Some of the great ‘natural’ disasters in recorded history were ‘pandemics’, diseases that are particularly lethal, that start at one place and then spread around the world. One of the great pandemics in ‘recorded’ history was that of the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) that started from Central Asia and travelled westwards eventually reaching Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century.

During its travel westwards, the plague also brought major social and political changes in the lands it passed through. Along the way the plague virtually decimated much of the Muslim heartland with estimated death toll reaching a third in Syria, Iran, Iraq, and maybe up to 40 per cent of the entire population of Egypt. Perhaps it is worthwhile to dwell a bit on the effects of this pandemic in Islamic history.

In the middle of the thirteenth century (1258 CE) when Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid Empire and the ‘fulcrum’ of Islamic civilisation in the Muslim heartland, was destroyed by the Mongols led by Halagu Khan, arguably Islamic culture and civilisation went into decline. But the effect of the plague that arrived a century later literally destroyed what was left. Marshall Hodgson in his ‘Venture of Islam’ says that many major cities in the Levant and Egypt were essentially wiped off the map.

After the destruction done by the plague, the Muslim heartland never recovered. The double whammy of the Mongol invasion followed by the plague changed the entire political and cultural landscape of the Muslim world. Perhaps, the Mongol devastation of Baghdad followed by the devastation from the plague was responsible for pushing Muslims of these areas back into religious obscurantism, almost a universal response to such natural calamities.

But then Europe was equally devastated by the plague. However, at that time Europe was overpopulated and underdeveloped. The plague allowed Europe to regroup and emerge as a new power. This, over the next few centuries, led to the rise of Europe and the period of the ‘Enlightenment’ while the Muslims were still recovering from the effects of the Mongol invasion and the plague. That in time would enable Europe to challenge Muslim dominance. But that was still a few centuries in the future.

Even in Europe, religious extremism was the first response to the devastation wrought by the plague. It would take Europe almost three hundred years before the forces of rational thought and scientific enquiry replaced religion as the primary cultural imperative. As Europe emerged, the Muslims in the heartland regressed further. Many Muslim empires emerged at the periphery including the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals that survived well into the eighteenth century, but none could confront a rising Christian Europe.

The major pandemic in the twentieth century occurred in 1918-1920. It was the ‘Spanish Influenza’. Anywhere between twenty to a hundred million people died during this pandemic all over the world but many in Europe and in America. The spread of this pandemic is in part related to WWI, when armies from all over the world were involved in this conflict and many of the soldiers then carried this disease to their home countries including India. Whether this major loss of life following the devastation of the ‘Great War’ had anything to do with the rise of egalitarian and fascist ideologies in Europe and elsewhere is debatable.

As we move forward in time, the next ‘major’ politically and socially important pandemic was that of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV-AIDS) that hit the west, especially the United States in the early nineteen eighties. This started from Africa and spread to the west, but is also raising its ugly head in our part of the world. As of 2012, more than 30 million people are infected with this disease worldwide, most of the infected patients are in sub-Saharan Africa but South and South East Asia are also involved in a major way.

Due to the fact that the US was one of the countries affected in a big way by HIV-Aids, a tremendous amount of research money was poured into developing a treatment for this disease. Today, for all practical purposes this disease can be prevented and if discovered, controlled by medication. But the medications are still too expensive to find general use in poor countries.

The cultural impact of the HIV-AIDS in the US was arguably quite profound. Since most of the people infected initially were homosexual males, the ‘religious’ establishment in the US called it ‘The Gay Plague’ and as such some sort of a divine retribution for ‘bad behaviour’. Sounds familiar! However, soon ‘normal’ patients were found to have been infected by tainted blood transfusions and even heterosexual males and females became infected.

From a cultural point of view two important changes occurred in the US. First, the ‘sexual revolution’ that had started more than a decade earlier came to a screeching halt. Second, homosexuals became much more vocal and militant and many ‘came out of the closet’. This led to a realisation in the US that almost every family had either homosexual relatives or friends. In time this realisation reached the point where acceptance of homosexuals as ‘regular’ members of society led to laws defending their rights as individuals and eventually culminated in same sex marriages that are now accepted as legitimate over most of the country.

Unfortunately, when it comes to countries not as rich as the US, HIV-Aids remains a major problem. As I have said in previous articles in this newspaper, once HIV-AIDS becomes established in Pakistan the consequences can be quite horrific, sort of following the course of Hepatitis C in this country. Also homosexuality exists in Pakistan but is completely ‘in the closet’. Unprotected sexual activity among homosexuals is a major risk factor that also needs to be considered.

In these days of frequent international travel there are diseases that can spread through ‘contact’ between people. Of these, three are of special concern at this time. First is Polio, and we in Pakistan are already aware of how Pakistanis infected by this disease can carry it elsewhere. Second is the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that is prevalent in Saudi Arabia and with the upcoming pilgrimage to Mecca where many camels that carry this disease will be sacrificed, it could spread all over the world from the pilgrims involved in such sacrifice.

Ebola is the latest disease to capture the imagination of the US public. The reason why the US press is seized by this disease at this time is because two US missionaries working in West Africa were infected. Hundreds have died in Africa but because two Americans were also infected, the entire US medical establishment has been mobilised to find a way to prevent people from getting infected and if infected for being adequately treated for this disease.

Until such time that Ebola can be prevented, it has the capability to spread to many different countries. The World Health Organisation has already declared a worldwide emergency. Interestingly, all the reasons for which Ebola became a problem in West Africa also exist in Pakistan. I shudder to think of a time when Ebola arrives in Pakistan.