About
An eye doctor, and a researcher with one question: how did our ancestors produce so much knowledge without computers or electricity, and how do we recover their mindset today?
I'm Esam Shahlol. I studied medicine in Benghazi, worked for years in humanitarian aid in Libya, then began again in Germany: a new language, exams, a licence, then ophthalmology.
I write the Al-Rafah letters twice a month, in Arabic. They join new research with golden-age wisdom, Islamic and Arabic thought, psychology, philosophy and my own experiments.
And I founded the Rafaah app: a day drawn by the prayers, with small habits between them.
Small things about me
- If I weren't a doctor, I'd have studied programming or design.
- I like taking things apart and redesigning them, ever since modding my phones in my twenties.
- I live what I write about: real food, morning light, enough sleep.
- I learned German from zero until I practised medicine in it.
- One question keeps me busy: how did golden-age scholars achieve so much without electricity or internet?
The pillars of Al-Rafah
- 01
Relationships
وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً
Ar-Rum 30:21 - 02
Sleep
وَجَعَلْنَا نَوْمَكُمْ سُبَاتًا
An-Naba 78:9 - 03
Nutrition
وَكُلُوا وَاشْرَبُوا وَلَا تُسْرِفُوا
Al-A‘raf 7:31 - 04
Movement
وَلَا تُلْقُوا بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِلَى التَّهْلُكَةِ
Al-Baqarah 2:195 - 05
Calm
لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا
Al-Baqarah 2:286
The path
Full details on LinkedIn- 2008–2017
Medical school at the University of Benghazi
Working in pharmacies alongside my studies.
- 2017–2021
Internship, then humanitarian work in Libya
With international organisations in health promotion, protection and migration.
- 2021–2023
German from scratch, then a medical licence in Germany
The language, the medical language exam, and the licence in 2023.
- 2023
The writing begins
The blog, then the first issue of the newsletter.
- 2024
Ophthalmology in Germany
Alongside it, further training in clinical nutrition.
- 2025
The Al-Rafah channel and the ArztWerden course
Health videos, and a course for doctors moving to Germany.
- 2026
The letters on Substack, a first digital book, and the Rafaah app
Two letters a month, a guide to learning languages, and an app that draws your day around the prayers.