Who paid for your care in a 13th-century hospital?

Enter a medieval Cairo hospital through its founding documents, meet the physicians who taught at the bedside, and see what made these institutions similar to — and very different from — hospitals today.

Exhibit 01

17%

Exhibit 01

At the gate

Reconstruction based on historical sources. Cairo, the 1280s. The Mamluk sultan Qalāwūn has founded a large hospital — al-Bīmāristān al-Manṣūrī — as part of a complex with a school and his own tomb. Its endowment deed sets out how it will be funded and run.

You are sick, and poor. Will they take you in?

Question

What do you expect to pay?

§Historical finding

The Manṣūrī hospital

Founded by Sultan Qalāwūn in 1284–85, the hospital was funded by a waqf (endowment). Its documents describe staff, wards and provisions. Ragab studies how practice related to these ideals.

1 source

Sources in this experience

The Medieval Islamic Hospital: Medicine, Religion, and Charity — Ahmed Ragab, 2015, Cambridge University Press View source
Qalawun complex, Cairo (photograph) — Marsupium, 2024, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 View source
The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality — Michael W. Dols, 1987, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 61(3): 367–390
Medieval Islamic Medicine — Peter E. Pormann & Emilie Savage-Smith, 2007, Edinburgh University Press View source
The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire — Timothy S. Miller, 1997, Johns Hopkins University Press View source
Islamic Culture and the Medical Arts — U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1994 View source
Practice versus Theory: Tenth-century Case Histories from the Islamic Middle East — Cristina Álvarez-Millán, 2000, Social History of Medicine 13(2): 293–306

Spotted an error or have a question? Tell us

Keep exploring

The opening page of a 13th-century Latin manuscript of Ptolemy's Almagest, with an enthroned Ptolemy in a gold and blue initial — Almagest, Latin manuscript, Paris, 13th c. · BnF Latin 16200, f. 1 · Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF · Public domain (cropped)

InvestigationHistory11 min

What happens to an idea when it changes language?

Begin · When Knowledge Traveled the World

A weary, ragged stranger sits on city steps at dusk beside a worn bag while townspeople with baskets of bread walk past — Illustration

InvestigationEthics11 min

What do you owe to strangers in your own city?

Begin · What Makes a Society Just?