Treating the wounded in the Prophet's time (mudawat al-jarha)

The hadith books keep short reports about the care of the wounded in the Prophet's campaigns and household. This record gathers what we found of them in the texts of Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim held in the museum, sets them out as they were transmitted without drawing from them a medical or legal rule, and puts beside them what Ibn Sina wrote on the work of the hand, so the reader can see how wounds and bleeding were spoken of in each field. What a report does not say is not attributed to it.

Al-Rubayyi' bint Mu'awwidh says: "We were with the Prophet, giving drink and treating the wounded, and returning the dead to Medina" ¹; see Bukhari 2882 and al-Rubayyi' bint Mu'awwidh. The museum has a separate record of what is told about the tent of Rufayda al-Aslamiyya (may God be pleased with her), where she treated the wounded, which rests on Ibn Hajar's al-Isaba and the TDV encyclopedia; her name does not occur in the reports given here: Rufayda's tent and Rufayda al-Aslamiyya.

Sahl ibn Sa'd was asked about the Prophet's wound and said he knew who washed it, who poured the water and with what it was treated: Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, washed it and Ali poured water from a shield; "when Fatima saw that the water only made the blood more, she took a piece of mat, burned it, and applied it, and the blood held". That day his incisor was broken, his face wounded and his helmet smashed on his head ²; see Bukhari 4075. In Muslim's version she burned the piece of mat to ashes and applied it to the wound, and the blood held ⁵; see Muslim 4642. For comparison, Ibn Sina names rabbit fur, spider's web and egg white among drugs for stopping blood ⁶; the museum claims no link between the two. See Fatima bint Muhammad and The Battle of Uhud.

A'isha reports that Sa'd was struck in the akhal, the arm vein, on the day of the Trench, and the Prophet pitched a tent in the mosque to visit him from close by. There was also a tent of Banu Ghifar in the mosque, and blood came running toward them; Sa'd's wound was pouring blood, and he died there ³; see Bukhari 463. In Muslim's version of her report the archer was a man of Quraysh called Ibn al-Ariqa ⁷. Jabir reports: "Sa'd ibn Mu'adh was shot in his akhal and the Prophet cauterised it with his own hand with a broad arrowhead; then it swelled and he cauterised it a second time" ⁴; see Muslim 5748. The verb is hasama, which the museum's passage record renders as cauterising a wound to stop blood. Ibn Sina treats cautery for bleeding and says it must be strong so that its scab is deep and thick and does not fall quickly ⁸. See Sa'd ibn Mu'adh and The Battle of the Trench.

Jabir also reports that the Prophet sent a physician to Ubayy ibn Ka'b, who cut a vein from him and then cauterised it ⁹; see Muslim 5745 and Ubayy ibn Ka'b. This report describes cutting a vein and then cautery, operations Ibn Sina treats in Venesection and Surgery, the work of the hand.

These reports are history of treatment in its time, neither a therapeutic rule nor a juristic ruling. The question of the ruling on seeking treatment and its limits belongs to Seeking treatment, where the jurists' views are set out.