"THE PLAGUE SAT LIKE A KING ON THE THRONE"

The Black Death is infamous for ravaging the population of Europe - yet it was most lethal in the Muslim world, leaving such a trail of devastation that bodies were left rotting in the streets. Thomas Asbridge investigates why plague took such a heavy toll in the Near East

- MATT HOLLAND

On an autumn day in 1347, a ship docked in the ancient Egyptian harbour of Alexandria, gateway to the remarkable Islamic realm that today we know as the Mamluk Sultanate. It had set sail, probably from the Black Sea, carrying 32 merchants, a large crew and hundreds of slaves destined for sale in Egypt. But at some point during that voyage, a strange and merciless disease swept through the vessel. Some on board were tortured by grotesque swellings and tumours, while others coughed up torrents of blood. By the time the ship made landfall, only four merchants, one slave and perhaps 30 sailors remained alive - and they all died in the port within a matter of days.

The ship's arrival in Alexandria marked the outbreak there of the lethal plague now known to history as the Black Death. We tend to think of this 14th-century pandemic as a European phenomenon, but the disease also spread far beyond the boundaries of Catholic Christendom, travelling along the well-established Mediterranean trade routes that linked east and west.

Indeed, the Black Death arrived in Egypt at about the same time it landed in Sicily, and was arguably at its most destructive in the Muslim world of north Africa and the Near and Middle East. Here, the seemingly invincible Mamluk Sultanate - the force that had turned back the Mongol horde and crushed the crusaders was crippled by plague and eventually overrun by the Ottomans.

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