Among the several factors which influenced the development of medieval societies, water is considered the most vital. The lack of this fundamental element, due to prolonged and unexpected periods of drought, at times devastated entire populations and caused terrible calamities. For a civilization like the Arabic one, which was originated in the deserts of the Arabia peninsula and developed in the also dried lands of North Africa, water enclosed a powerful meaning and boasted a strong significance; it was a more necessary element than for other cultures and a luxury that only the caliphs, emirs, and the elite could enjoy. This reality can be easily observe in all the gardens created within the walls of the several palaces erected in the Arabic world, where water was always present in pools, fountains and sources that were continuously flowing. Al-Andalus and the Maghreb, areas situated in the Western-most side of both the Muslim world and the Mediterranean area, suffered significant epochs of dearth of water. Some Arabic writers registered in their chronicles interesting information regarding not only the droughts themselves –such as the year, the month, and the location when and where they took place–, but also their terrible consequences –among them, the loss of entire harvests, famine, poverty, the impossibility of carrying out the ritual ablutions before the Islamic prayer, and, above all, the appearance of epidemics, the most serious result. Among the several historians who transmitted interesting news of these natural phenomena, suffered in both Mediterranean shores (al-'udwatayn), the following chroniclers should be mentioned: Ibn ‘Idhari and his "al-Bayan al-mughrib"; Ibn Abi Zar' with his also well-known work "Rawd al-qirtas"; the anonymous "al-Dhakhira al-saniyya"; or Ibn Abi Hajala and his inventory of epidemics titled Daf? al-naqma fi salat ‘alà Bani l-Rahma, amongst others. The imperative necessity to combat calamities such as Black Dead also led several intellectuals to compose treatises providing urgent solutions to its negative effects, like Ibn Khatima, Ibn al-Khatib, or Ibn Khaldun. Throughout this paper, the main periods of droughts occured during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries in both al-Andalus and the Maghreb will be analyzed, according to the information provided by the Arabic sources. Attention will be also paid to the most devastating plagues which arose as a result.