Qualla: Medina

Medina: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 622 the Prophet Muhammad arrived here as a refugee, his small community driven out of Mecca, and the oasis town then called Yathrib opened its gates to him. That arrival, the Hijra, was so pivotal that Muslims count their calendar from it, and the city was renamed for the honor: Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, "the Radiant City," or simply Medina, "the City." Fourteen centuries later it is the second-holiest place in Islam after Mecca, drawing millions of pilgrims a year to the mosque the Prophet built and the green-domed chamber where he is buried.

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Medina: The City That Gave Shelter

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Medina's standing rests on what happened in its first Islamic decade. This is where the faith found a home after Mecca rejected it, where Muhammad built the first Muslim community into a society with its own laws and defenses, and where he lived out the rest of his life. Two mosq...

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Medina: A Place of Pilgrimage

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Religious tourism shapes nearly everything about Medina. More than seven million visitors arrive each year, most of them performing the Hajj in season or the lesser pilgrimage, the Umrah, throughout the year, and the city has reorganized itself around them. The Prophet's Mosque s...

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Medina: Faith, Learning, and the Written Word

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Medina has long been a center of Islamic scholarship, and that tradition continues in its institutions. The Islamic University of Madinah, founded in 1961, draws students from around the world to study the Quran, hadith, law, and Arabic, while the larger Taibah University serves ...

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Medina: Crossroads of the Hejaz

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For all its sacred weight, Medina is also a thoroughly modern Saudi city, knitted into the kingdom by road and rail. It sits at the junction of major highways linking it south to Mecca and north toward Tabuk and Jordan. The Ottoman-era Hejaz Railway that once ran here was abandon...

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