The building of the Prophet's Mosque

On reaching Medina the Prophet lodged among Banu al-Najjar on Friday 12 Rabi' al-Awwal 1 AH (27 September 622 CE), staying at the house of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari until he built his mosque and dwellings. ¹

The Prophet's camel knelt at a drying-yard belonging to two orphan boys of the Ansar in the care of As'ad ibn Zurara; the Prophet called them and bargained for the yard to make it a mosque, and they said — we give it to you — but he refused until he bought it from them for ten dinars, which Abu Bakr paid. ^{1 2}

The place held polytheist graves, palms, ruins and gharqad trees; the Prophet ordered the polytheist graves exhumed, the ruins levelled, and the palms and trees cut down and lined up in the mosque's qibla wall. ^{1 3}

The Prophet himself joined his companions of the Muhajirun and Ansar in carrying the bricks and stones; the mosque's supports were of stone, its walls of mudbrick and clay, its roof of palm fronds, its pillars palm trunks, and its floor spread with sand and pebbles. ^{1 4}

The qibla then faced Jerusalem; the mosque was given three doors, its length about a hundred cubits and its width near that, and the apartments of his wives were built beside it. The mosque was a seat of worship, a college of learning, a starting-point for governing the community's affairs, and a shelter for the poor Muhajirun at the Suffa. ¹