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A bimaristan (بيمارستان; بِيْمَارِسْتَان), also known as dar al-shifa (also darüşşifa in Turkish) or simply maristan, is a hospital in the historic Islamic world. Bimaristan is a Persian word (بیمارستان bīmārestān) meaning "hospital", with bimar- from Middle Persian (Pahlavi) of vīmār or vemār, meaning "sick" or "ill person" plus the suffix -stan "place, location." In English literature, the term is often used to designate the historical or pre-modern institutions that existed in the Islamic world, but they are also still used sometimes in their native languages to refer to modern hospitals or to specific types of medical institutions. History of medicine and History of hospitals Many centers of health in antiquity helped shape the ways Muslim scholars would pursue the study and advancement of medical science. Mobile hospitals were the first version of the bimaristans. These mobile hospitals carried medications, food, and water, and traveled with physicians and pharmacists to aid those in need. According to tradition, the first bimaristan was located in a tent set up by Rufaidah al-Asalmia in 627 AD during the Battle of Khandaq. Later on, these mobile care centers would evolve from one or two tents to enormous units of medical care equipped with medicinal herbs, food, physicians, and pharmacists. Under the Seljuq Sultanate reign of Muhammad Saljuqi, a single mobile care center required 40 camels for transportation. The idea was to be able to better extend medical care to rural communities that lived on the outskirts of major cities. The services provided from the mobile hospitals transitioned into the other Islamic hospitals as time went on. Though the Islamic realm was very large, Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo housed the most well-known bimaristans. The first six bimaristans show major changes within Islamic hospitals in a short period of time. The first bimaristan, built in 706 in Damascus by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid, focused on treating individuals with leprosy, but served patients with other concerns as well.

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Bimaristan

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