Medina is home to several distinguished sites and landmarks, most of which are mosques and hold historic significance. These include the three aforementioned mosques, Masjid al-Fath (also known as Masjid al-Khandaq), the Seven Mosques, the
Baqi' Cemetery where the graves of many famous Islamic figures are presumed to be located; directly to the southeast of the Prophet's Mosque, the
Uhud mountain, site of the eponymous
Battle of Uhud and the King Fahd Glorious Qur'an Printing Complex where most modern Qur'anic
Mus'hafs are printed.
Early history Medina has been inhabited at least 1500 years before the Hijra, or approximately the 9th century BCE.
Ibn Khordadbeh later reported that during the
Persian Empire's domination in Hejaz, the Banu Qurayza served as
tax collectors for the Persian
Shah. The situation changed after the arrival of two new
Arab tribes, the
'Aws or Banu 'Aws and the
Khazraj, also known as the Banu Khazraj. At first, these tribes were allied with the Jewish tribes who ruled the region, but they later revolted and became independent. , the inscription below reads 'Madinah Shareef' (Noble City)
Under the 'Aws and Khazraj Toward the end of the 5th century, the Jewish rulers lost control of the city to the two Arab tribes. Most modern historians accept the claim of the Muslim sources that after the revolt, the Jewish tribes became clients of the 'Aws and the Khazraj. However, according to Scottish scholar,
William Montgomery Watt, the clientship of the Jewish tribes is not borne out by the historical accounts of the period prior to 627, and he maintained that the Jewish populace retained a measure of political independence. and the residents of Yathrib. When the king was passing by the oasis, the residents killed his son, and the Yemenite ruler threatened to exterminate the people and cut down the
palms. According to Ibn Ishaq, he was stopped from doing so by two
rabbis from the Banu Qurayza tribe, who implored the king to spare the oasis because it was the place "to which a prophet of the
Quraysh would migrate in time to come, and it would be his home and resting-place." The Yemenite king thus did not destroy the town and converted to
Judaism. He took the rabbis with him, and in
Mecca, they reportedly recognised the
Ka'bah as a structure built by
Abraham and advised the king "to do what the people of Mecca did: to
circumambulate the structure, to venerate and honor it, to shave his head and to behave with all humility until he had left its precincts." On approaching Yemen, tells Ibn Ishaq, the rabbis demonstrated to the local people a miracle by coming out of a fire unscathed and the Yemenites accepted Judaism. Eventually the Banu 'Aws and the Banu Khazraj became hostile to each other and by the time of Muhammad's
Hijrah (emigration) to Medina in 622, they had been fighting for 120 years and were sworn enemies The Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurayza were allied with the 'Aws, while the Banu Qaynuqa sided with the Khazraj. They fought a total of four wars. In Yemenite Jewish sources, another treaty was drafted between Muhammad and his Jewish subjects, known as
Kitāb Dimmat al-Nabi, written in the 3rd year of the
Hijra (625), and which gave express liberty to Jews living in Arabia to observe the
Sabbath and to grow-out their side-locks. In return, they were to pay the
jizya annually for protection by their patrons, while the Muslims would pay the
Zakat tax.
Battle of Uhud , with the old
Mosque of the Leader of Martyrs (), named after Muhammad's uncle,
Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib, in the foreground. The mosque was demolished in 2012 and a new, larger mosque with the same name was built in its place.|300x300px In the year 625,
Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, a senior chieftain of Mecca who later converted to Islam, led a Meccan force against Medina. Muhammad marched out to meet the
Qurayshi army with an estimated 1,000 troops, but just as the army approached the battlefield, 300 men under
'Abd Allah ibn Ubayy withdrew, dealing a severe blow to the Muslim army's
morale. Muhammad continued marching with his now 700-strong force and ordered a group of 50 archers to climb a small hill, now called
Jabal ar-Rummaah (The Archers' Hill) to keep an eye on the Meccan's
cavalry and to provide protection to the rear of the Muslim's army. As the battle heated up, the Meccans were forced to retreat. The frontline was pushed further and further away from the archers and foreseeing the battle to be a victory for the Muslims, the archers decided to leave their posts to pursue the retreating Meccans. A small party, however, stayed behind; pleading the rest to not disobey Muhammad's orders. Seeing that the archers were starting to descend from the hill,
Khalid ibn al-Walid commanded his unit to ambush the hill and his cavalry unit pursued the descending archers were systematically slain by being caught in the plain ahead of the hill and the frontline, watched upon by their desperate comrades who stayed behind up in the hill who were shooting arrows to thwart the raiders, but with little to no effect. However, the Meccans did not capitalise on their advantage by invading Medina and returned to Mecca. The Madanis (people of Medina) suffered heavy losses, and Muhammad was injured.
