Maristans

From the Persian word ‘bimaristan’ that means ‘place of the sick’, maristans are medieval Islamic hospitals that were charitable institutions for the care of the sick, destitute, and mentally distressed. As a precursor to modern mental asylums, maristans were state-funded (sultan-patroned) entities providing an early form of healthcare and health equity to society.

Under the patronage of a given sultan, maristans usually had a head physician plus younger physicians (often apprentices) and nurses to care for the ailing. Maristans included separate wards for men and women, and most often there was a central fountain providing coolness and the melody of water, plus separate water basins for washing and cleaning.

Avant-garde and trendy for their times, maristans followed the spread and consolidation of Islam across North Africa into the Iberian Pensinula, as well as north into the Anatolian Pensinula and into Central Asia. Maristans are usually embedded in city centers near or part of the mosques, madrasas, and mausoleums of a given sultan. See the Maristan Map.

The following examples show the archaeological and architectural remnants of maristans in different cities around the Mediterranean; there were many other maristans that no longer exist but that are found in literary and historical sources.