Seljuk Civilisation and Gevher Nesibe Medical History Museum

Anatolia's position on international trade routes not only fostered the growth of commerce but also meant that travellers brought various troubles, such as disease, with them. In the 12th century, with the intensity of trade and travel from west to east and with armies acting as carriers, the devastation caused by contagious diseases reached terrifying proportions. Epidemics, above all the plague, which the people of Anatolia called the “black death”, increased the need for health institutions. The great famine that struck Konya in 1221, Malatya in 1224, and Syria and Anatolia in 1259, followed by the sieges of the Mongol army and the natural disaster in Mardin and Meyyafarikin (Silvan), caused great destruction. The Anatolian Seljuks used the terms “Maristan, Bimaristan, Darü'l-Sıhha, Darü'l-Merza, Darü'l-Afiye” or, in the most common usage, “Darü'ş-Şifa” for their health institutions. Hospitals are examined in four categories: mobile hospitals, caravanserai hospitals, palace hospitals, and those of a general-hospital character founded for public health and medical education. The hospitals within the Nizamiye Madrasas built by Nizam al-Mulk in Nishapur and Baghdad, together with the Gevher Nesibe Darü'ş-Şifa and Madrasa in Kayseri, belong to the group of bimaristans (hospitals) of a general-hospital character founded for public health and medical education. The first campus-university-type structure in Kayseri, very similar in method to present-day education and training, is the Çifte Medrese (Double Madrasa), which Sultan Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I had built in the name of his sister (probably his twin sister) Gevher Nesibe Sultan, and it is a first in Anatolia. In this educational complex, built on a madrasa plan with four iwans*, a courtyard and porticoes** around the courtyard, patients were cared for on the one hand while physicians were trained on the other. From the information in the inscription, it is understood that the Darü'ş-Şifa was built at the bequest of Gevher Nesibe Sultan, daughter of Sultan Kılıçarslan II, during the second reign of her elder brother Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I (1205–1211 AD). The madrasa, mentioned in the tahrir register of 1530, consists of two madrasas, the “Gıyasiye and Şifaiye”. Turhan Baytop regards these health institutions as fully fledged hospitals with solid buildings and an adequate staff of physicians, pharmacists and health technicians. The Şifaiye also contains a bimarhane (mental hospital). According to legend, Gevher Nesibe Sultan*** fell in love with a commander from outside the palace. Her elder brother or twin, Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I, did not approve of this relationship, since it would not conform to Seljuk custom and state tradition, and opposed it. He sent the commander the princess loved off to war, and the commander fell in battle. The commander's death grieved the princess deeply, and from sorrow she fell ill with tuberculosis. While his sister lay on her sickbed, Sultan Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I apologised and asked whether she had any wish. Gevher Nesibe Sultan asked for a medical madrasa to be opened where those who, like her, had fallen into incurable illness could be treated, and declared that she was donating all the property that would pass to her from her father Kılıçarslan II to this foundation, and her jewellery to the daughters of marriageable age of the craftsmen who would work on the construction of the Darü'ş-Şifa. Taking his sister's wish as her last will, he had the earliest hospital founded in Anatolia built in her name, called Şifaiye and Gıyasiye and popularly known as the Çifte Medrese. Gevher Nesibe Hatun died before reaching the age of 39, and to fulfil his sister's wish Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I had the building completed in a period of about two years and opened it for service. While medical education was given in the Gıyasiye Madrasa, the hospital known as the Şifahane became the teaching hospital of medical science. Among the people it has been known by names such as the Çifte or İkiz Medreseler (Double or Twin Madrasas), the Kayseri Darü'ş-Şifa, the Şifa Hatun Madrasa, the Nesibe Hospital and the Darü'ş-Şifa Madrasa. The Hospital and Medical Madrasa are of a single-storey plan type with open courtyards and four iwans, the courtyards surrounded by porticoes on all four sides. In this example, the darüşşifa and the madrasa, each with its own courtyard, porticoes, iwans and other units, are connected to each other from the inside by a corridor on the north side of their courtyards. On the west side of the Darü'ş-Şifa, as in today's hospitals, there are nine rooms/patient rooms of equal size with a nearly square rectangular plan, arranged around a corridor. This section is thought to have been used as the mental health unit. Of the two adjoining buildings of identical plan, the darüşşifa was made larger and thus emphasised. It is known that the hospital's original staff consisted of 2 physicians, one of them the chief physician, 1 surgeon, 1 eye doctor, 1 pharmacist and 1 administrator, and that in the years when the hospital was built, the physician Ebubekir of Konya served in Kayseri as chief physician. The information that Ekmelüddin Müeyyet, who was chief physician in Konya at the time, and the physician Ebubekir, who worked in Kayseri, were in contact with each other shows that the health institution was administered from Konya. There is an inscription in the middle of the hospital's portal, and the lion motif on the inner right side of the portal bearing this inscription must have been made in memory of Sultan Kılıçarslan II, the father of Gevher Nesibe and Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev. A similar motif is found in the Sahabiye Madrasa near the Darü'ş-Şifa.