About the Book:

The preeminent meditation on plagues and pandemics from the Islamic world, now in English for the first time. Six hundred years ago, the author of this landmark work of history and religious thought—an esteemed judge, poet, and scholar in Cairo—survived the bubonic plague, which took the lives of three of his children, not to mention tens of millions of others throughout the medieval world. Holding up an eerie mirror to our own time, he reflects on the origins of plagues—from those of the Prophet Muhammad’s era to the Black Death of his own—and what it means that such catastrophes could have been willed by God, while also chronicling the fear, isolation, scapegoating, economic tumult, political failures, and crises of faith that he lived through. But in considering the meaning of suffering and mass death, he also offers a message of radical hope. Weaving together accounts of evil jinn, religious stories, medical manuals, death-count registers, poetry, and the author’s personal anecdotes, Merits of the Plague is a profound reminder that with tragedy comes one of the noblest expressions of our humanity: the practice of compassion, patience, and care for those around us.

About the Translator:

Joel Blecher (editor/translator) is an associate professor of history at The George Washington University and the author of Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary across a Millennium as well as numerous articles. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Library of Congress. He co-translated Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani’s Merits of the Plague with Mairaj Syed, a professor of religion at UC Davis.

Event will be in person.