Very naturally, the adjacent thoroughfares became unpopular and practically deserted, but still the holy work progressed rapidly and was shortly completed.
This immense structure is said to have contained four courts, each having a fountain in the centre; lecture-halls, wards for isolating certain diseases, and a department that corresponded to the modern hospital's "out-patient" department.

The yearly endowment amounted to something like the equivalent of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

A novel feature was a hall where musicians played day and night, and another where story-tellers were employed, so that persons troubled with insomnia were amused and melancholiacs cheered.

Those of a religious turn of mind could listen to readings of the Koran, conducted continuously by a staff of some fifty chaplains.

Each patient on leaving the hospital received some gold pieces, that he need not be obliged to attempt hard labor at once.
In considering the astonishing tales of these sumptuous Arabian institutions, it should be borne in mind that our accounts of them are, for the most part, from Mohammedan sources.