Stearns Response To The Black Death Analysis

The Black Death was a devastating plague that quickly spread, ravaging and wiping out much of Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. This pandemic has attracted the attention of many different scholarly works. Two scholars that have researched this somber period of time are Michael W. Dols and Justin Stearns. Dols wrote an article titled “The Comparative Communal Responses to the Black Death in Muslim and Christian Societies” in the Department of History at California State University in 1974. Stearns wrote “New Directions in the Study of Religious Responses to the Black Death” at Middlebury College in 2009. Both authors identified a fundamental problem in the attention of previous scholars in regards to this historic
Stearns directly states that Dols did not have sufficient amount of sources to derive an honest and complete understanding of the attitudes that surfaced upon the arrival of the Black Death within Muslim societies (1366). Stearns also argues that the Black Death could not be fully understood without analyzing the psychological implications that arose within a variety of cultures and religious groups, and in this case it was the Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Stearns explained in greater detail that the Christians and Muslims both gathered together in prayers and rituals, regardless of their beliefs on contagion, and that those of the Jewish faith remained reserved (1367). A majority of the Jewish treatises felt that God was responsible for the plague and that it was not a random contagion stemming from natural causes, but there still are documents available that will show mention of Jewish scholars who believed that the Black Death was actually contagious (Stearns 1368). Through Stearn’s examinations he comes to the conclusion that the Christians would argue whether or not they should leave the areas that they were in an effort to avoid contagion, or if they should stay put so that they may care for one another. He goes on to explain that the beliefs reflected from the Muslims were due to a decline in scientific knowledge within the Muslim community (Stearns 1365). Dols arguments remain very broad and general when talking about both of the aforementioned communities, while Stearns speaks directly to Dols, and other scholars. Stearns demands that precise and extensive research is necessary for a more conclusive depiction of both the actual and psychological