Nursing · a Light

The earliest named Muslim nurse worked in a tent

Early biographical works, chiefly Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat, name a woman of the Aslam tribe, Rufayda al-Aslamiyya, who cared for the wounded in a tent pitched near the Prophet's ﷺ mosque in Madinah, and report that Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, wounded at the Battle of the Trench, was placed in her care so that he could be visited. Other women of Madinah are named in the same sources doing similar work. What those reports say is short. The fuller modern picture, of a training school with a syllabus and enrolled students, is a twentieth century elaboration and ought to be labelled as one. The attested part is enough on its own. In the 620s a woman ran a place for treating the injured at the centre of the town, and everybody knew her name.

Rufayda al-Aslamiyya · Madinah, 620s CE

Source · Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir