Historical seismicity in the near and Middle East, North Africa, and Spain from Arabic documents (VIIth-XVIIIth century)

abstract A catalog of historical seismicity from the VIIth to the XVIIIth century A.D. was compiled from Arabic documents (many of which are unpublished manuscripts) for the near and Middle East, and in a lesser measure, for North Africa and Spain. In most cases, detailed descriptions have allowed us to assign Modified Mercalli intensities to the shocks for the localities where they were reported. The detailed chronology of a protracted episode of seismicity in northern Syria between 1156 and 1159 is given shock by shock from the relation of a Damascus chronicler.