Nursing in Islam

In Islam, nurses provide

healthcare services to patients, families and communities as a manifestation of love for Allah and Muhammad. The nursing profession is not new to Islam. Islamic traditions include sympathy for and responsibility toward those in need.^[1] This perspective had emerged during the development of Islam as a religion, culture, and civilization

.

Ethos of health care service

In Islamic traditions, caring is the manifestation of love for Allah and Muhammad.

nurses in the history of Islam.^[1]

Approach to health care service

Another aspect of Islamic health care service that distinguishes it from the contemporary Western

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 needs.^[1]

First Muslim nurse

The first professional nurse in the history of Islam is a woman named Rufaidah bint Sa’ad, also known as Rufaida Al-Aslamia or Rufayda al-Aslamiyyah, who was born in 620 (est.) and lived at the time of Muhammed.^[2] She hailed from the Bani Aslam tribe in Medina and was among the first people in Medina to accept Islam.^[3] Rufaidah received her training and knowledge in medicine from her father, a physician, whom she assisted regularly.^[3] At the time when Muhammed's early followers were engaged in war, she led a group of volunteer nurses to the battlefield to treat and care for the injured and dying. After the Muslim state was established in Medina, she was given permission by Muhammed to set up a tent outside the mosque to treat the ill and to train more Muslim women and girls as nurses.^[2]^[4] Rufaidah is described as a woman possessing the qualities of an ideal nurse: compassionate, empathetic, a good leader and a great teacher. She is said to have provided health education to the community, helped the disadvantaged (like orphans and the disabled), advocated for preventative care, and even to have drafted the world’s first code of nursing ethics .^[2]^[3]

Nursing in hospitals

In

waiting area for visitors, not to mention that the first official female nurses were hired from Sudan to work in this hospital.^[6] Moreover, aside from regular physicians working there, a group of religious imams who also practiced medicine, called Fugaha al-Badan,^[6]

provided service as well, likely by tending the patients’ spiritual needs.