment of the new political and military regional power.
When the sultan went towards Syria, Sir John de Ibelin, the count of Jaffa,
sent a messenger offering submission and bringing provisions. The sultan
and some of the amirs had sent a huge amount of barley and flour by sea
from Damietta to Jaffa. (Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw (Sadeque), 135)
181
The imported grain was quickly transferred and sold in Muslim lands. The
potential profit to be made by the Franks was no doubt high. In later years,
once the Mamluk rgime was established it became better organized; grain
was controlled and stored by the sultans.34
The situation required further diplomatic steps to secure grain imports
and their safe transfer by land and sea to regions in Syria.
At the same time prices rose in Syria, because most of the imports used to
come from Frankish territories. So peace was concluded on the same terms
that had existed up to the end of the reign of al-Malik al-Nir,35 and providing that prisoners taken since that time until the time of the treaty should
be set free. The Frankish ambassadors set out with them to receive the term
of the treaty for themselves, and in the same way a treaty was fixed with
the Count of Jaffa and the governor of Beirut . The roads became safe and
imports increased. (Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw (Sadeque), 135)
The diplomatic cooperation between the sultan and the Franks ended
soon after Syria recovered from the plague of mice and the swarm of locust.
During the mid 1260s, Baybars resumed the aggressive policy against the
Franks and conquered several of the Crusader towns along the Palestinian
littoral.
Frequent summer showers encourage breeding conditions, the moist
soil allowing mice to burrow with ease; food is in abundance as cereals are
ready to be harvested. Such conditions may be the cause of a sudden and
considerable rise in the number of mice. The results will be apparent 3-5
months after the rain. The population of mice may remain high for as long
as 18 months.36
In 1120 when both locust and mice devoured the crops throughout the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, according to William of Tyre, the mice stayed for
four consecutive years. Long droughts will usually curb the breeding of
mice and rats, while heavy continuous rains or floods that prolong the
growth of grasses will cause outbreaks. Their numbers will decline gradually once the rains stop and the grasses slowly disappear.37
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Although Bodenheimer found it difficult to pin point the exact metrological factors that lead to outbreaks, he was convinced that the cause for
these outbreaks is related to changes in the weather. Low temperatures
(below 3 Celsius) will reduce their activity.38 Severe winters will usually
lead to high mortality. It is important to note that while outbreaks develop
gradually, their decline occurs in a relatively short period.39
Most regions along the Nile suffered from a high number of rodents. The
white bellied mouse (Mus musculus gentilis) makes its home in towns and
villages along the Nile Valley. It depends on human habitation for its survival. The Nile Rat (Arvicanthis niloticus) is limited to the Nile Valley and
irrigated farms which are situated near the river. They can also be found
in relatively dry areas where the tall grass provides good cover.40
Manfal, located on the central section of the Nile, was robbed of its
crops in 738/1337.
In Manfal, a plague of mice destroyed both crops and seeds and food
supplies in storage. The sultan in this particular case lost 60,000 irdab. The
Nile floods were late and came with great force causing severe damage to
grain storage. (Maqrz, Sulk, 2: 454-6)
In most cases both insects and rodents won the battle leaving behind them
bare fields. On many occasions the vast scale of the disaster was such that
rulers could do very little to assist the population. In some cases aid was
shipped from one region to another but mostly farmers were left to fend
for themselves.
The crisis of 1120, described by William of Tyre, was caused by a combined wave of locust and mice, which swept through the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. William clearly conveys the magnitude of this event.
In the same year, 1120 of the incarnation of the Lord, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, because of our sins, was afflicted with many troubles. In addition to
the injury caused by the enemy (the battle with Il-Ghazi), swarms of locusts
fell upon the land, and a scourge of devouring mice, for four successive
years, so completely destroyed the crops that it seemed as if the whole world
would lack bread. (William of Tyre, vol. 1, Book 11: 535)
183
Baldwin II chose a more practical line of action. The king obviously, had
little or no grain to distribute or sell in order to ease the food shortage; he
thus did his best by relieving the burden on traders and merchants who
dealt in foodstuff.
