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Off the top of my head thread on (modern) scholars of plague in the Middle East (apologies in advance/add more!) Starting with Michael Dols, who wrote the first comprehensive survey on the subject. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691657042/the-black-death-in-the-middle-east">https://press.princeton.edu/books/har...
Moving on (somewhat chronologically) to Lawrence Conrad who wrote his dissertation on the 6-8th century Justinian plague in the Middle East - never appeared as a book, but in the form of articles and book chapters. See https://nes.princeton.edu/publications/contagion-perspectives-pre-modern-societies">https://nes.princeton.edu/publicati... for one example
Stuart Borsch wrote a really beautiful case study comparison of how the Black Death affected England and Egypt, showing how the economy of the first improved and the latter declined, largely due to the collapse of Nile irrigation systems: https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/borbla ">https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/bor...
Our understanding of plague in the Ottoman Empire has been greatly improved by three works, beginning here with the prize winning work of Nükhet Varlik: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/plague-and-empire-in-the-early-modern-mediterranean-world/D35B6A9462B1E2849AA2F9A75048DF69">https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...
And continuing with the work of Yaron Ayalon, which looks at plague in the broader framework of natural disasters, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/natural-disasters-in-the-ottoman-empire/2F67203808F11027678E583B5CE49C2F">https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...
And then the book of Andrew Robarts on the Ottoman Russian frontier, which looks at plague and disease (and deals with the subject of quarantine!): https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/migration-and-disease-in-the-black-sea-region-9781474259514/">https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/migrat...
Before I forget it, of course, the edited volume by Nükhet bringing together studies onplague and contagion around the Islamic Mediterranean: https://arc-humanities.org/products/p-80108-97110-49-7813/">https://arc-humanities.org/products/...
A special shout out to the following work on the plague in 17-18th century Tunisia, which I still haven& #39;t fully digested as my Italian is rotten, but the author of which — Salvatore Speziale — has written great stuff in French that I have read: https://www.cdse.it/index.php?id=1010">https://www.cdse.it/index.php...
But I& #39;ve already forgotten someone! Daniel Panzac& #39;s excellent survey and analysis of plague in the later Ottoman Empire, https://books.google.com/books/about/La_Peste_dans_l_Empire_ottoman.html?id=KEkuCcC0IsgC">https://books.google.com/books/abo...
For Morocco& #39;s epidemics and plagues of the 18-19th centuries, the indispensable survey of Muhammad al-Bazzaz, which you can now download for free here!: https://archive.org/details/awbia-maja3at/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/a...
Speziale& #39;s work on Tunisia should be read against the earlier work of Nancy Gallagher, which also contains a great discussion of how European colonial powers used the quarantine to forward their economic interests https://books.google.com/books/about/Medicine_and_Power_in_Tunisia_1780_1900.html?id=Nj6Zd5v3qO0C">https://books.google.com/books/abo...
Nineteenth century Egypt has received quite a bit of attention. See the very useful survey of LaVerne Kuhnke on public health: https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5t1nb3mq;query=;brand=ucpress">https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpresseb...
Oh, I should mention that Kuhnke also has a great discussion of the French doctor Clot Bey in Egypt and his anti-contagionist views. Many (Medievalists) forget the prevalence of anti-contagionism in early 19th century Europe.
