A Metaphor for Contagion in Qusṭā ibn Lūqā’s Book on Contagion - Shahrzad Irannejad (GRK 1876, JGU Mainz)
The concept of contagion is a highly contested one in the medical tradition of the Islamicate world. Although several diseases are sporadically deemed as contagious within some medical encyclopediae, the very concept of contagion has rarely been discussed as a self-sufficient concept within the conventional, humoral paradigm. A significant exception, however, is the treatise On Contagion by Qusṭā ibn Lūqā. This Arabic treatise written by a 9th century Melkite Christian author is dedicated solely to the discussion of the concept of contagion.
The point of departure of the present article is an “accurate” definition this treatise offers from the concept, using a metaphor. Using methods of textual scholarship, this article offers a close reading of the relevant passages from this short, but rich treatise, contextualizing it within two contexts: one Greek/humoral and another Arabo-Islamic. Drawing inspiration from conceptual metaphor theory, the article stresses the importance of the question why, despite the potential efficacy of the concept CONTAGION IS A SPARK presented in this treatise, this metaphor is not traceable in the works of the next generations of authors within the Islamicate tradition.
This paper is based partially on the project “Bodies of Knowledge Facing Epidemics: (Islamicate) Humoral Medicine vs. Prophetic Medicine” undertaken at Orient-Institut Istanbul, in which my overarching question throughout has been: "What strategies do individual actors (both historically and in contemporary Iran) develop to navigate the tension between empirical observation of the phenomenon of contagion and the resistance of their respective knowledge paradigms to the integration of the concept of contagion?"