Sacred Places Browser

Qur'an · 1 · Sunnah · 1

The Aqsa mosque is the large congregational mosque of the Haram in Jerusalem. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says the first clearly documented Aqsa dates to al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik and was set on the axis of the Dome of the Rock; al-Mansur and al-Mahdi rebuilt it extensively; under the Fatimid al-Zahir it was rebuilt, shrinking to roughly its present size and receiving mosaics; and Saladin built a new mihrab and brought Nur al-Din's minbar, destroyed in 1969. Al-Muqaddasi described the covered hall, its twenty-six doors, courtyard and domes in detail {cite:ahsan-al-taqasim p. 143-144}.

Draft card for al-Haram al-Sharif, the Jerusalem sanctuary esplanade holding the Aqsa mosque, the Dome of the Rock and its domes and arcades, named from an open reference description (Wikidata); al-Muqaddasi describes it in Ahsan al-Taqasim but the details are not yet checked on the page.

Qur'an · 7 · Sunnah · 8

The Kaaba is the most famous sanctuary of Islam, the House of God at the centre of the great mosque of Mecca, toward which Muslims pray and around which pilgrims circle. Muslims understand Ibrahim and Ismail to have raised its foundations; the Encyclopaedia of Islam says little is known historically outside Muslim tradition, with firmer history beginning with the Quraysh rebuilding, then Ibn al-Zubayr's rebuilding in 64/683 and al-Hajjaj's return to the earlier form in 74/693. The article also covers its Black Stone, covering, sacred zone, Sufi views and a historical reading of Mecca's religion before Islam.

Qur'an · 17 · Sunnah · 3

The mosque in Mecca. Al-Muqaddasi's eyewitness portrait c. 375 AH — marble columns carried by the Mahdi's order from Alexandria to Jeddah by sea, three marble-pillared arcades clad in mosaics made by Syrian and Egyptian craftsmen whose names he could still read, nineteen gates including Bab Bani Shayba and Bab al-Nadwa, brass lamp-rings around the tawaf fed with candles by the kings of Egypt and Yemen, and three basins filled by Zubayda's channel {cite:ahsan-al-taqasim pp. 81-82}. Four centuries on, Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari measures the Kaaba cubit by cubit — four cubits from door to Black Stone, the Multazam; the sealed door in its back called 'the refuge from sins'; its gilded door renewed under the Nasiri sultans after the old plates were valued at eighteen thousand dinars {cite:umari-masalik-1924 pp. 137, 141-142}. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says the open space round the Kaaba was enlarged over the centuries into the mosque, credits al-Walid I with the galleries round the courtyard, and describes the great Saudi enlargement begun in 1375/1955 and completed in 1398/1978, which kept the old mosque and brought al-Mas'a inside, with an estimated capacity of about 300,000 worshippers.

Sunnah · 26

The mosque the Prophet founded in Medina after the Hijra, on a date-drying yard of two orphans where his camel knelt and which he bought from them; the Muslims built it of mudbrick on a stone foundation, with palm-trunk and frond shelter on the qibla side {cite:samhudi-wafa-al-wafa p. 334-349}. The Encyclopaedia of Islam reports two traditions about the orphans' guardian and describes a courtyard with three entrances in one section and a single entrance in its architecture section, with the Suffa shelter for poor Companions and huts for the Prophet's wives. It treats the building as the model from which the mosque developed and as the community's political and social centre, enlarged by Umar and Uthman and rebuilt by al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik.

Qur'an · 2

A place where the Prophet and the Muslims stopped on their way to Tabuk; they drew from its well and were then forbidden to drink from it.

Qur'an · 2 · Sunnah · 2

City holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims; in Islamic tradition the first qibla and the end of the Night Journey, handed over to the Muslims in the late 630s CE. The Encyclopaedia of Islam divides its Islamic history into three periods: six hundred years of contest, culminating in the Crusades; six hundred years as a provincial holy city under the Mamluks and Ottomans; and the modern period from the 1830s.

