I always hear in documentaries and history classes about the effect of the black death in Europe, the economic changes that occurred because of it and stuff like the widespread persecution of Jews. I've never heard anything, though, about what happened in the middle east. Wikipedia has this map showing that a lot of the population/cultural centers of the Islamic world suffered from the plague, but the page itself says nothing about the cultural/economic/political impact, merely describing the geographic spread of the disease. The page on consequences of the black death sees to focus almost entirely on western Europe, the only mention of the Middle East is a few rough casualty figures.
So do we actually know anything about the effects of/response to the plague within the Islamic world? Was there a similar response in the persecution of Jews, or were Middle Eastern Jews spared the persecution that European Jews suffered? Were there economic upheavals like what happened in Europe?
The classic of this topic is [Dols 1977], and most of the academic literatures on the Black Death, including the standard [Benedictow 2005], seems to rely heavily on his analysis.
Comparing with Christians, Dols schematizes main Islamic responses to this outbreak into mainly fourhold (Dols 1977: 294):
According to him, these three understanding of the disease actually came from the previous outbreak of the plague in the 7th and 8th century, i.e. Early Islam Period. The pioneer days of Islam and its laws were also the heydays of Pest, beginning with the Plague of Justinian.
While the fourth, last point is still regarded as valid, however, the more recent historiography like [Tucker 1981], [Akasoy 2006], and further, [Aberth 2011] illustrate the more nuanced and diverse responses of the Muslims across the Mediterranean as well as the Middle East.
The more or less accurate figure of the demographic loss caused by the Black Death was difficult to estimate since the people in the Middle East had already suffered diverse natural disasters like drought, famine, and successive outbreaks of the plague (in sum, ca. 150 between 1250 and 1500) in addition to the Black Death itself (Tucker 1981: 220f.). Nevertheless, Tucker cites some entries of extraordinary occurrences during the outbreak: In 1348, the landowner in Sharkiyya (now Oman?) could not receive the land tax since the farmers died or abandon their land. Religious fervor could be seen in several places, including some dubious natures like magical charms. He wonders how much this outbreak contributes the general declline trend of the Mamlūk Egypt (Tucker 1981: 221). Schamiloglu also does similar observation on the possible correlation between the population loss and the decline of Golden Horde in SE Russia, the origin place of the plague according to Benedictow (Schamiloglu 2017).
On the other hand, Aberth argues that the possible economic impact of the Black Death on the Middle East was just opposite to that of England: While English farmers enjoyed relatively more favorable wages after the Black Death, in Egypt wage was falling, and the price of grain was instead rising. He cites Borsh's new books on the comparison between these two countries, and notes that the latter's estimated GDP in 1500 decreased by ca. 60%. Thus, the Black Death in Egypt did not free the peasants (fellahin) from the Mamluk military elites (Aberth 2011: 59f.).
Works mentioned:
[Edited]: typo fixes.