This edict he ordered confirmed by a document sealed with the royal seal,
that it might be valid forever. Thereafter, no Latin who entered or left the
city, whether he brought in or carried out goods, should be compelled to
pay anything under any pretext whatever, but was to have the privilege of
buying and selling without tax. Moreover to the Syrians, Greeks, Armenians,
and all men of whatever nation, even the Saracens, he gave the free privilege
of carrying into the Holy City without tax wheat, barley, and any kind of
pulse. He even remitted the customary tax on weights and measures. By
this action, he conciliated the people and gained the good will of the populace. For in kingly fashion and with praiseworthy affection, he seems to
have provided for the good of the citizens in two respects. First, he caused
the city to be more bountifully supplied with provisions by arranging that
they could be brought in from outside without tax; secondly, following the
example of his predecessor, he made every effort to increase the population
of the city beloved of God. (William of Tyre, vol. 1, Book 11: 537-8)
Though small and quiet, locust and rodents were periodically a real threat,
leaving vast sections of the population with little or no food, and on the
verge of famine. In recent decades many orchards throughout the Galilee,
the Low Land and the Jordan Valley have been guarded by barn owls (Tyto
alba)a nocturnal predator that feeds on a variety of rodents. Nesting
boxes are built and maintained by farmers in order to keep the number of
rodents under control and reduce the quantity of pesticides.41 Although
today there are many different solutions to control and protect fields and
orchards, it took centuries for farmers to secure their crops and harvest
most of what they had planted and sowed.
41Barn owls will hunt over 2000 rodents during the nesting season, which stretches
over approximately three months. Bahat, O. and Leshem, Y. Owls in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1991),
71-3, 87-93; Meyrom, K., Motro, Y., Leshem, Y., Aviel, S., Izhaki, I., Argyle, F. and Charter, M.
Nest-box use by the Barn Owl Tyto alba in a biological pest control program in the Beit
Shean valley, Israel, Ardea 4 (2009):433-467.
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Part four
185
186
chapter seven
187
Chapter Eight
188
chapter eight
ing with the enemy not to destroy the meagre crops, which characterized
years of low rainfall, or negotiating with the enemy to permit them to sow
new crops.
In this month (afar 662/December 1263) the Franks asked the deputies of
the sultan for permission to put the lands (of Syria) under cultivation and
sow them with a large quantity of grain. A treaty was concluded with them
lasting up to the harvest time. (Ibn Abd al-hir, Raw (Sadeque), 203)
189
political entities into a relatively calmer period until the crisis was over. It
would be nave to assume that good will and humanitarian consideration
led rulers to seek more peaceful ways to solve immediate evils caused by
natural disastersthe fury of God. As in most cases it was usually a question of economic, security and political interests.
Food shortage, lack of water and disputes over grazing did not destabilize rgimes, nor did they substantially increase the tension between Muslims and Franks. The short-term peace treaties that were signed after
environmental disasters did not change the nature of the conflict between
the Crusaders and the Muslims; they simply allowed each state the peace
of mind needed in order to cope with disaster.
Similar agreements were signed in modern times; as in the medieval
period they too did not change long term policies, but rather helped to
reduce the tension for a short period of time. A good example is that of
president Nixons government. In 1972-1973 The Soviet Union suffered
from poor grain harvests due to a harsh winter followed by a dry summer.
In the summer of 1972 the Americans sold 25 percent of their grain to the
Soviet government (it is important to note that in 1971, America had a
bumper crop).5 A three year American-Soviet maritime agreement was
signed opening an increasing number of ports to ships from both nations.
There were numerous critics but Nixons administration officials hailed
the sale as providing markets for U.S. farmers and reducing U.S.-Soviet
tensions6
Although the 1290s in Cairo saw the rise and fall of five sultans,7 tension
in the court and numerous intrigues, none according to Holt, were related
to the famine conditions in Egypt or Syria, but rather to the inability of the
Mamluks to organize the transmission of rule after the death of a sultan.
Or as Holt clearly phrased it What was lacking in the Mamluk state was
effective constitutional machinery.8 This line of thought is further supported by Gurr who examined conflicts all across the world in the twentieth century, his conclusions were: Power transition within states have
been the principal immediate condition of civil communal warfare past
5Sobel, L. A. ed. World Food Crisis (New York, 1975), 39-47; Brada, J. C. The SovietAmerican grain agreement and the national interest, American Journal of Agriculture
Economics, 65, 4 (November 1983):651-6.