Qur'an · 8 · Sunnah · 77 · Seerah · 1

The most sacred city of Islam, in the Hejaz about 72 km inland from Jeddah, where the Prophet Muhammad was born, the Kaaba stands and the annual Hajj is held. The Encyclopaedia of Islam presents it as a trading centre dominated by Quraysh before Islam, then a city ruled by Umayyads, Abbasids, sharifs and Ottomans until Abd al-Aziz Al Saud took it in 1924. Ibn Battuta describes the Sacred Mosque in his day, counting its ten gates, domes and porticoes, measuring the distance between al-Safa and al-Marwa in steps, and noting that Dar al-Nadwa was made a congregational mosque attached to the haram {cite:rihla-ibn-battuta-1958 p. 85-88}. The Arabic Papyrology Database preserves two paper documents sent from Mecca to business friends in Fustat, a business letter about the pilgrimage dated 901-1000 CE and a private greeting from the pilgrimage dated 1101-1200 CE {cite:apd P.Vind.inv. A.Ch. 36581} {cite:apd P.Vind.inv. A.Ch. 10354}

Sunnah · 39 · Seerah · 1

City in the Hejaz to which the Prophet migrated in 622 CE; site of the Prophet's Mosque and the first Muslim community. The Prophet declared it a sanctuary as Abraham declared Mecca — its bounds 'between 'Ayr and Thawr' (or 'to Uhud' in the reading Abu 'Ubayd and al-Hazimi preferred) and 'between its two lava fields'; within them hunting and tree-cutting are forbidden and the bloodwit for unintended killing is heavier {cite:samhudi-wafa-al-wafa p. 92-118}. Samhudi counts nearly ninety-five names for it, among them Tayba, Taba and Yathrib {cite:samhudi-wafa-al-wafa p. 36}. The Encyclopaedia of Islam describes it as the residence of the Prophet after the hijra and one of the sacred cities of Islam: before Islam an oasis of scattered settlements shared by Arab clans and Jewish groups, then the seat of the first caliphs until the centre of the caliphate moved away from it in 656 CE, and afterwards a quieter city that came under Saudi rule in December 1925.

Sunnah · 1

A halt on the pilgrim road about twenty-seven miles from al-Juhfa. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 142}

Sunnah · 3

A halting place on the Hijra road between Quba' and Makkah, mentioned by Ibn Ishaq in his account of the Hijra route.

Sunnah · 1

A settlement between Mecca and Ta'if where the Prophet halted the spoils and captives of Hunayn, received Hawazin's delegation and granted them general amnesty, distributed the shares to al-Mu'allafa Qulubuhum, addressed the Ansar, and entered ihram for Umrah.

Sunnah · 6

The land between Mecca and Medina — named (al-Mas'udi says) for the torrent that swept away (ajhafa) 'Ubayl ibn Aws and his people who first settled it; Banu Hanifa of Yamama later dwelt there {cite:muruj-al-dhahab p. 457-458}.

Qur'an · 1

A small hill beside the Kaaba at Mecca; the Prophet climbed it to summon the clans of Quraysh and warn them, and the house of al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam, his centre for the call, stood on it.

Qur'an · 1 · Sunnah · 33

A broad plain outside Mecca where pilgrims stand on the Day of Arafat. It is so called because Gabriel asked Abraham, 'Have you recognised your rites?' In its middle is Jabal al-Mashash, and behind it Jabal Kabkab (al-Azraqi, pp. 119, 284 and 321 of the scan).

Sunnah · 12

The miqat of the people of Madina: pilgrims from Madina enter the state of ihram at its mosque. Its site is known today as Abyar Ali, and Ibn Battuta mentions it on his way to Makkah.

Sunnah · 2

A valley in lower Mecca where the Prophet halted the army, bowed his head in humility on his mount until his beard nearly touched the saddle, divided the columns for entry, and where Abu Quhafa was brought to embrace Islam.

Sunnah · 48

A valley between Makkah and al-Mash'ar, where pilgrims throw the jamarat (pebbles) and spend the nights of the Days of Tashriq.

Sunnah · 16

A place between Arafat and Mina, where pilgrims spend the night of the sacrifice (laylat al-nahr).

Sunnah · 2

The miqat of the people of Najd, on the road to Taif; Ibn Battuta mentions it on his way to Medina.

