For more than six hundred years, a haunting tale of the Black Death traversing Asia through the Silk Route has remained prevalent among scholars. Nonetheless, new findings from the University of Exeter indicate that this narrative may stem from a singular misinterpreted poem, rather than concrete historical proof.
In a report published in the *Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies*, researchers disclose that a 14th-century Arabic literary story, or *maqama*, written by Ibn al-Wardi in Aleppo during the plague years of 1348–1349, has been erroneously perceived as a true depiction of the disease’s journey from China to Europe. The poem showcases a personified Plague functioning as a trickster, a representation that has been misconstrued as factual over the years, thereby advancing the “Quick Transit Theory” of plague spread.
PhD candidate Muhammed Omar and historian of Islamic medicine Nahyan Fancy assert that this single piece has been pivotal to ongoing misinterpretations. Composed in rhymed prose, Ibn al-Wardi’s tale presents the Plague as a destructive nomad moving from China to the Mediterranean. Subsequent readers, failing to identify this as a fictional motif, regarded it as a veritable historical record.
By the 15th century, historians from both Arab and European backgrounds had accepted this allegorical narrative as a genuine account of contagion from east to west. Some contemporary geneticists have even cited this narrative to support swift timelines for the movement of *Yersinia pestis* from Central Asia to the Mediterranean.
Omar and Fancy uncovered that Ibn al-Wardi’s *Risala* was among at least three plague-themed *maqamas* from the same era in the Mamluk context, including one by al-Safadi from Damascus. These texts depicted the plague as a cunning intruder misleading humanity, a tale intended for moral contemplation rather than medical record-keeping.
The researchers argue that approaching these writings as literary rather than historical invites fresh exploration into the lived realities during the plague. What artistic or narrative expressions did individuals resort to amidst widespread death? How did they employ creativity as a tool for endurance?
“These writings illuminate how creativity provided a semblance of control and functioned as a coping strategy during such an extreme crisis,” stated Professor Fancy. Although they do not clarify the plague’s dissemination, they showcase how society managed the disaster.
The *maqama*—a genre flourishing in medieval Islamic society—served as a vessel for satire, moral teachings, and resilience, typically performed aloud. By reevaluating Ibn al-Wardi’s story within this context, the Exeter researchers not only correct a long-standing misinterpretation but also highlight how literature shaped the historical remembrance of one of humanity’s gravest pandemics.
The study ultimately calls for historians to revise their perspectives on earlier regional plague incidents, such as those in Damascus (1258) and Kaifeng (1232–1233), rather than perceiving the 14th-century outbreak as a sudden Eurasian expansion.
[Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies: 10.5617/jais.12790](https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.12790)