For hundreds of years, people have been taught that the Black Death sped across Asia like a wildfire, racing along the Silk Road from East to West and destroying everything in its path.
Maps, documentaries, and even some scientific papers have repeated this dramatic idea.
But new research now shows that this powerful story may not come from real history at all. Instead, it seems to come from a poem—one written almost seven hundred years ago—not from eyewitness accounts or scientific records.
The study traces these long‑standing beliefs back to a single Arabic text from the fourteenth century. Written by Ibn al‑Wardi, a poet and historian living in Aleppo in 1348–49, the piece is a “maqāma.” A maqāma is a type of creative story that was popular in medieval Arabic literature.
It usually follows a clever or mischievous trickster wandering through different lands, often told in rhyming prose. It was meant to entertain, not document real events. Yet over time, Ibn al‑Wardi’s poetic tale was mistakenly treated as a factual account of how the Black Death moved across Asia.
Modern genetic studies show that the bacteria that caused the Black Death most likely came from Central Asia. Some scientists have argued that the plague spread extremely quickly, traveling from Kyrgyzstan to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in less than ten years.
This idea, known as the “Quick Transit Theory,” mainly comes from reading Ibn al‑Wardi’s story as if it were a true historical report. But the new research challenges this assumption, pointing out that the story is meant to be symbolic rather than scientific.
The researchers question whether it is even possible for the plague bacteria to have traveled more than 3,000 miles so fast and then caused massive outbreaks across Western Eurasia and North Africa between 1347 and 1350.
In the poem, Ibn al‑Wardi imagines the plague as a wandering trickster who drifts from one region to another, spreading death in a long fifteen‑year journey. The story describes the disease coming from beyond China, then moving through India, Central Asia, Persia, the Black Sea, Egypt, and the Levant.
Because Ibn al‑Wardi later quoted parts of his own poem in his historical writings, later readers assumed it must be based on real events. This misunderstanding grew over time.
By the fifteenth century, Arab historians began treating the poem as a genuine account. Later, European historians repeated the same mistake, and the idea eventually shaped modern beliefs about how the Black Death spread.
According to researchers Muhammed Omar and Professor Nahyan Fancy from the University of Exeter, this single text sits in the middle of a “web” of historical confusion.
Professor Fancy explains that nearly all incorrect descriptions of the plague’s supposed journey across Asia can be traced back to Ibn al‑Wardi’s maqāma. It was never meant to be taken literally. The plague in his story behaves like a character meant to teach lessons, not like a real biological organism.
The study also discusses the cultural importance of the maqāma during the fourteenth century. These works were often performed aloud in one sitting, offering entertainment during a time of deep fear and uncertainty.
Ibn al‑Wardi’s piece was only one of at least three plague‑themed maqāmas written in 1348–49. These stories reflect how people tried to understand and cope with overwhelming loss. They reveal emotions, beliefs, and creative ways people faced a terrifying crisis.
Reinterpreting Ibn al‑Wardi’s poem as fiction rather than fact helps historians look more closely at other outbreaks that happened before the Black Death.
For example, epidemics in Damascus in 1258 and Kaifeng in 1232–33 are often forgotten but may offer important clues about how societies responded to disease. Understanding how communities remembered these earlier events may reshape our understanding of the Black Death itself.
Professor Fancy notes that creativity was likely a way for people to feel some control during a time of horror, just as many people today coped with the Covid‑19 pandemic by cooking, making art, or finding new hobbies. These plague‑era stories may not tell us how the disease moved, but they show how people lived through unimaginable tragedy.
In reviewing the findings, the study reveals that for centuries historians may have relied on a fictional poem rather than solid evidence when describing the early spread of the Black Death. This mistake shows how easily creative works can be confused with factual records when fear, memory, and history mix together.
The research encourages scholars to re‑evaluate long‑held assumptions and highlights the importance of using multiple sources, including scientific data, when reconstructing past events. It opens the door for more accurate interpretations of how the plague truly moved across continents.
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The study is published in Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies.
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