Sunnah · 1

A village on the road from Medina to Makkah, near Khulays, mentioned by Ibn Battuta and Ibn Jubayr on their journeys.

Sunnah · 2

A valley between Mina and Muzdalifa. Al-Azraqi reports that the distance from the Jamrat al-Aqaba to Wadi Muhassir is seven thousand two hundred cubits (p. 789); that Ibn Abbas said, 'Move on from Muhassir', meaning do not stop at Muhassir, which you do not reach; and that the qarn beside its wall ends at Muhassir (p. 802).

Qur'an · 1 · Sunnah · 3

A mosque in Quba, a village in the territory of Medina, dated by Wikidata to 622 CE. The Encyclopaedia of Islam records the tradition that it was the first mosque founded by Muslims and sets out two accounts of its founding: that the Prophet found it already built when he stopped at Quba on his hijra, or that he founded it himself. It adds that he is said to have visited it every Saturday.

Sunnah · 1

Al-Jar, the Hijaz's port where Egypt's kharaj grain-ships landed from year 21 onward — Sa'd al-Jar taking charge there, the grain carried to Medina and dealt out by measure from a house; the service ran on to Abu Ja'far's caliphate and just before, with interruptions at the first fitna and in Umayyad times.

Sunnah · 5

A place three miles from Medina, in the editors' reckoning; the Prophet stopped there and Ali ibn Abi Talib caught up with him.

Sunnah · 1

A watering place between Usfan and Amaj on the road between Medina and Mecca; there the Prophet broke his fast and the army broke theirs on the march of the Conquest in Ramadan 8 AH.

Sunnah · 1

al-Mirbad, Basra's square and market at its western gate; the governor Sulayman ibn Ali moved his residence there under Abu al-Abbas.

Sunnah · 2

A place near Medina, in the editors' reckoning; Ibn Ishaq records that Abu Dharr was exiled there and died there.

Sunnah · 1

A place on the Medina road that al-Idrisi names as the miqat for people of Medina, with a few Arabs living there, a short distance from the city. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 142}

Sunnah · 2

A halt on the pilgrim road about twenty-seven miles beyond al-Abwa, with an orchard, palm gardens and people of Tayy and other Arab tribes. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 142}

Qur'an · 1 · Seerah · 1

Settlement in the Hejaz, southwest of Medina, near the wells where the Battle of Badr was fought in 624 CE.

Medina's great cemetery east of the Prophet's Mosque; As'ad ibn Zurara was the first Muslim buried there on Abu Hatim's account via Razin — 'Uthman ibn Maz'un the first of the Emigrants — and al-Samhudi lists among its merits the resurrection of seventy thousand from it in the image of the moon without reckoning, angels who whenever it fills take it by its edges and empty it into Paradise, answered prayer at the corner of Dar 'Aqil beside it, and the mosque of Banu Hudayla inside it right of its gate {cite:samhudi-wafa-al-wafa p. 91, 271}.

Sunnah · 2 · Seerah · 1

A Jewish oasis in the northern Hijaz near Khaybar; its people made peace with the Prophet on his return from Khaybar for half the land with its soil, the surrendered half becoming the Prophet's own fay' which he spent on wayfarers, and they remained there until Umar ibn al-Khattab exiled them in his caliphate together with the Jews of Khaybar to Syria, after their share of palms and land was valued at a fair price paid to them.

Sunnah · 1

Pool and halting place on the pilgrim road between Mecca and Medina, near al-Juhfa, where the Prophet halted in 632 CE.

A small cave on Jabal al-Nur about two miles from Mecca — four cubits long and a cubit and three-quarters wide — where the Prophet used to retreat for worship during Ramadan before prophethood.

Qur'an · 1

A cave at the top of Jabal Thawr, a rugged mountain south of Mecca, where the Prophet and Abu Bakr hid for three nights at the start of the Hijra.

Sunnah · 4 · Seerah · 1

Place on the edge of Mecca's sacred territory where the truce between the Muslims and the Quraysh was agreed in 628 CE.

Sunnah · 1

Red Sea port of the Hejaz, the main gateway for pilgrims to Mecca since the time of the caliph Uthman.

Sunnah · 12 · Seerah · 2

Oasis north of Medina, home of Jewish communities and the objective of the Muslim expedition of 628 CE.

