Page 655 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

COMPASSION IN ISLAMIC MORALITY

In the Ottoman Empire where Islamic moral values prevailed, families looked after not only their own
sick, but also those around them. The ailing were cared for in special clinics and efforts were made to treat

them using various means. The poor were offered free health services, and doctors and hospital officials
were even punished for demanding money from the poor. In 1871 the Health Inspectors and National
Doctors offices were established with the aim of regulating public health services. Some of the measures
under this arrangement were as follows:

• Doctors will examine all patients on specific days and at specific times of the week, and in a specific
place, free of charge, making no distinction between rich and poor. The necessary vaccinations will also
be given free of charge.

• Doctors will examine those who are unable to attend physical examination in their own homes, and a
predetermined fee will be charged to those who have the means to pay. No fee will be taken from the
poor, and costs incurred will be paid to the doctor from municipal funds.

• Failing to care for the sick without a valid reason, or receiving fees from the poor, will be a cause for
sacking. 135

Ottoman mental hospitals also employed special treatment methods. In the 15th-century Ottoman
Empire, special hospitals were built for mental patients. Efforts were made to heal the sick, depending on

their illness, by means of specially selected Turkish melodies, special meals, and flowers. Patients were
fed poultry in particular. Every patient's room had two windows, preferably looking out over a rose gar-
den. 136

Long before the Ottoman Empire, other Muslim states employed special methods to care for the physi-
cally and mentally ill. During the time of the Abbasid Caliphate in particular, the Islamic world attained
the highest medical and psychiatric sophistication. The world's first hospitals were built in the Islamic
world, and the treatment of the mentally ill by means of suggestion was first applied there. The moral
values of the Qur'an gave Muslims the compassion, affection, reason and understanding to do this.

Islamic moral values encourage believers to feel affection and act compassionately towards the poor, the
weak, the lowly, the needy and those unable to care for themselves, and to make sacrifices for, care for
and protect them. In some of the verses of the Qur'an, God has revealed how the weak, the poor and the
elderly should be treated:

"… Worship none but God and be good to your parents and to relatives and orphans and the very poor.
And speak good words to people. And perform prayer and give the alms." (Surat al-Baqara, 83)

It is not devoutness to turn your faces to the East or to the West. Rather, those with true devoutness are
those who believe in God and the Last Day, the Angels, the Book and the prophets, and who, despite

their love for it, give away their wealth to their relatives and to orphans and the very poor, and to trav-
elers and beggars and to set slaves free, and who perform prayer and give the alms; those who honor
their contracts when they make them, and are steadfast in poverty and illness and in battle. Those are
the people who are true. They are the people who guard against evil. (Surat al-Baqara, 177)

They will ask you what they should give away. Say, "Any wealth you give away should go to your par-
ents and relatives and to orphans and the very poor and travelers." Whatever good you do, God knows
it. (Surat al-Baqara, 215)

Worship God and do not associate anything with Him. Be good to your parents and relatives and to or-
phans and the very poor, and to neighbors who are related to you and neighbors who are not related
to you, and to companions and travelers and your slaves. God does not love anyone vain or boastful.
(Surat an-Nisa', 36)

Adnan Oktar 653