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E-book
Author Stearns, Justin K., 1974-

Title Infectious ideas : contagion in premodern Islamic and Christian thought in the Western Mediterranean / Justin K. Stearns
Published Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, ©2011

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Description 1 online resource (xx, 279 pages)
Contents Contagion in the commentaries on prophetic tradition -- Contagion as metaphor in Iberian Christian scholarship -- Contagion contested : Greek medical knowledge, prophetic medicine, and the first plague treatises -- Situating scholastic contagion between miasma and the evil eye -- Contagion between Islamic law and theology -- Contagion revisited : early modern Maghribi plague treatises -- Reframing Muslim and Christian views on contagion
Summary Infectious Ideas is a comparative analysis of how Muslim and Christian scholars explained the transmission of disease in the premodern Mediterranean world. How did religious communities respond to and make sense of epidemic disease? To answer this, historian Justin K. Stearns looks at how Muslim and Christian communities conceived of contagion, focusing especially on the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of the Black Death. What Stearns discovers calls into question recent scholarship on Muslim and Christian reactions to the plague and leprosy. Stearns shows that rather than universally reject the concept of contagion, as most scholars have affirmed, Muslim scholars engaged in creative and rational attempts to understand it. He explores how Christian scholars used the metaphor of contagion to define proper and safe interactions with heretics, Jews, and Muslims, and how contagion itself denoted phenomena as distinct as the evil eye and the effects of corrupted air. Stearns argues that at the heart of the work of both Muslims and Christians, although their approaches differed, was a desire to protect the physical and spiritual health of their respective communities. Based on Stearns's analysis of Muslim and Christian legal, theological, historical, and medical texts in Arabic, Medieval Castilian, and Latin, Infectious Ideas is the first book to offer a comparative discussion of concepts of contagion in the premodern Mediterranean world
Notes OldControl:muse9781421401058
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Medicine -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History -- To 1500
Medicine -- Religious aspects -- Islam -- History -- To 1500
Epidemiology -- History -- To 1500
Medicine, Medieval -- Western Mediterranean
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation -- History -- To 1500
Communicable diseases.
Cross-cultural studies.
Medicine in literature.
Cross-Cultural Comparison -- Portugal
Communicable Diseases -- Portugal
Medicine in Literature -- Portugal
Leprosy -- history -- Portugal
Plague -- history -- Portugal
Cross-Cultural Comparison -- Africa, Northern
Communicable Diseases -- Africa, Northern
Medicine in Literature -- Africa, Northern
Leprosy -- history -- Spain
Plague -- history -- Spain
Islam -- history -- Spain
Christianity -- history -- Spain
Communicable Diseases
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Leprosy -- history
Plague -- history
Medicine in Literature
Islam -- history -- Portugal
Christianity -- history -- Portugal
Leprosy -- history -- Africa, Northern
Cross-Cultural Comparison -- Spain
Communicable Diseases -- Spain
Medicine in Literature -- Spain
Plague -- history -- Africa, Northern
Islam -- history -- Africa, Northern
Christianity -- history -- Africa, Northern
Christianity -- history
Islam -- history
Medicine in literature
Cross-cultural studies
Communicable diseases
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation
Epidemiology
Medicine, Medieval
Medicine -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
Medicine -- Religious aspects -- Islam
SUBJECT Africa, North. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85001631
Spain
Portugal
Africa, Northern
Subject North Africa
Mediterranean Region -- Western Mediterranean
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 1421401053
9781421401058