Sunnah · 1

A small town without walls, like a large village, on a hill of red earth that protects its people from raids. They drink from a spring that rises in the mountain to the south, and its water is brackish. Its people are raided and sold, and everyone there is marked with a burn on the face {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 22}.

Sunnah · 1

A large town some seven stages south of Mecca toward Yemen, remembered in the prophetic sources as comprising seventy-three villages and a powerful Christian community whose delegation reached Medina in 9 AH.

Sunnah · 7

A village at the southern approach of Medina where the Prophet stopped on 8 Rabi' I 1 AH, stayed four days on Ibn Ishaq's account, and founded the first mosque 'upon taqwa'.

Sunnah · 1

The roofed hall of Banu Sa'ida where the Ansar met after the Prophet's death and Abu Bakr was acclaimed; al-Samhudi argues it stood by the market of Medina at what is now Darb al-Suwayqa — in the Jirar Sa'd quarter where Sa'd ibn Ubada's sept lived — not at the Banu Sa'ida village by Bi'r Buda'a as al-Matari held, for Sa'd was among his own sept and the saqifa stood by his house {cite:samhudi-wafa-al-wafa p. 221}.

Sunnah · 3

Town in northwest Arabia, the furthest point of the Prophet's expedition of 630 CE toward the Byzantine frontier.

Sunnah · 1 · Seerah · 1

Hill town in the Sarat mountains south-east of Mecca, 1,680 m above sea level, home of the Thaqif tribe in early Islam and later the summer capital of western Arabia. The Prophet visited it in 619 CE and it was besieged in 630 CE. Before Islam it had a brick wall and fortresses, and the valley of Wajj, which gave it its early name, was declared a haram in the agreement between the Prophet and the Thaqif.

Sunnah · 8

Mountain just north of Medina, below which the Battle of Uhud was fought in 625 CE.

Sunnah · 3

A valley of villages north of Medina on the Syrian road; Zayd ibn Haritha fought Banu Fazara there twice, wounded in the first and victorious in the second when Umm Qirfa was killed; al-Mas'udi notes that some counted the Prophet's return from Khaybar through Wadi al-Qura as a separate expedition.

Qur'an · 1

A deep, hollow valley in the Tihama lowlands between Mecca and Ta'if with narrow gorges where the Hawazin confederation laid their ambush against the Muslim army in Shawwal 8 AH.

Qur'an · 3 · Sunnah · 10

The lands north of Arabia where Qudaʾa’s Salihids then the Ghassanids ruled as Rome’s client kings, and to which Harran-bound Ibrahim had earlier passed through Palestine. Writing c. 375 AH, the native son al-Muqaddasi called Sham 'the abode of the prophets', home of the first qibla, the ribats and the holy mountains — though its marches were already ruined and its people lived in fear of the Byzantines {cite:ahsan-al-taqasim pp. 132-133}.

Qur'an · 1

A small village that was once a great city; al-Idrisi says it was an old great capital, and that it is now a small place. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 670}

Sunnah · 1

A high mountain near the sea, reached by a known path; it has a mosque and a well of sweet water from which climbers drink. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 349}

Qur'an · 14

A large town on the Red Sea coast which al-Idrisi identifies as the town of Shu'ayb, with a house and water from a flowing spring; its livelihood is narrow, five stages from Ayla. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 350}

Qur'an · 5 · Sunnah · 4

A land watered by the Nile without rain, with Nubia to the south and the sea to the north; it has orchards, trees, palms and sugar cane, and its people plant after the flood. {cite:nuzhat-al-mushtaq-2002 p. 322} In the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Misr is the eponym of the Egyptians, a common noun for a conquerors' settlement and provincial capital, and the land of Egypt with its capital. The article follows its history from Byzantine Egypt and the Arab conquest under Amr ibn al-As through Umayyad, Abbasid, Tulunid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman rule, to the French expedition, Muhammad Ali and the Urabi movement, defeated in 1882.

Qur'an · 3 · Sunnah · 6 · Seerah · 1

The southwest corner of Arabia, homeland of the Qahtani Arabs and seat of the successive Sabaean, Himyarite, Abyssinian and Persian powers narrated in the sira's prologue.

