Arabic Plague Chronologies and Treatises: Social and Historical Factors in the Formation of a Literary Genre

Abstract

In 1880 the indefatigable pioneer of Near Eastern Kulturgeschichte, Alfred von Kremer, published a detailed study on the history of epidemic disease in medieval Islam. (1) The work was a remarkable piece of research that not only marked the first systematic attempt to assess the impact of epidemics in Islamic history, but also sought, for the first time, to take advantage of the insights offered by the Arabic plague treatises written after the Black Death of 749/1348. Kremer's study was far ahead of its time, and in his own day it inspired little further research in this direction. Though subsequent generations of scholars added from time to time to our knowledge of this subject, the plague treatises for decades remained practically untouched in the libraries of the Near East and Europe. It is only within the last ten years that attention has once again been focused on these works. An article by Jacqueline Sublet has examined one of the most important texts, elucidating some of the dominant themes and issues. (2) Most recently, the treatises have finally been exploited in depth in Michael

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