The Emergence of the Prototype of the Modern Hospital in Medieval Islam

Abstract

Piety and Philanthropy cannot very well be divorced in medieval Islam, but by observing the Moslem hospitals and other institutions of charity and social welfare it is seen quite clearly that the idea of public assistance had developed beyond what piety alone could have produced. A discriminating and comprehensive consideration of the necessity of public assistance and social welfare, beyond mere religiosity, may be said to have been responsible for the qııality and quantity of the hospitals of Islam. Moreover, the humanitarian features of the Islamic medieval hospital must not be allowed to eclipse its high medical standing per se. The hospital was one of the most developed institutions of medieval Islam and one of the highwater marks of the Moslem civilization. The hospitals of medieval Islam were hospitals in the modern sense of the word. In them the best available medical knowledge was put to practice. They were specialized institutions. Unlike the Byzantine hospitals, they did not have a mixed function of which the treatment of the sick was only one part.

Establishment and development of the first hospital pharmacy in the city of Burgas

“…По-късно започват да се строят и по-големи болници -стационарни и подвижни (придвижвани с товарни животни). В лечебните стационари, които приличат донякъде на съвременните, е работел значителен по своята численост медицински персонал (3).…”

Waqf-Based Healthcare Services Model(whs-M)

“…Rufaydah, the first female nurse, cared for wounded soldiers during Ghazwat Khandaq (the Battle of the Trench) in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in a portable military tent (Al-Bukhari, 1375). In the early eighth century CE, Umayyad Caliph Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik built the first Muslim hospital, an asylum for lepers, in Damascus (Abouleish, 1979;Sayili, 2006;Tschanz, 2017). Waqf-supported hospitals thrived from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries CE.…”

“…Islamic medical hospitals, which united the humanitarian aspects of waqf with the finest available medical knowledge, became the pinnacle of Islamic civilisation throughout the 8th to 14th century CE, the golden age of Islam (Sayili, 2006). The end outcome was a thriving and well-run organisation.…”