The great walled sanctuary over the Machpelah cave at Hebron; al-Umari records Abraham buying the plot from Habri for fifty dirhams, then Sarah, Abraham, Rebecca, Isaac, Jacob and Leah buried within, and Solomon raising the enclosure where a pillar of light touched down. It had no door until the Muslims opened one after the conquest; its masonry holds stones thirty-seven spans long. From a door in the qibla, steps descend to a cramped underground passage the author himself crawled through, ending at a chamber with three grave-markers said to be Abraham, his wife and Isaac; the shrine tombs above stand paired — Isaac and Rebecca in the qibla, Abraham and Sarah under facing domes to the north, Jacob under a lone dome. Al-Harawi tells that in King Baldwin's day a spot collapsed in 513 and Franks entered to find the three prophets' bodies leaning against a wall in worn shrouds with lamps at their heads; the king renewed the shrouds and sealed it. Behind the sanctuary lies a grave ascribed to Joseph, kept outside since a voice cried 'he bears Egypt's tribute'. Every afternoon a simat feeds all comers — over thirteen thousand loaves in one night of 745 — the Crusaders having kept and even enlarged the endowment {cite:umari-masalik-1924 p. 168-172}.

Sunnah · 1

The pre-modern name for the eastern Arabian coastal region where Kinda first settled and where Abd al-Qays, branches of Bakr ibn Waʾil and Tamim dwelt; also a seat of the Mazdean faith among the Arabs.

Sunnah · 1

Syrian city, capital of the Umayyad caliphate (661-750 CE) and home of the Umayyad Mosque. Ibn Battuta records reaching Damascus on 9 Ramadan 726 and lodging at the Maliki madrasa known as al-Sharbashiyya, quoting Ibn Jubayr's naming it 'the paradise of the East'; he calls its congregational mosque the finest of the world's mosques in construction, noting that al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik undertook the building after the Byzantine king sent craftsmen {cite:rihla-ibn-battuta-1958 p. 50-52} The Encyclopaedia of Islam traces the city from the Bronze Age through Aramaean, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine rule to the Arab conquest of 14-15 AH (635-636 CE), then through Umayyad, Abbasid, Burid, Zengid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman rule to the French mandate of 1920, describing the Great Mosque built by al-Walid I and the city's role as a centre of madrasas under Nur al-Din and the Ayyubids.

Sunnah · 1

Fars, the great province named for its people; the Muslims conquered it from the sea under Umar — Abr Kawan first, then Tawwaj and Rayshahr where its marzban Shahrak fell, then Arrajan, Shiraz, Sabur, Darabjird and the rest.

Sunnah · 2

The land of Ur and the Sawad under Persian rule: home of the Lakhmid client kingdom at al-Hira, the Jewish settlements that migrated to the Hijaz, and the banks of the Euphrates giving onto the Jazira tribes.

Sunnah · 2

The Arabian Peninsula — bounded by al-Hamdani in his Sifa's preamble: Sharm Ayla, the coasts and the Qulzum to Fustat in the west; 'Uman, Bahrayn, Kazima and Basra in the east; Hijaz, Najd and the 'Arud at its head; Aden at 12° south latitude — named Jazirat al-Arab 'because the Arabic tongue is common throughout it', its length reckoned at 1,533 miles or 76⅓ stages {cite:sifat-jazirat-al-arab pp. 4-5} — its ancient monuments, in his register: Na'mit, Ghumdan, Hakar, Raydan, Baynun, Qayman, Bark al-'Imad and Iram Dhat al-'Imad {cite:sifat-jazirat-al-arab p. 6}.

Sunnah · 2

Kufa was one of the two garrison cities founded by early Islam in Iraq, established by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas in 17 AH, 638 CE, on the right bank of the Euphrates near al-Hira. It was a military base of the Arabs, the seat of Ali's caliphate and the scene of major risings in the first Islamic century, and it was the home of a well-known grammatical school. It declined after the Abbasids moved the centre of government to Baghdad and after Qarmatian attacks, and lost its importance with the rise of al-Hilla in 495/1101.

Sunnah · 2

Historic region of central Arabia.