Prophet's Mosque
Interesting facts
- The first concave mihrab, the curved prayer niche now found in mosques everywhere, was introduced here during the Umayyad rebuilding of the early 8th century.
- The Prophet first preached from a simple block of date-palm wood, later replaced by a small tamarisk pulpit of about 50 by 125 centimetres.
- Out of respect, the caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar are said never to have stood on the top step of the pulpit the Prophet had used.
- In Islamic tradition a fourth burial place in the chamber beside the Prophet's grave is kept empty for Jesus, whom Muslims believe will return.
- The first mosque, built in about seven months, measured roughly 30 by 36 metres; Umar, Uthman and later rulers each pushed its walls outward.
- A minaret built at the southwest corner under al-Walid I was pulled down only a few years later because it overlooked the house of Marwan ibn al-Hakam.
- For al-Walid's rebuilding, materials came from the Byzantine Empire, and Greek and Coptic craftsmen were brought in to lay the mosaics.
- The King Fahd expansion begun in 1985 added six minarets, each almost 104 metres tall, bringing the total to ten.
- The sliding roof domes and the giant folding umbrellas were designed by the German Muslim architect Mahmoud Bodo Rasch together with the engineers Buro Happold.
- From the 14th century the mosque was guarded by a corps of eunuchs, a tradition that survived into the 21st century, when only a handful remained.
Why it is worth it
Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the Mosque of the Prophet, stands at the heart of Medina and is the second holiest site in Islam after the Great Mosque of Mecca. Muhammad himself helped build the first mosque here in 622, soon after arriving in the city: a courtyard with walls of mud brick, a roof of palm trunks, clay and fronds barely 3.6 metres high, and three doors. It served as a place of prayer, a court, a school and a meeting hall for the young community. Tradition records that the land belonged to two orphans and that the Prophet insisted on paying for it rather than accepting it as a gift.
Every ruler of the Islamic world who held Medina left a mark. The Umayyad caliph al-Walid I rebuilt it in the early eighth century with mosaics described by later travellers as landscapes of trees, and with four corner towers that may have been among the first minarets anywhere. His enlargement took in the house of Aisha, where Muhammad and the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar, are buried. Above those graves rises the Green Dome, first raised in wood by the Mamluk sultan Qalawun in 1279, rebuilt in stone under Qaitbay, renewed under the Ottomans and painted green in 1837. On the southeast side lies the Rawdah, "the Noble Garden", completed in its present form in 1817. The Mamluk Raisiyyah minaret of 1481 still keeps its original style, and the southern Ottoman prayer hall, roofed with small domes painted with Quranic verses and lines of the poem Qasidat al-Burda, is the oldest part of the present building.
Modern Saudi expansions have multiplied the mosque many times over. Movable domes in the roof courtyards slide open and shut with the weather, and since 2010, 250 giant electrically operated umbrellas unfold over the surrounding plazas, shading about 143,000 square metres. In 1909 it became the first place in the Arabian Peninsula to have electric light. The mosque is open essentially around the clock, whatever the date or hour.
Getting there
The mosque is in central Madinah. Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport (MED) is about 13 km away, and the Haramain high-speed railway links Medina with Mecca, Jeddah and King Abdulaziz International Airport in under three hours. The sacred core of the old city around the mosque is open to Muslims only.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Prophet's Mosque is the second mosque built by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Medina, after the Quba Mosque, as well as the second largest mosque and holiest site in Islam, after the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, in the Saudi region of the Hejaz. The mosque is located at the heart of Medina, and is a major site of pilgrimage that falls under the purview of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
24.46833, 39.61083per Wikidata