Fiona’s Reviews > الطاعون في العصر الأموي: صفحات مجهولة من تاريخ الخلافة الأموية > Status Update

The plagues delivered their most devastating-and final-blow for the Umayyads as they faced their Abbasid cousins, the latter chose the perfect time for revolution: between the last two plagues which hit the Umayyads, giving the latter no time to recover their military or manpower. Marwan bin Muhammad refused to send what remained of his men to his wali in Khorasan; the plagues had already sealed his dynasty's fate...

The plagues' biggest political blow was in the menacing role they played in pivotal military outcomes. Starting with the clash between Ibn Al Zubayr RA and the soldiers of AbdulMalik ibn Marwan, where a recent plague weakened the manpower & position of the former, to the loss of Armenia to Justinian which was also affected by the plague of Ibn Al Zubayr in 69H & lack of human "buffers" by the borders in its wake.

We cannot look at the decline of Damascus' status in Umayyad history without seeing that this was driven by the plagues, as Umayyad rulers began turning away from the city and choosing safer areas with open, clean spaces for themselves, beginning with Hisham bin AbdulMalik who settled in Al-Rusafa (by Ar-Raqqa) & made it his new capital & ending with the final ruler Marwan ibn Muhammad residing in Harran.

A main cause of anxiety during the plagues from the eyes of the rulers was the shrinking in the population of Arabs-who were the trusted backbone of the Umayyad army-entire tribes perished & permanently ended. To try & combat this, Umar bin AbdulAziz RA renewed a policy of giving a monetary gift for newborns, to help people in economic strife & encourage child-bearing to compensate for the massive human losses.

The plagues also had a cultural-psychological effect on Umayyad society, embodied in the way people (including rulers) would flee due to natural survivor instincts even though there is a hadith prohibiting this, and those left behind would in turn judge & hold those who fled in contempt.
Marriages & divorces also became more common due to the increase of widows, and as the death toll rose, sentimentality waned.

Economic repercussions of the plagues included inflation due to the decrease in workers after the massive death tolls & the emigration of farmers running from the disease who permanently settled in mountainous areas, which reduced the revenue from agriculture & made products scarce. A reduced population in turn reduced the total jizya collected, which was a reason behind recurring decisions to tax converts to Islam.

To understand the extent of the demographic problems caused by the plagues due to the number of casualties, the plague of Muslim ibn Qutaiba can serve as one of countless examples, it was so violent that the doors of cities would not close during the day because pallbearers were constantly carrying tombs that held several corpses to leave outside of the city.

Unearthed letters written by survivors of the plagues who detailed their predicament & the number of people they lost allow researchers to clear some of the fog surrounding the death tolls during the plagues, on average the ratio of survivors to those perished is roughly 1:14.

We have a clear idea of the geographic spread of the final Umayyad plague. It started by hitting the towns near the Euphrates, spreading into the peninsula, Anatolia & the Levant before reaching Africa.
Sources also tell us of the myriad of scholars, muhaditheen & political figures who perished in this plague including Ibrahim bin Muhammad bin Ali Al Imam, the grandfather of the Abbasid caliphs who died in prison.

The plague reared its head one final time before the end of the Umayyad caliphate, a Sweeping One that hit in 131 hijri & became known by many names, most commonly as the plague of Muslim bin Qutaiba. More violent than its other sweeping predecessors, which lasted for days or weeks, this plague persisted for four months, its climax being in Ramadan before the people finally found release in Shawwal.