6Sobel, Food Crisis, 41.
7Al-Ashraf Khall 1290-93; al-Nir Muamed 1293-1294 (first reign); al-dil Ketbugha
1294-1296; al-Manr Lchn 1296-1299.
8Holt, P. M. The Sultanate of al-Manr Lchn (696-8/1296-9), BSOAS 36 (1973): 532.
190
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The use of diplomacy to ease a crisis was seldom applied in the early Mamluk period. It seems the Mamluks could, in most years, grow sufficient grain
or purchase it to supplement their needs. The catastrophic hydrological
9Gurr, T. R. Peoples against states: ethnopolitical conflict and changing world system,
International Studies Quarterly 38, 3 (September 1993):364.
10Amitai-Preiss, Mongols, 71-73; Ayalon, Auxiliary Forces, 13-37, Ayalon, D. Studies
on the Structure of the Mamluk Army-I The Army Stationed in Egypt, BSOAS 15 (1953): 204;
Ayalon, D. Studies on the Structure of the Mamluk Army-II, The ala, BSOAR 16 (1954):
448-466; Ayalon, D. The Wafidiya in the Mamluk Kingdom, in Islamic Culture, 25 (1951):
90. [Rpt. in Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1250-1517), London, Variorum, 1977, no. II].
191
drought that struck Syria, Palestine, the Hijaz and Yemen during 1296-98
was one of the worst the Early Mamluk sultanate experienced:
In this year (697/1297-1298) spring wells and rivers in Damascus all dried
up. The Thawara River was merely two shibrs, knee deep while the Barad
river ceased to reach the Jisrin. Most farms in Damascus and the country
side and grain farms suffered damage. In the Ghuta area most trees died
prices of flour soared. (Ynn, Dhayl (Guo) 1:104-105)
The rain was late in Damascus and Horan, Nablus, Jerusalem and the villages
in most of Syria due to the fact that winter came in afar 695 (December
1296) and ended in Kanun I (end of December). People [suffered] great
shortage and pain. Prices rose to the maximum especially in the Horan,
Jerusalem and Nablus. The water dried up
in the land of Syria. The seeds
Large quantities of grain were bought and shipped from Sicily and Constantinople to Egypt. And again the rich were ordered to provide for the
poor.11 From all the rgimes that ruled in the Levant during the Medieval
Warm Period, the early Mamluk sultanate was best organized to cope with
droughts. They did not always succeed in preventing famine and combating it, but their efforts were by far greater than those of previous rulers. The
increase in arable land, led to larger crop yields. Storage sites located
within fortresses were added and grain could be distributed within the
sultanate on its safe and well controlled roads.
Although the military administration acting on behalf of the sultan both
initiated and executed this strategy, and the army had priority to use these
stocks on their long-distance campaigns, these stocks of grain were delivered to the urban centers in times of scarcity. Unlike Saladins reign in
which the army, as well as large section of the population were forced to
migrate to Egypt in times of drought in Syria, large waves of migration were
rarely witnessed in the Mamluk period. The only migrations reported were
from the villages to the large towns and cities where food was distributed.
In all fairness one must remember that the climate was more favorable
towards farmers in the early Mamluk period. There were altogether fewer
droughts.
Historical sources, archaeological excavations, and pollen studies indicate agriculture in Europe during the 1100-1300 prospered. Vineyards were
cultivated in England and central and northern Europe, attesting to a rise
in temperatures. Oats and barley were grown in Greenland and Iceland.
11Baybars al-Man, Kitb al-tufa, 305-6.
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193
helped in rebuilding earthquake damage. Although no population estimates are available, one may safely assume that since the Latin East was a
fairly small entity, Europe was able to provide the required assistance. If
one had an outside supplier of grain, or funding one could safely rely on,
a small kingdom could endure periods of environmental disasters. This
was true also in the case of Muslim Syria. Once Syria and Egypt were united
under Muslim rule, Syria often relied on Egyptian wheat in times of food
shortage.
