Infectious Ideas

Justin K. Stearns is an assistant professor in the Arab Crossroads Studies Program at New York University-Abu Dhabi.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsChronological List of Relevant Muslim and Christian Scholars Who Wrote on Contagion in the Premodern PeriodIntroduction: Contagion and Causality in the Study of Premodern Muslim and Christian Societies1. Contagion in the Commentaries on Prophetic Tradition2. Contagion as Metaphor in Iberian Christian Scholarship3. Contagion Contested: Greek Medical Thought, Prophetic Medicine, and the First Plague Treatises4. Situating Scholastic Contagion between Miasmaand the Evil Eye5. Contagion between Islamic Law and Theology6. Contagion Revisited: Early Modern Maghribi Plague TreatisesConclusion: Reframing Muslim and Christian Views on ContagionAppendix A: Contagion in the Christian Exegetical TraditionAppendix B: The Presence of Ash'arism in the MaghribNotesBibligraphyIndex

A welcome addition to the growing literature on plague-and medical thought-in the premodern Islamic world. Stearns's translations add new voices to those already known, and approach known figures with subtlety and nuance, challenging or at least refining the conclusions of the established scholarship... Stearns has provided future students commanding the requisite skills and depth of vision both a model and a solid target. -- Joseph P. Byrne American Historical Review Provides readers not only with a fascinating, beautifully researched account of contagion and plague in the premodern Western Mediterranean, but also with a series of thought-provoking new approaches to religious exegesis, legal interpretation, and literary production, and a set of methodological models that should serve scholars in the fields far beyond the realm of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century studies of illness and health in the Maghrib. The book is a fascinating read. -- Ruth A. Miller Journal of the American Oriental Society