Quick thread on plague treatises (natch!) in the Muslim world. The genre takes off following the black death, and while it overlaps to varying degrees with fatwas on the plague, these works varied from a few pages to the book length work of the 15th century Egyptian Ibn Hajar

They could address legal, historical, theological, and even ontological issues, along with medical ones. While the Andalusi treatises of Ibn Khatima (d. 1369) and Ibn al-Khatib (d. 1374) have rightfully attracted attention for their descriptions of ...

plague transmission/contagion, my favorite at the moment is that of the Kurdish scholar al-Bidlisi (d. 1520), who wrote his as a justification of not entering Cairo during a plague and who dwells extensively on the barzakh in his contemplation of God's will being enacted in ....

This world and the ability of the spiritually enlightened to access knowledge of what is to come. He was also trenchant in his criticism of those who denied contagion. But not all notes on plague were this extensive or as theoretically nuanced. In a treatise against sorcery . . .

the 17th century Moroccan scholar al-Mirghithi, or more likely, whoever compiled the notes that went into this work, cites Ibn Khatima's treatise approvingly and quotes a short poem by his student al-Yusi on how best to respond to plague. Do we want the poem? Of course we do.

"There is no cure for an epidemic but flight
And distancing yourself from it. Take heed!
Most scholars hold the tradition to be one of disapproval
Some recommend flight when it appears.”

Now. What's al-Yusi talking about? This is in fact a reference to the same tradition cited

By al-Azhar today, that of Abd al-Rahman b. Awf on not entering or leaving a plague struck land. But note that al-Yusi, one of the most respected scholars of his day, is arguing that you can ignore this injunction not to leave in order to flee. Fascinating in itself . . .

This is also a good reminder that traditions law do not make, i.e. you can't just quote a Prophetic tradition on its own, legal authorities will bring on context and think about whether these traditions were absolute or recommendations and who precisely they addressed.

Admission: all of the works referred to here supported the understanding that plague was transmissible and defended fleeing from it. It needs to be stressed that this was not a majority view of pre-modern Muslims, though it was espoused by a large minority. More on this later.

@threadreaderapp unroll

@asadabukhalil, this could be of interest.