Narratives of Plague in Arab Societies through the Lens of Select Western Travelers

Abstract

To examine the narratives of plagues in Arab societies, the paper, along with the postcolonial perspectives, uses the concepts like ‘empathy’ or ‘detached concern’ to bring fresh and new understanding of the travel texts. It selected John Antes’ Observations on the Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, the Overflowing of the Nile and its Effects (1800) and Richard F. Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah (1857) for the study. The paper analyses their narratives to understand their approaches in describing the ‘native’ Arab societies. The key findings show that while Burton tends to construct the people and their culture as ‘the Other’ although his mode of presentation tends to follow a mode of ‘detached concern’, Antes is, on the other hand, more objective but stood by the plague-infected people in empathy. The findings show that these Western travellers considered the concept of predestination, lack of quarantine, lack of sanitation, mass gatherings during the plague, and the unscientific local treatments as the root causes of the spread of the plagues among the ‘natives’.