Epidemics and mortality crises in the Al-Tabari Chronicle

• Grant number: 23/12402-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• End date: September 16, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Cândido da Silva
• Grantee: Guilherme Oliveira Ferraz
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/02912-3 - A connected history of the Middle Ages: communication and circulation from the Mediterranean Sea, AP.TEM

Abstract

This research aims to study the phenomena of epidemics and mortality crises in the work Tr+kh al-Rusul wa al-Mulkk (History of the Prophets and Kings), commonly referred to as Tarikh al-Tabari, written by Abk Ja¿far Mu%ammad ibn Jar+r al-labar+ - a Muslim chronicler who lived between the years 839 (224 AH) and 923 (310 AH), in the region of Tabaristan, present-day Iran. The starting point will therefore be the census of mentions of epidemics in the work, especially between the seventh and eighth centuries, from the beginning of the Rashidun caliphate - the first after the death of the prophet Muhammad - to the end of the Umayyad caliphate. This period corresponds to the chronology of the Plague of Amwas based on the writings of al-Tabari and other Muslim chroniclers.2 The aim is therefore to understand the importance and impact of this event, which devastated a large part of the population, even victimising, as al-Tabari describes, rulers from the entire Levantine region. The study of this work represents, above all, an effort to understand how the author described the epidemic in that society, during a period of territorial expansion of the caliphates, marked by conflicts and interactions with other regions.