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Darrera modificació: 2026-09-09
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
This article attempts to explain why the Muslims of the first two hijri centuries came to view as martyrs those who died of a mysterious illness that they called the Stabber (al-ṭāʿūn). It finds the answer to that question at the intersection of the uniqu, "The Birth of the Muslim Plague Martyr: A Story from Late Antiquity", Studies in Late Antiquity, 10/3 (2026), 219-264.
- Resum
- This article attempts to explain why the Muslims of the first two hijri centuries came to view as martyrs those who died of a mysterious illness that they called the Stabber (al-ṭāʿūn). It finds the answer to that question at the intersection of the unique social pressures attendant on the Arab conquests, the presence of endemic Yersinia pestis in Greater Syria, the prior inheritance of Jewish and Christian ideas about the meaning of disease, and the distinctive view of salvation history found in the Qurʾan. Early Muslims simultaneously affirmed the ancient Jewish and Christian theory of epidemic disease as divine punishment and gave it a separate meaning for their own community, as a martyrdom and a mercy, which set the conquering minority of Muhajirun apart in death as well as in life. In illuminating this process, the article writes a new cultural history of epidemic disease in the late antique world and revisits some of our fundamental assumptions about retrospective diagnosis and the discourse of disease in premodern culture. Its findings should be relevant to scholars of Christianity and Islam, to Syriacists, scholars of premodern disease, and to anyone invested in the current conversation about Yersinia pestis, epidemic disease, and environmental history in Late Antiquity.
- Matèries
- Àrab
Medicina - Pesta i altres malalties
- URL
- https://online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article/10/3/219/219 ...
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