One Fifth of the Tiny Samaritan Community in Nablus Died in the Epidemic of 1786

Abstract

A three-page narrative of an epidemic that raged in Nablus in 1786 and its tragic consequences for the Samaritan community is preserved today in the British Library, MS Or. 2691.1 This epidemic (possibly the plague or cholera) took the lives of approximately four thousand people. Of these, about twenty were Samaritan men, women and children – one fifth of the city’s Samaritan population.2 The author and scribe of the narrative was the well-known Samaritan poet, Torah commentator, grammarian, philanthropist, and historian Ibrāhīm b. Ya˓qūb b. Murğān b. Ibrāhīm b. Ismā˓īl al-Danafī )1719-1786(, famous by his nickname El-˓Ayyeh, meaning “the pleader” or “the stammerer” and also