The second half of the Crusader period depicts a very different political
picture. Although during the period of the Kingdom of Acre (1188-1292) the
region saw a significant drop in the number of droughts, matters became
considerably more difficult. After the battle of Hattin and the conquest of
Jerusalem the capital was shifted to the port of Acre. Most of the region of
the Judean hills, the area round Samaria, Nablus and southern Jordan came
under Muslim control. For a short while the Franks regained part of their
territorial losses through diplomatic negotiations, but by 1247 the kingdom
returned to its confined narrow coastal strip.16 Their dependence on
imported cereals grew, due to the loss of large tracts of cultivated lands.
Political disputes and rivalry within the court, among the barons and the
military orders weakened the kingdoms political, economical and military
strength.17 The unification of the Muslim forces began to pose a threat after
the battle of Hattin. However under Saladins successors the Muslim
Levant resembled a loose family federation and the aggressive policy
against the Franks, pursued by Saladin was only resumed after 1260 when
the Mamluks regime was established.18 The European military aid and
financial support, which the kingdom received during the second half of
the thirteenth-century hardly matched that of the first hundred years of
the kingdoms existence. The Latin East still received financial aid from the
papal court, but the ideology and the faith of people and monarchs in the
Crusader kingdom had subsided.19 Thus, although the weather was more
favourable in the second half of the thirteenth century the kingdom fared
worse. Environmental crisis can be avoided, damage and suffering can be
reduced if the political entity is stable and if a reliable outside ally can be
found.
16Prawer, Latin East, vol. 2: 302.
17Prawer, Latin East, vol. 2: 211- 212, 241-242; Marshal, C. J. Warfare in the Latin East,
1192-1291 (Cambridge, 1996), 19.
18Marshal, Warfare, 257-261.
19Prawer, Latin East, vol. 2: 380-381; Marshall, Warfare, 26-28; Housely, N. ed. and tr.
Documents on the later Crusades, 1274-1580 (London, 1996), 15-20.
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chapter eight
The Medieval Warm Period that corresponds with some of the strongest
seismic activity in the Levant did not lead to dramatic changes in the
political, economic or social spheres. It did not cause mass migration, nor
is there any evidence of desertion of villages and towns. Periods of crisis
sharpened the abilities of rulers to focus on their immediate interests and
troubles and strive to reach quick solutions; long debates, arguments, lists
of terms and the never ending run of diplomatic embassies appear to have
been saved for times of plenty, when buildings stood firm and bellies were
full.
glossary
195
Glossary
amr al-arab-(Arabic) commander of the beduin in the Mamluk army.
dhir- (Arabic) equals 58 cm. Note that the precise length depended upon the region of
the Islamic world.
Drought-a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently long to cause serious damage to
agriculture and other activities in the affected area.
Dry farming-cultivated crops that are not irrigated.
Epicenters - the site on the ground surface above the point from which the waves originate,
usually many kilometres below the earths surface.
Famine - A protracted shortage of total food in a restricted geographical area, causing
widespread disease and death from starvation
Franks- refers to Europeans who settled in the Levant after the first Crusade.
Ghirara- (Arabic) a sack of wheat weighing 69.6 kg.
iq- pl. iqat (Arabic) - Land allocated by the sultan or high ranking amir to soldiers in
return for military service.
Irdab- (Arabic) 1 Irdab equals 2.500 pounds.
Istisqa- (Arabic) rain prayer
Marj-a term referring to pasture land or meadow, a wide open tract of land abounding in
herbage.
Rain-fed agriculture- cultivated crops that depend solely on rain.
Seismic waves
Earthquake surface waves - seismic waves that follow the earths surface only.
S and P waves-S waves are the secondary seismic waves, traveling more slowly than the P
wave and consisting elastic vibrations transverse to the direction of travel. It can not
propagate in liquid. P waves are the primary or fastest waves traveling away from a
seismic event through rock and consisting of a train of compressions and dilatations of
the material.
Raleigh waves contain compressional motion
Love waves do not have a compressional motion; they travel at a much slower pace than P
and S waves. Their amplitude, however, is larger because they travel close to the Earths
surface rather than through the main body of the Earth.
