Abstract

STATUS OF WOMEN IN MILITARY MEDICINE AT THE EARLY ISLAMIC ERA-A HISTORICAL REVIEW

Seyyed Alireza Golshani, Fatemeh Seddigh and Zehra Zaidi*

Abstract

With the advent of Islam women gained the equal social status as men and played the same role in all aspects of life such as social, political, and even military aspects. The presence of women in the battle fields was mainly for providing logistic support and medical activities. In this article the role of women in medical realm is described by revisiting and exploring the narrations and the early Islamic texts. The results indicate that one of the duties of women who were engaged in the battle fields was contribution in medical activities in order to cure the sick and the wounded. Therefore, these women can be regarded as the pioneers of the military women in the medical realm.

Keywords: Military Medicine, Nursing, Women, Early Islam, War.