On Tuesday 11 Jumada I [460 H. = 18 March 1068],
there was an earthquake in Palestine which lasted for two and a
half hours and destroyed the Ramla area. It was felt as far as Ruhba and Kufa, and only two of the main gates at
Ramla were undamaged, and 15,000 townspeople were killed. In Ramla, there were two hundred children at school when
it collapsed on top of them, and no-one went in search of them because their parents were dead. The rock of
[the mosque of] Jerusalem split open, but then closed up again. Others say that it did not split open at all,
but moved and then returned to its original position; and the sea receded [to a distance equal to] a day['s walk]
and people went down to the sea bed to pick things up, but the sea came back at them and a large number were killed.
Baniyas was destroyed, and loud thunder-claps were heard in the sky, and violent sounds which caused people to faint.
The earthquake reached the Euphrates, whose waters overflowed its banks. An Alawite at Hejaz [Arabia], has said that
in the period in question an earthquake caused the collapse [in Medina] of two merlons [on the minaret] in the Mosque
of the Prophet may the prayer of God and peace be with him and the towns people were disturbed and thought it an ill
omen: so they did penance, practised abstinence, poured away their wines and exiled adulterous women from the town.
And the earthquake struck Wadi al-Safra', Yun.bu`, Badr, Khaybar, and Wadi al-Qura and spread throughout the Hejaz;
and the earth split open and treasures were revealed, and gold, silver and jewels were found. The dinar was equivalent
to one mithqal and a half by weight and a spring gushed forth [sufficiently violently] to be worth 2,000 dinars a year.
At Tabuk, three more springs appeared than had been there before. The earthquake completely destroyed the eastern part
of the Hejaz, and it also destroyed Aylat, killing all its inhabitants, with the exception of 12 men who had gone fishing
at sea. And a letter from some merchants in the month of Rajab [460 H. = 6 May 4 June 1068] reported that when they
arrived at Damascus, they found neither sultan nor market, and the people had taken over the city, and it was impossible
to enter or leave. The commander of the army defeated the governor of Damascus, forcing him to withdrawn to `Usqalan, and
the people destroyed the palace where he usually dwelt; and the same thing had happened throughout the Syrian territories
and the nearby coastal area. And what is amazing is that we have seen that the earthquake affected coastal areas, Jerusalem,
the Syrian territories, Medina, Tabuk and Tima, and the whole of the Hejaz and Al- Bilad al-Furatiyya [the Euphrates area];
and it all happened in a single night half way through Jumada I [460 H. = 22 March 1068].
