Editing Black Death (section)

====West Asian and North African outbreak====
The disease struck various regions in the Middle East and North Africa during the [[pandemic]], leading to serious depopulation and permanent change in both economic and social structures.{{sfn|Green|2018}} 

By autumn 1347, plague had reached [[Alexandria]] in Egypt, transmitted by sea from [[Constantinople]] via a single merchant ship carrying slaves.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book| vauthors = Byrne JP |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5KtDfvlSrDAC|title=Encyclopedia of the Black Death|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2012|isbn=978-1-59884-253-1|location=Santa Barbara, California|pages=51|language=en|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=4 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604122924/https://books.google.com/books?id=5KtDfvlSrDAC|url-status=live}}</ref> By late summer 1348, it reached [[Cairo]], capital of the [[Mamluk Sultanate]], cultural center of the [[Muslim world|Islamic world]], and the largest city in the [[Mediterranean Basin]]; the [[Bahri dynasty|Bahriyya]] child sultan [[an-Nasir Hasan]] fled and more than a third of the 600,000 residents died.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book| vauthors = Byrne JP |title=Encyclopedia of the Black Death|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2012|isbn=978-1-59884-254-8|location=Santa Barbara, California|pages=65–66|chapter=Cairo, Egypt|oclc=769344478}}</ref> The [[Nile]] was choked with corpses despite Cairo having a medieval hospital, the late 13th-century [[bimaristan]] of the [[Qalawun complex]].<ref name=":7" /> The historian [[al-Maqrizi]] described the abundant work for grave-diggers and practitioners of [[Islamic funeral|funeral rite]]s; plague recurred in Cairo more than fifty times over the following one and a half centuries.<ref name=":7" />

{{anchor|plague-in-palestine}}{{anchor|plague-in-syria}}
During 1347, the disease travelled eastward to [[Gaza City|Gaza]] by April; by July it had reached [[Damascus]], and in October plague had broken out in [[Aleppo]].<ref name=":6" /> That year, in [[Syria (region)|the territory]] of modern [[Lebanon]], [[Syria]], [[Israel]], and [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], the cities of [[Ascalon]], [[Acre, Israel|Acre]], [[Jerusalem]], [[Sidon]], and [[Homs]] were all infected. In 1348–1349, the disease reached [[Antioch]]. The city's residents fled to the north, but most of them ended up dying during the journey.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/an-economic-history-of-the-world-since-1400.html|title=An Economic History of the World since 1400|website=English|access-date=23 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725223220/https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/an-economic-history-of-the-world-since-1400.html|archive-date=25 July 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Within two years, the plague had spread throughout the Islamic world, from Arabia across North Africa.{{sfn|Kelly|2006}}{{page needed|date=May 2021}}

The pandemic spread westwards from Alexandria along the African coast, while in April 1348 [[Tunis]] was infected by ship from Sicily. Tunis was then under attack by an army from Morocco; this army dispersed in 1348 and brought the contagion with them to Morocco, whose epidemic may also have been seeded from the Islamic city of [[Almería]] in [[al-Andalus]].<ref name=":6" />

[[Mecca]] became infected in 1348 by pilgrims performing the [[Hajj]].<ref name=":6" /> In 1351 or 1352, the [[Rasulid dynasty|Rasulid]] sultan of the [[Yemen]], al-Mujahid Ali, was released from Mamluk captivity in Egypt and carried plague with him on his return home.<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Cite book| vauthors = Sadek N |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P-pGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT956|title=Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia – Volume II: L–Z|publisher=Routledge|year=2006|isbn=978-1-351-66813-2| veditors = Meri J |language=en|chapter=Rasulids|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=27 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727114216/https://books.google.com/books?id=P-pGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT956|url-status=live}}</ref> During 1349, records show the city of [[Mosul]] suffered a massive epidemic, and the city of [[Baghdad]] experienced a second round of the disease.<ref>{{Citation |title=The Black Death and the Rise of the Ottomans |date=2014 |work=Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes |pages=21–60 |editor-last=Ayalon |editor-first=Yaron |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/natural-disasters-in-the-ottoman-empire/black-death-and-the-rise-of-the-ottomans/D83E412C0BB3C092E79683722AFFFC33 |access-date=2024-03-02 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139680943.004 |isbn=978-1-107-07297-8}}</ref>