Medina (400 kilometers north of Mecca, connected by a superhighway) is Islam's second holiest city after Mecca. It is where Muhammad fled with a handful of followers after he was banished from Mecca. In Medina he established the first Muslim community and built and lead an army that raided Meccan caravans. After conquering Mecca, Muhammad returned to Medina and spent most of his last years there and died there in the lap of his favorite wife. Medina is also where the first Muslim caliphs launched the conquest that would make much of world Islamic.
Medina is known in Arabic as (al-Madina al-Munawwarra (the Illuminated City). Its importance lies in the fact that it was the place that the Prophet Muhammad migrated to in 622 – the first year of the Islamic calendar. The Prophet built the first mosque at Medina. Although visiting Medina is not an official part of Hajj, most pilgrims will go there before or after visiting Mecca. Amir Ahmad ‘Alawi (1879–1952) wrote: “The long line of camels…and the pilgrims waiting eagerly to catch their first sight of the house of their beloved messenger of Allah caused a strange welling up of emotions inside me. Tears came into my eyes." [Source: British Museum]
Medina contains Muhammad's tomb as well as the tombs of two of Shiite Islam's most important imam Ali and Hussein. In Muhammad's time Medina was an oasis and caravan stop called Yathrub. Later it became known as Madinat al Nabi "City of the Prophet" and finally, simply as Al Madinah, "The City." Thomas Abercrombie wrote in National Geographic, "Mecca awes, overpowers; Medina is more to a human scale. Despite comfortable modern suburbs, it retains the pious charm of a religious scholars town, a retreat where the pilgrim can rest his spirt after the cosmic experience of Mecca."
In the narrow streets of the old town, beyond the bazaar, balconies from opposite buildings almost meet. Here you can find old cobblestone streets, lively markets with street dentists and merchants selling flat bread, carpets, colorful silk and cotton cloth, prayer beads, prayer rugs, Qur’ans, precious stones and dates for which the city is famous. Many of the buildings feature Turkish architecture, evidence of the long Ottoman occupation. The wooden latticed balconies on the narrow streets of Aguwat recall Istanbul. At “a small, domed library endowed by a Turkish savant, scholars sit cross-legged, scrutinizing rare Islamic texts." (Source: Facts and Details)
The Kaaba: Holiest Sites of Islam, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
