Muslim families and health

Historically the Muslim world has enjoyed a very long and enlightened attitude towards health and healing, in which Persian and Hellenic medical knowledge provided a useful foundation for Muslim scholarship to develop into a rich repository of learning. For example, the celebrated centre of medical learning in Cairo held three large hospitals by the year 872 bce. These were apparently built in a cruciform shape to hold separate wards. By 1284 in Cairo the Qalawun hospital set up by the Sultan of the same name was offering the following remarkably modern sounding healthcare: The great Islamic cities of Baghdad and Cordoba were also the sites of many hospitals, which boasted a system of interns as well as teaching and library facilities. They supplied rudimentary nursing care, held well-stocked pharmacies and even ran outpatient services (Udwadia, 2001). Rassool (2000) refers to how hospitals' wards were divided into those catering for specific maladies, such as infectious diseases and mental illness. Consequently, during the early medieval period, these centres of medical excellence were unparalleled throughout the civilised world, where in Europe the sick and destitute were reliant on the skills and charity of monks for succour and healing.