Epidemics are critical events that change the cultures, habits, values and lives of societies beyond the issue of life and death. As historical experience has shown us, critical events and situations add momentum to history, or push it over the threshold. COVID-19 is one such pandemic. Indeed, with this pandemic, the world has made a rapid leap from physical connectivity to a more virtual connection. With millions of people dying, billions of people have experienced and are experiencing psycho-social and economic problems due to this pandemic. Due to its serious global effects, the COVID-19 pandemic is an important issue that needs to be addressed in an interdisciplinary and multidimensional manner and its long-term consequences should be discussed.
In order to contribute to the interdisciplinary examination of the issue, this book examines epidemics from a religious and ethical perspective. As a matter of fact, religion and ethics are two important aspects that need to be emphasized in making sense of epidemics and discussing their possible effects, as in many issues. Especially in a Muslim country, the religious aspect of epidemics is an issue that must be emphasized. As a matter of fact, the establishment of a council consisting of state officials and scholars in order to discuss the issue in detail and consult on the sharia side during the epidemics in the Ottoman period clearly shows the importance of the issue.
In fact, this book was born from the idea of publishing the workshop organized last year at Ibn Haldun University Faculty of Islamic Sciences due to the importance of the issue. On July 18, 2020, an international and interdisciplinary one-day workshop titled "Epidemics and Religion" was held. This workshop, to which experts in the field were invited, was also broadcast live on Youtube and was appreciated by people. After this successful workshop, upon requests and proposals, the speeches were brought into a scientific article format and further enriched by adding the writings of other experts in the field.
