Nursing in Islam

This article will attempt to shed some light on the profession of nursing during the development of Islam as a religion, a culture, and civilization.

Ethos of Health Care Service

In Islamic traditions caring is the manifestation of love for Allah and the Prophet Muhammad¹. Caring in Islam, however, is more than the act of empathy; instead, it consists of being responsible for, sensitive to, and concerned with those in need, namely the weak, the suffering and the outcasts of society¹. This act of caring is further divided into three principles: intention, thought, and action¹. Intention and thought refer to who/what/where/when/ and why to care, where as action is related to the knowledge necessary to be able to care¹. In short, health care is deemed as service to the patients and to Allah, as opposed to other professions that are commercial based¹. This ethos was the fundamental motivating factor for the majority of the doctors and nurses in the history of Islam¹.

Approach to Health Care Service

Another aspect of Islamic health care service that distinguishes it from contemporary Western health care industry is the holistic approach to health and wellbeing taken¹. This holistic approach consisted of treating both the organic basis of the ailments and to provide spiritual support for the patient¹. This spiritual component comes in the form of Tawheed (Oneness of Allah), a dimension lacking in current Western models of Nursing and, thus, could pose as a challenge for application of this model of Nursing to Muslim patients as it does not meet their holistic needs¹.

The First Muslim Nurse

The first professional nurse in the history of Islam is a woman named, Rufaidah bint Sa’ad, from the Bani Aslam tribe in Medina². She lived at the time of Muhammed and was among the first people in Medina to accept Islam². Rufaidah received her training and knowledge in medicine from her father, a physician, whom she assisted regularly². After the Muslim state was established in Medina, she would treat the ill in her tent set up outside the mosque³. During times of war, she would lead a group of volunteers to the battlefield and would treat casualties and injured soldiers³.

Rufaidah is described as a woman possessing the qualities of an ideal nurse: compassionate, empathetic, good leader and a great teacher, passing on her clinical knowledge to others she trained². Furthermore, Rufaidah’s activities as someone greatly involved in the community, in helping those at the more disadvantaged portions of society² epitomize the ethos of care identified above.

Nursing in Hospitals

In hospitals built in the Medieval Muslim society male nurses tended to male patients and female nurses to female patients⁴. The hospital in Al-Qayrawan (Kairouan in English) was especially unique among Muslim hospitals for several reasons. Built in 830 by the order of the Prince Ziyadat Allah I of Ifriqiya (817-838), the Al-Dimnah Hospital, constructed in the Dimnah region close to the great mosque of Al Qayrawan, was quite ahead of its time⁵. It had the innovation of having a waiting area for visitors, not to mention the fact that the first official female nurses were hired from Sudan to work in this hospital⁵. Moreover, aside from regular physicians working there, a group of religious imams who also practiced medicine, called Fugaha al-Badan⁵ provided service as well, likely by tending the patients’ spiritual needs.

References

1. G. Hussein Rassool, “The Crescent and Islam: Healing, Nursing and the Spiritual Dimension. Some Considerations Toward an Understanding of the Islamic Perspective on Caring,” Journal of Advance Nursing 32 (2000): 1476.
2. Omar Hasan Kasule, Sr., “Rufaidah bint Sa’ad - Historical Roots of the Nursing Profession in Islam” (paper presented at the 3rd International Nursing Conference, Brunei Darussalam, November, 01-04, 1998).
3. Omar Hasan Kasule, Sr., “Rufaidah bint Sa’ad - Historical Roots of the Nursing Profession in Islam,” Islamic Medicine Forum, http://www.islamicmedicines.com/forum/muslims-medical-history/350-historical-roots-nursing-profession-islam.html .
4. Ibrahim B. Syed, "Efficient Hospitals: Islamic Medicine's Contribution to Modern Medicine," Imam Reza (A.S.) Network, http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=5135 .
5. Salah Zaimeche, “Al-Qayrawan (Tunisia),” Foundation for Science Technology and Civilization, http://www.muslimheritage.com/uploads/Qayrawan.pdf .