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Islamic Attitudes to Disasters in the Middle Ages

A Comparison of Earthquakes and Piagues

The author is at Warburg Institute, London. E-mail: anna.akasoy{at}sas.ac.uk.

By comparing two natural disasters, earthquakes and epidemics, in particular the plague, this article tries to reconstruct general features of debates around disasters in medieval Islam. It points out several similarities such as the function as a punishment and warning in the early Islamic tradition, the apocalyptic dimension and the status of victims of both disasters as martyrs and comparisons with the problem of flight and desertion. Furthermore, there are conflicts between Islamic religion and Greek science, but in both cases the debates took place in separate bodies of literature. Apart from these common features there are also differences which can be partly explained by the natures of the phenomena and partly by specific developments in the debates around them.

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The Medieval History Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1-2, 387-410 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/097194580701000214


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Akasoy, A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?