The muristān (for māristān, from Persian bīmāristān, “infirmary”; the Arabic would be dār aš-šifaʾ, “house of healing, sanatorium”; in Iraq the Persian term ẖastaẖāna, “infirmary,” is used) is an Iranian institution introduced into Iraq and Syria before the ẖānkāh, “hospice,” and long before the madrasā, “college.”
Makrīzī reports that al-Walīd founded the first māristān at Damascus in 88 h (706-707 CE). According to ibn al-ʾAthīr, Nūr ad-Dīn built bīmāristāns (hospitals), in all his lands, Damascus included. Ibn Ǧubayr, a traveler from Spain, who visited Damascus in Rabīʿ II 580 (July-August 1184), reports:
There are about twenty madrasās in Damascus and two hospitals, the old and the new; the latter (that of Nūr ad-Dīn) is the larger and better built of the two. The old māristān, .... lies west of the Great Mosque.
The building surrounds a rectangular court, proportion 2:3, with the typical tank in the middle, and has four open rooms or ʾīwāns, covered by barrel vaults, on the main axes, the perfect type of the “cruciform plan,” the origin of which has been the subject of study and doubt.
The building surrounds a rectangular court, proportion 2:3, with the typical tank in the middle, and has four open rooms or ʾīwāns, covered by barrel vaults, on the main axes, the perfect type of the “cruciform plan,” the origin of which has been the subject of study and doubt.
Ernst Herzfeld. Damascus, Studies in Architecture I. Ars islamica v. 9, University of Michigan Press, 1942.
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