Muhammad

فمنها: اللهم صل على سيدنا محمد وسلم ونجنا بجاهه من طغيان الطاعون وسلم الطاعون روع وأمات وابتدأ خبره من الظلمات فواها له من زائر من خمس عشرة سنة دائر ما صين عنه الصين ولا منع منه حصن حصين سل هنديا في الهند واشتد على السند وقبض بكفيه وشبك على بلاد أزبك وكم قصم من ظهر فيما وراء النهر، ثم ارتفع ونجم وهجم على العجم وأوسع الخطا إلى أرض الخطا وقرم القرم ورمى الروم بجمر مضطرم وجر الجرائر إلى قبرص والجزائر ثم قهر خلقا بالقاهرة وتنبهت عينه لمصر فأذاهم بالساهرة وأسكن حركة الإسكندرية فعمل شغل الفقراء مع الحريرية.

From the essay: O God, bless our master Muhammad and grant him peace. Through his favor with You, save us from the tyranny of the plague, and keep us safe. The plague brought terror and death. Its story began in the Land of Darkness. Alas for this visitor, making its rounds for fifteen years! China was not shielded from it, and the strongest fortress could not keep it out. It drew its Indian blade in India, and it pressed hard on Sind. It seized the lands of Uzbek with both hands and locked its fingers around them. How many backs it broke in Transoxiana! Then it rose up, came into view, and fell on the Persians. It stretched its stride as far as Cathay. It gnawed at the Crimea and pelted the Rum with blazing coals. It dragged its crimes to Cyprus and the islands. Then it conquered people in Cairo. Its eye woke up to Egypt, and it struck them down on the plain of the Last Day. It stilled the bustle of Alexandria, and there it did the work of the Sufi poor among the Hariri brethren.

ومنها: فإن قال قائل هو يعدي ويبيد قلت: بل الله يبدي ويعيد، فإن جادل الكاذب في دعوى العدوى وتأول قلنا فقد قال الصادق - صلى الله عليه وسلم -: " فمن أعدى الأول استرسل ثعبانه وانساب " وسمي طاعون الأنساب وهو سادس طاعون وقع في الإسلام، وعندي أنه الموتان الذي أنذر به نبينا عليه أفضل الصلاة والسلام كان وكان:

Another passage: If someone says, “It is contagious and destroys,” I say, “No, God creates and brings back.” If a liar argues for contagion and twists the meaning, we say, “The Truthful One, God bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Then who infected the first?’” Its serpent uncoiled and slithered, and it was named the Plague of Lineages [because it took whole families]. It is the sixth plague to strike in Islam. In my view it is the great dying that our Prophet foretold, the best of blessing and peace be on him. In kān wa-kān verse:

Avemmo da mercatanti genovesi, uomini degni di fede, che aveano avute novelle di que’ paesi, che alquanto tempo innanzi a questa pestilenzia, nelle parti dell’Asia superiore uscì della terra, ovvero cadde dal cielo un fuoco grandissimo, il quale stendendosi verso il ponente, arse e consumò grandissimo paese senza alcuno riparo. E alquanti dissono, che del puzzo di questo fuoco si generò la materia corruttibile della generale pestilenzia: ma questo non possiamo accertare. Appresso sapemmo da uno venerabile frate minore di Firenze vescovo di . . . del Regno, uomo degno di fede, che s’era trovato in quelle parti dov’è la città di Lamech ne’ tempi della mortalità, che tre dì e tre notti piovvono in quello paese biscie con sangue che appuzzarono e corruppono tutte le contrade: e in quella tempesta fu abbattuto parte del tempio di Maometto, e alquanto della sua sepoltura.

We heard from Genoese merchants, trustworthy men who had news from those lands, that some time before this pestilence a huge fire came out of the earth, or fell from the sky, in upper Asia. It spread westward and burned up a vast country, and nothing could stop it. Some said that the stench of this fire produced the corrupt matter of the general pestilence, but we cannot confirm this. Next we learned from a venerable Franciscan friar from Florence, bishop of ... in the Kingdom, a trustworthy man, who had been in the region of the city of Lamech at the time of the mortality. He told us that for three days and three nights it rained snakes mixed with blood in that country, and they made the whole region stink and corrupted it. In that storm part of the temple of Muhammad was knocked down, and part of his tomb.