Nur al-Din Bimaristan

The Nur al-Din Bimaristan is a 12th-century hospital in old Damascus, founded by the ruler Nur al-Din Zangi and regarded as one of the most advanced medical institutions of the medieval Islamic world. Its ornate muqarnas portal leads to a peaceful central courtyard with a fountain, around which the wards and teaching rooms are arranged. For centuries it treated patients and trained physicians before becoming a museum of Arab science and medicine, displaying historic surgical instruments, manuscripts, and astronomical devices.