Medina المدينة المنورة

Overview

Medina (المدينة المنورة, al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, "the Illuminated City") is the city in the Hejaz to which the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ migrated in the Hijra of 622 CE. It is the second holiest city in Islam after Mecca and the site of the Prophet's ﷺ mosque, his grave, and the first Muslim polity. Originally called Yathrib, it became known after the Hijra as Madinat al-Nabi, "the City of the Prophet."

Etymology

The Arabic المدينة simply means "the city." After the Hijra, this generic word became the city's proper name, signaling its new status as the political and spiritual capital of nascent Islam. The pre-Islamic name Yathrib appears once in the Quran (33:13). In Sahih al-Bukhari (1871), the Prophet ﷺ called Medina Tabah, meaning "the wholesome."

Quranic references

Medina and its people figure throughout the Medinan revelation:

• Surah At-Tawbah 9:101 — "And among those around you of the bedouins are hypocrites, and [also] from the people of al-Madinah."
• Surah At-Tawbah 9:120 — "It was not [proper] for the people of al-Madinah and those surrounding them of the bedouins that they remain behind after [the departure of] the Messenger of Allah."
• Surah Al-Ahzab 33:13 — "And when a faction of them said, 'O people of Yathrib, there is no stability for you [here], so return [home].'"
• Surah Al-Munafiqun 63:8 — "They say, 'If we return to al-Madinah, the more honored [for power] will surely expel therefrom the more humble.'"

وَمِمَّنْ حَوْلَكُم مِّنَ الْأَعْرَابِ مُنَافِقُونَ وَمِنْ أَهْلِ الْمَدِينَةِ

Hadith and tradition

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ made Medina a sanctuary as Ibrahim had made Mecca:

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Ibrahim made Mecca a sanctuary, and I make Madinah, that which is between its two lava plains, a sanctuary; its trees may not be cut, and its game may not be hunted." — Sahih Muslim 1362

In Sahih al-Bukhari (1880), he ﷺ said: "There is no town which the Dajjal will not enter except Mecca and Madinah; angels with drawn swords stand at every entry." A narration in Jami al-Tirmidhi (3924), graded sahih by al-Albani, reports the Prophet's ﷺ supplication: "O Allah, make us love Madinah as we love Mecca, or more."

Significance

Medina is the cradle of the Islamic state. Here the Prophet ﷺ built his mosque, taught his Companions, raised armies including at Uhud, received the bulk of the legal verses, and was buried. Abu Bakr and Umar rest beside him. The Hijra calendar begins from his arrival in Medina, not his birth, marking the city as the threshold of the Muslim era.

See also

• Mecca
• Hijra
• Al-Masjid al-Haram
• Uhud
• Sirah

References

1. Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya, account of the Hijra to Medina.
2. al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, on Yathrib and the early Medinan period.
3. al-Nawawi, Sharh Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Hajj, chapters on the virtues of Medina.
4. Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Fath al-Bari Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, on hadith 1871 and 1880.
5. Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, biography of the Prophet ﷺ in Medina.