Can We Flee the Plague? A Theological, Moral and Practical Issue in the Early Islamicate World

Abstract

Early Islam witnessed several outbreaks of the first plague of Justinian (541–549 CE), until 132/749 when it disappeared as fast as it appeared. One of the main issues for societies confronted with such recurrent epidemics was to accept destiny and protect their lives and social organization while still assuming that contagion was speculative and that the disease came from the divine punishment of sinners. Based on the archetypal plague of ʿAmwās (Emmaus, 17–18/638–639), fleeing appears to have been considered as an act of disobedience to God’s will. In order to date these Islamic thoughts and traditions, we rely on Syriac and Greek similar considerations on the usefulness to escape an infested town or country or not, as reflected in Bar Penkāyē’s (fl. late first/seventh century) tragic depiction of the epidemic of 67/687. As the Islamic armies were confronted to major surges of pestilence during their campaigns and had to interpret them as a legitimate cause of martyrdom, while fleeing was considered desertion. Meanwhile, Anastasius Sinaita (d. ca. 80/700) tried to understand how Arabia could be protected from the mortality that cursed Palestine, and thus inferred that not all plagues were supernatural punishments.