Owning Disaster - Coping with Catastrophe in Abrahamic Narrative Traditions

Delving into the intertwined tapestry of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sacred texts, exegesis, philosophy, theology, and historiography, this book explores the similar coping mechanisms across Abrahamic communities in reconciling the implications of disasters without abandoning their faith.

Belief in a single, omnipotent God carries with it the challenge of explaining and contextualizing disasters that seem to contravene God-s supposed will. Through explorations of Jewish responses to the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, Christian responses to the Arab Muslim conquests, Muslim responses to the Crusades, and a variety of responses to the Mongol conquests, Aaron M. Hagler unveils the shared patterns and responses that emerge within these communities when confronted by calamity. Initial responses come in the forms of horrified lamentations, but as the initial shock dissipates, a complex dance of self-blame and collective introspection unfolds, as writers and the