Rufaida al-Aslamiya

Rufaida bint Sa'ad al-Aslamiya was born around 620 CE in Yathrib (modern-day Medina) into the Banu Aslam tribe. Her father, Sa'ad al-Aslami, was an esteemed surgeon in the Khazraj clan who trained his daughter in medicine from a young age. She worked as his assistant, learning to care for the sick, treat the wounded, and serve as a community health worker — identifying causes of disease and working to address them at their source.

Rufaida and her family were among the earliest converts to Islam after the Prophet Muhammad's migration to Medina in 622 CE. She is known to have treated the wounded after the Battle of Badr (624 CE), the first major military campaign of the Muslim community, establishing a pattern of battlefield nursing that she would continue for years.

During the Battle of the Trench (627 CE), the Prophet Muhammad himself directed that the seriously wounded companion Sa'd ibn Mu'adh be placed in her care, saying: "Place him in the tent of Rufaida which is by the masjid until she tend to him" (recorded by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in Al-Isabah fi Tamyiz al-Sahabah). This directive — from the Prophet himself — represented an extraordinary public recognition of Rufaida's medical authority. Her tent, set up adjacent to the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, functioned as the first formal military field hospital: a mobile medical unit where she led teams of trained female volunteer nurses who entered the battlefield to retrieve and stabilise the wounded.

Before the Battle of Khaybar (629 CE), Rufaida personally approached the Prophet Muhammad, requesting permission for her group to accompany the army: "O Messenger of Allah, we want to go out with you to the battle and treat the injured and help Muslims as much as we can." The Prophet agreed, and after the battle the women who had helped treat the wounded were awarded a share of the spoils equal to that of the fighting soldiers — a remarkable formal recognition of their contribution.

Rufaida's group of volunteer nurses became known as the al-Asiyat, meaning those who treat the injured. She trained them in wound care, basic surgical assistance, and battlefield first aid — establishing the first organised nursing school in history, more than 1,200 years before Florence Nightingale established nurse training in 19th-century England. The legacy of Rufaida al-Aslamiya is honoured today in the Rufaida al-Aslamiya Award for Nursing Excellence and in nursing schools and institutions across the Muslim world.