Nursing in Islam
[1] 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.)[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.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 .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 time.[7] Moreover, aside from regular physicians working there, a group of religious imams who also practiced medicine, called Fugaha al-Badan,[7] provided service as well, likely by tending the patients’ spiritual needs.