Debates around how to respond to the plague in early Islamic Syria mirror those of today. The great scholar and historian al-Ṭabarī (d. 928) wrote of the Plague of Emmaus (Arabic: عمواس, ʻAmwās), which struck Syria in 639 during the Islamic conquest, killing 25,000. #coronavirus 
The historian Ibn 'Asākir was so moved by descriptions of the suffering of the people of 'Amwās that he added a poem of lamentation and martyrdom to his great history of Damascus.
The Prophet Muhammad was believed by many to have essentially prescribed #SocialDistancing and #ShelterInPlace, prohibiting flight from a plague-stricken community. Yet as always in Islam, different legal arguments arose, justified by references to different Prophetic traditions.
There where three prominent early Islamic views: 1) plague was a mercy and a martyrdom for Muslims, but a punishment for enemies; 2) theory of contagion: one should not enter/flee from a plague-stricken land; and 3) there was *no* contagion, since disease came directly from God.
The Plague of Emmaus in 639 killed tens of thousands, including close Companions of the Prophet and courageous military commanders like Abu 'Ubaydah, who had led the conquest of Syria. Abu 'Ubaydah and his successors Mu'adh ibn Jabal and his son seem to have held the same view.
'Amr ibn al-'As, another great military commander and Companion of the Prophet, had different views. He advocated for the second position: #SocialDistancing to avoid contagion. The Caliph 'Umar seems to have agreed. 'Amr would live to famously lead the conquest of Egypt. #winning
The last view - that disease is decreed by God and one cannot avoid it by means of one's actions - is exemplified by an anecdote reported in al-Tabari and attributed to the Companion Abu Musa al-Ash'ari: "Muslims would be fleeing from the decree of God to the decree of God"
Yet al-Tabari reports that these more fatalistic views were frequently contested. The Caliph 'Umar tried desperately to convince his friend Abu 'Ubaydah to abandon his troops and leave 'Amwās to come to his side, but Abu 'Ubaydah bravely refused. His refusal led to tragedy.
These are just a few of the eminently human ways early Muslims responded to plague - I'm struck by how closely they parallel debates we're still having today, as we confront #coronavirus. If you'd like to read the original, you can consult al-Tabari here: archive.org/details/tabari…
The "three responses" model is taken from a classic book by Michael Dols: The Black Death In the Middle East (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 23-25. Grateful to @medievalqabq for helping me find an online version of al-Tabari since @utlibraries are closed!
And I just discovered that Imam @omarsuleiman504 delivered a lecture the other day on this very topic! You can watch it here:
yaqeeninstitute.org/omar-suleiman/…
yaqeeninstitute.org/omar-suleiman/…
