وباء البصرة الكبير
وباء البصرة الكبير
c. 871 CE · 258 AH
In 258 plague spread from Ahwaz through Iraq to the gates of Fars: five to six hundred dead a day in Baghdad, and in Basra — already Zanj-besieged — the falls of sickness took more than twenty thousand 1.
At a glance
- Era
- The Early Abbasid Caliphate
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
In time
Summary
In 258 AH a plague appeared in al-Ahwaz and Iraq and spread as far as the borders of Fayd, as Ibn al-Jawzi relates in al-Muntazam. 1
Its effect
The source reports that those who died in Baghdad each day numbered between five hundred and six hundred. In Basra there was a great "hadda", a collapse of buildings, by which most of the city fell, and more than twenty thousand people died in it. 1
The figures come from Ibn al-Jawzi's account alone, and need an additional source.
Sources
- al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa'l-Umam — Ibn al-Jawzi, p. 100
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “وباء البصرة الكبير”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/plague-of-basra-258/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-17.