أَعُوذُ بِاللّٰهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the name of ALLAH, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

The Bimaristan: Healing, Knowledge, Compassion

Yesterday, while scrolling through X.com saw a thread from Kashif Chaudhry @KashifMD and it was a reflection what one read in childhood; so it grasped keen attention; and it shall because, we are normally told that study and practice of medicine and hospitals like other fields of "Sciences" is also a gift of western nation. Let's first read the thread here in the following:-

More than a thousand years ago, sophisticated hospitals were operating across the Muslim world. They were called "Bimaristans" (from the Persian bīmār, “sick,” and stān, “place”: literally, “a place for the sick.”).

Early Islamic hospitals began appearing around the 8th–9th centuries, and by the 9th–13th centuries, major cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo were home to increasingly sophisticated medical institutions.

These were not simply shelters where the sick were housed.

Bimaristans provided organized medical treatment, maintained separate wards for different illnesses, employed physicians and pharmacists, dispensed medicines, and became important centers for medical teaching. Some also provided dedicated care for mental illness.

Many were supported through charitable endowments, allowing patients to receive treatment without having to pay for their care.

Think about the era: this was the medieval world.

Yet physicians were making rounds, medicines were being prepared and dispensed, students were learning medicine around patients, and large institutions were being organized specifically around caring for the sick.

The Bimaristan was not the world’s first form of hospital. Institutions caring for the sick existed in earlier civilizations. But during the Islamic Golden Age, the hospital developed into an increasingly sophisticated institution combining clinical care, medical education, pharmacy, charity, and public service.

When we remember Islamic civilization, we often think of mosques, architecture, mathematics, and astronomy.

We should remember the hospitals too.

More than a millennium ago, caring for human beings was already being treated as both a science and a public trust.

The historical narrative that modern medicine is exclusively a Western gift is historically inaccurate, as the global medical tradition is built directly upon the monumental advancements made during the Islamic Golden Age (8th to 14th centuries). Scholars like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) did not just practice medicine; they systematized it, introduced clinical trials, and created the foundational texts used in European universities for centuries.

The author Kashif Chaudhry @KashifMD cites a research paper at link (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1676324/ )

as source for his above write up. The paper begins with "The academic medical centre plays a critical role in modern society and serves as the heart of our profession. Its origins have been inaccurately described by many western medical history texts as occurring in Europe during the middle ages or early renaissance period. It is important for us to know how our profession evolved from the shamanistic practices of yore to the powerful evidence-based medicine industry of today. This article explores how ancient near- and middle-easterners combined the medical traditions of Persians, Greeks, Indians, Zoroastrians, Jews and Nestorians into an innovative product that would give rise to academic medical centres, medical records, physician licensure, and numerous other medical and scientific advances. Furthermore, the route by which Europe inherited this knowledge is explored. As a profession that seeks truth and knowledge in the world, we must acknowledge the influence of non-westerners in the development of modern academic medicine."

The bimaristans were of two types; mobile and fixed.8 The mobile bimaristan dates back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. During the Ghazwah Khandaq (the Battle of the Ditch), a separate tent was erected for the wounded. Over time, Caliphs and rulers developed and extended these ‘MASH’ units into true travelling dispensaries with doctors and pharmacists.9 These bimaristans were transported upon beasts of burden.8 The physicians in the mobile clinics were of the same standing as those in fixed hospitals, and the field hospitals were well equipped with medicaments, instruments, tents, and a staff of doctors, nurses and orderlies.8 These mobile bimaristans allowed state services to reach the disabled, the disadvantaged, and those in remote areas.9 By the reign of the Seljuq Turkish Sultan Muhammad Saljuqi, the mobile bimaristan had become so extensive that its equipment needed forty camels to transport it.

Here is a direct comparison of how Islamic medical advancements shaped the foundations of what we call modern "Western" medicine:

The Conclusion of the paper cited above narrates as follows:-

“Building upon the inspiration afforded by the bimaristan at Jundi-Shapur, near- and middle-easterners transformed hospitals into institutionalized establishments for patient care, medical education and training. The complex structure and hierarchy of these hospitals, advent of medical records, physician licensure, government oversight and universal access to care set the example upon which later hospitals were modelled. Much of the history of early western medicine was denigrated by the destruction of ancient libraries and the ethnic purging of near- and middle-easterners from western medical history texts. It is purely cultural nepotism to assert that western hospitals developed independently of their near-eastern predecessors, when Spain and Portugal (part of the Islamic empire for over 700 years) were riddled with bimaristans. Cordova alone had fifty major hospitals and the Granada bimaristan served as the model for the Hospital Real in Santiago di Compostela and later Granada hospital, commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella. Physicians fleeing Spain moved on to establish academic medical centres in other European cities such as Salerno. Additionally, upon returning from a crusade, the Knights of St John were called ‘Hospitallers’ due to the hospitals they constructed based upon the Arabic model founded by Saladin. Between the Andalusian hospitals, those in the lands of the Crusades and the bimaristans, where westerners were treated along trade routs and during travel expeditions, westerners had extensive interactions with the bimaristans that were nearly 1000 years the predecessors of their western counterparts. They treated inpatients and had outpatient clinics. They travelled to prisons and treated the mentally ill. They cared for all who sought treatment and turned none away. Medical schools and resident physician training blossomed. Physicians kept written medical records, saw to standardized physician licensure, and amassed libraries 7500 times the size of the largest 14th century European library. Our near- and middle-eastern colleagues were true visionaries, and the founders of the academic medical centre”.

During the European Renaissance, many Arabic scientific texts were translated into Latin. In the process, names were Latinized (e.g., Ibn Sina became Avicenna, Al-Razi became Rhazes, Al-Zahrawi became Albucasis). Over generations, the distinct Islamic and Eastern origins of these practices were slowly minimized in Western educational curricula, leading to the misconception that science jumped directly from Ancient Greece to the European Renaissance.