Services that meet our needs

This lesson asks you to name services in a community, such as water and care for the sick, and the people who work in them, to say how they meet needs, and to imagine what would happen without them. The museum offers one water fountain and one hospital from the past; your class brings the services of its own community. ¹

Choose a service you use. Imagine a week without it and say who would be affected and how.

Services need people as well as buildings. List the workers and what each one does.

The record on the ‘Adudi Bimaristan follows a history book by Ibn al-Jawzi. It says Adud al-Dawla built a hospital in Baghdad ². Physicians, medicines, stewards, servants, vessels and clothing, and all that the sick require, were gathered there. Endowments were set for those who stayed in it, and the poor were given the clothing and vessels that left it ³. The record on the sabil adds that sabils received great care and many endowments that kept them working ⁴.

The records say sabils had many endowments that kept them working. Imagine a fountain or a hospital that nobody looked after and nobody paid for. What would happen to the people who depended on it, and why?

• The ‘Adudi Bimaristan: the hospital of Baghdad and what was gathered in it.
• The sabil: a water building among the charitable buildings, and where its water came from.

Read the card on the sabil and the card on the ‘Adudi Bimaristan. Choose one and draw the people and things it needed in order to work.