Severus Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ recorded what appears to be an eyewitness account of seismic shaking experienced in Egypt, probably at Alexandria. Although the text does not specify the year, it does provide the date and time of day. The earthquake was felt at night on the 21st of Tuba. Despite strong shaking, the witness reported no significant collapses or casualties in Egypt, except at Damietta — a site likely susceptible to liquefaction and situated in the part of the Nile Delta closest to the Dead Sea Transform.

The witness further noted that the shaking was felt from Gaza to Persia, where six hundred towns and villages were destroyed. Many ships reportedly sank that night, suggesting that a tsunami struck the coasts. Because of the limitations of communication in that era, the observer would not have realized that two earthquakes had occurred in close succession — a pair now known as the Holy Desert Quake and the Talking Mule Quake. The first, with a closer epicenter, struck at night; the second followed the next morning. From Egypt, the event seemed like a single, universal nighttime earthquake felt as far as Persia.

When this Egyptian testimony is compared with the account of Pseudo‑Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, who described a destructive morning earthquake in northern Syria and Jazira preceded by a distant rumble the night before, the sequence becomes clear: the Holy Desert Earthquake struck at night, and the Talking Mule Quake followed the next morning. In Egypt, it was remembered as a universal nocturnal earthquake; in northern Syria and Jazira, as a universal daytime one.

The 21st of Tuba corresponds to 16 January 749 CE or 17 January 748 CE.