Soil Salination- caused as water evaporates from the soil, leaving a high percentage of salt
and sodium, which are harmful to crops and soil texture. In arid regions sodium ions
cause a breakdown of the soil reducing the drainage.
urbn or arab -(Arabic) the term used in contemporary medieval sources for nomads of
Arab origin.
196
glossary
bibliography
197
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INDEX
Abl-Fid 91
Acre 35, 39, 77n13, 86, 118, 138, 146, 193
al-Adil 62, 63, 65, 85, 86, 134, 139, 140, 148,
150-152
Africa (north) 5, 15, 42, 53, 76, 82, 93, 120
Aimery I 129, 135, 140, 155, 188
Aimery II 85, 86
Aleppo 13, 15, 30, 43, 46, 52, 62, 63, 86, 92, 97,
98, 101, 107, 128, 132, 136, 140
Alexandria 15, 39
Algeria 15
Anatolia 118, 139
Antioch 32, 43, 73, 87, 107, 127, 128, 129, 132,
133-134, 136, 138, 192
Armenia 39, 89, 90, 94
Arqa 133
Ascalon 35, 61
Al-Ashraf Khall 52, 89, 90, 94
Ayyubid 56, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 74, 75, 76, 80,
83, 139, 146, 148, 149, 150, 155, 190
Azerbaijan 140, 5n17
Baalbek 35, 49, 86, 101, 102, 129, 135, 140, 148
Baghdad 5, 14, 39, 49, 109, 108, 173, 175, 179
Baldwin II 29, 183, 187
Baldwin III 129, 133
Baldwin IV 17, 77, 78, 79, 80, 161
Banyas 35, 77, 78, 79, 86, 140
Baqaa Valley 35, 114n3, 120
Bar Hebraeus 71, 88, 91
Barley 14, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 41, 46, 58, 60,
61, 71, 76, 92, 100, 169, 172, 173
Baybars 37, 39, 51, 52, 63, 64, 88, 89, 152, 156,
159, 181, 188
Baybars al-Mansr 64
Beaufort 37
Beduin 31, 45, 46, 50, 52, 67, 80
Beirut 80, 85, 181
Beit Shan 33
Black wind 41, 42, 43, 97
Cairo 5, 15, 21, 31, 42, 60, 63, 64, 66n42, 70,
85, 90, 91, 92, 94, 97-9, 117, 135, 139, 146,
169, 188, 189
Camels 44, 47, 48, 49, 52, 62
Cannibalism 27, 69, 71, 72, 83, 87, 91, 105
210
index
index
Nablus 92, 140, 183, 191, 193
Nser-e Khosraw 26, 35
al-Nir Muammad 90, 94, 96, 97, 98,
99-100, 105
Nile 82, 85, 91, 93, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 105, 135,
140, 182
Nile Valley 33, 42, 60, 62, 81
Nilometer 81, 93, 98
Nr al-Dn 129-130, 132, 135, 148, 150
Plague 26, 31, 47, 83, 85, 100, 100n18, 101, 105,
106, 169
Plain of Sharon 35
Pools 18, 49, 123
Qalwn 39, 89
Qus 139
Raids 4, 29, 51, 53, 78, 79, 80, 81, 86, 133, 139,
161, 188
Rain 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 52, 53, 56, 75, 76, 77,
80, 83, 85, 87, 92, 93, 97, 104, 105, 106, 108,
109, 168, 169, 172, 181, 188, 191
Rain failure 32-33, 47-48, 76, 49, 51, 83, 88,
93, 96172
Rain prayer 69, 70, 74, 95-96
Ramla 86
Rats 9, 179, 181, 182
Raymond of Tripoli 62, 78, 83, 84
Red fish 106-107, 108, 109
Red locust 174
Red rain 109
Red Tower 34-35
Red year 96
Safad 37, 61, 64, 86, 149, 155-9, 208
Sahel 43, 53
Saladin 4, 37, 45, 60, 62, 76, 77, 78-81, 83, 84,
99, 135, 139, 152, 155, 161, 188, 190, 191, 192,
193
211
212
index