Battle of the Trench , with
the seven historical mosques near it In 627,
Abu Sufyan led another force toward Medina. Knowing of his intentions, Muhammad asked for proposals for defending the northern flank of the city, as the east and west were protected by volcanic rocks and the south was covered with
palm trees.
Salman al-Farsi, a
Persian Sahabi who was familiar with Sasanian war tactics recommended digging a trench to protect the city and Muhammad accepted it. The subsequent siege came to be known as the Battle of the Trench and the Battle of the Confederates. After a month-long siege and various skirmishes, the Meccans withdrew again due to the harsh winter. During the siege, Abu Sufyan contacted the Jewish tribe of
Banu Qurayza and formed an agreement with them, to attack the Muslim defenders and effectively encircle the defenders. It was however discovered by the Muslims and thwarted. This was in breach of the
Constitution of Medina and after the Meccan withdrawal, Muhammad immediately marched against the Qurayza and laid siege to their strongholds. The Jewish forces eventually surrendered. Some members of the Aws negotiated on behalf of their old allies and Muhammad agreed to appoint one of their chiefs who had converted to Islam,
Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, as judge. Sa'ad judged that all male members of the tribe should be killed and the women and children enslaved. This action was conceived of as a defensive measure to ensure that the Muslim community could be confident of its continued survival in Medina. The French historian Robert Mantran proposes that from this point of view it was successful—from this point on, the Muslims were no longer primarily concerned with survival but with expansion and conquest. In the ten years following the
hijra, Medina formed the base from which Muhammad and the Muslim army attacked and were attacked, and it was from here that he
marched on Mecca, entering it without battle in 630. Despite Muhammad's tribal connection to Mecca, the growing importance of Mecca in Islam, the significance of the
Ka'bah as the centre of the Islamic world, as the direction of prayer (
Qibla), and in the Islamic pilgrimage (
Hajj), Muhammad returned to Medina, which remained for some years the most important city of Islam and the base of operations of the early
Rashidun Caliphate. Under the first three caliphs
Abu Bakr,
Umar, and
Uthman, Medina was the capital of a rapidly increasing Muslim Empire. During the reign of
'Uthman ibn al-Affan, the third caliph, a party of Arabs from Egypt, disgruntled at some of his political decisions, attacked Medina in 656 and assassinated him in his own home.
Ali, the fourth caliph, changed the capital of the caliphate from Medina to
Kufa in
Iraq for being in a more strategic location. Since then, Medina's importance dwindled, becoming more a place of religious importance than of political power. Medina witnessed little to no economic growth during and after Ali's reign. During Mamluk reign, the
Masjid an-Nabawi caught fire twice. Once in 1256, when the storage caught fire, burning the entire mosque, and the other time in 1481, when the masjid was struck by
lightning. This period also coincided with an increase in scholarly activity in Medina, with scholars such as
Ibn Farhun,
Al-Hafiz Zain al-Din al-'Iraqi,
Al Sakhawi and others settling in the city. These suburbs also had walls and gates. The Ottoman sultans took a keen interest in the Prophet's Mosque and redesigned it over and over to suit their preferences.
First Saudi insurgency As the Ottomans' hold over their domains broke loose, the Madanis pledged alliance to
Saud bin Abdulaziz, founder of the
First Saudi state in 1805, who quickly took over the city. In 1811,
Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Ottoman commander and
Wali of Egypt, commanded two armies under each of his two sons to seize Medina, the first one, under the elder Towson Pasha, failed to take Medina. But the second one, a larger army under the command of
Ibrahim Pasha, succeeded after battling a fierce resistance movement. Within one decade, the population of the city multiplied by leaps and bounds and reached 80,000. Husayn largely won the war due to his alliance with the
British. In anticipation of the plunder and destruction to follow, Fakhri Pasha secretly dispatched the
Sacred Relics of Muhammad to the Ottoman capital,
Istanbul. As of 1920, the British described Medina as "much more self-supporting than Mecca." After the Great War, the Sharif of Mecca,
Sayyid Hussein bin Ali was proclaimed King of an independent
Hejaz. Soon after, the people of Medina secretly entered an agreement with
Ibn Saud in 1924, and his son, Prince
Mohammed bin Abdulaziz conquered Medina as part of the
Saudi conquest of Hejaz on 5 December 1925 which gave way to the whole of the
Hejaz being incorporated into the modern
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Critics have described this as "Saudi vandalism" and claim that 300 historic sites linked to Muhammad, his family or companions have been lost in Medina and
Mecca over the last 50 years. The most famous example of this is the
demolition of al-Baqi. ==Geography==