Medina — Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, "the radiant city" — is where Islam became a community. The Prophet Muhammad arrived here from Mecca in 622 CE, and the oasis town of date palms and volcanic hills became the first Muslim city, the second-holiest place in Islam, and the burial place of the Prophet and his closest companions. Today it is a calm, well-ordered city of wide boulevards and white marble plazas, gentler in pace than Mecca and far more open to exploration: the events of Islam's founding decade — the hijra, the battles, the change of prayer direction — all happened within a few kilometres of each other, and the sites are still there.
That density is what makes Medina rewarding to explore with self-guided audio guides. Nearly every mosque, hill and cemetery here marks a specific moment in the seventh century, and the story behind each one is what gives an otherwise modest building its weight. Everything begins at Al Masjid-e-Nabawi, the Prophet's Mosque, founded in 622 CE and expanded over fourteen centuries into a complex of more than 400,000 square metres that can hold over a million worshippers under its famous folding umbrellas. Beneath The Green Dome — built in 1279 and painted its present colour in 1837 — lie the Prophet, Abu Bakr and Umar. Note that the central Haram district around the mosque is reserved for Muslims; the rest of the city is open to all visitors.
Around the Prophet's Mosque
The old heart of Medina is a short walk from the mosque courtyards. Along its south-eastern wall lies Al Baqi Cemetery, the oldest Muslim burial ground in the city, with the graves of the caliph Uthman, the Prophet's daughter Fatimah and thousands of early companions; men may enter after the dawn and afternoon prayers, while others view it from the perimeter. Just west stands the small Mosque of Al-Ghamama, on the spot where the Prophet led prayers for rain, and beside it the broad Manakhah square that was the city's caravan yard and market for centuries. A few hundred metres further, the Madina Dates Market is the place to understand why Medina is famous for dates: dark, soft Ajwa, caramel-sweet Sukkari, chewy Mabroom, sold by the kilo from towering pyramids.
Quba, where it all began
About four kilometres south, Masjid Quba is held to be the first mosque in Islamic history, raised by the Prophet on his arrival in 622 CE; a prayer here is said to carry the reward of an Umrah, and pilgrims still walk out to it from the city centre each Saturday. The rebuilt mosque is a bright composition of white domes and gardens, and the landscaped Quba Avenue and the Al Hijrah Walkway that lead to it retrace the route the Prophet took into the oasis — an easy, palm-lined stroll with a story at every turn.
Uhud and the battlefields
North of the centre rises Uhud Mountain, 1,077 metres of red rock that the Prophet said "loves us and we love it". At its foot in 625 CE the Muslims fought the Battle of Uhud, and the small Archers' Hill Uhud is where fifty archers abandoned their post, turning a near-victory into a costly retreat. The seventy fallen, including the Prophet's uncle Hamza, lie in the Shuhada Uhud Cemetery beside the mountain. Standing between the hill and the mountain with the sequence of the battle in your ears is the best way to grasp how close the two armies were.
The Trench, the Seven Mosques and Mount Sela
Two years later, in 627 CE, Medina was besieged by a coalition army and defended by a ditch dug across its northern approach — the Battle of the Trench. The Khondok Trench Area on the western flank of Sela, the low mountain that shelters the old city, marks where it ran, and The Seven Mosques clustered along the slope commemorate the companions who held the line — Salman al-Farsi, who proposed the trench, Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali and others. Not far away, Masjid al-Qiblatayn, the Mosque of the Two Qiblas, is where the congregation turned mid-prayer from facing Jerusalem to facing Mecca; its second mihrab was removed in later renovations, but the twin-dome design still tells the story.
Railways, museums and the printed Quran
Medina's more recent history is Ottoman. The Railway Museum occupies the restored Hejaz Railway terminus in Al-Anbariya, the last stop on the 1908 line from Damascus that brought pilgrims south by train until the First World War; locomotives, carriages and a stretch of track survive in the yards (check ahead, as the site has been closed for refurbishment). For the deep past, the Dar Al Madinah Museum in the Knowledge Economic City near the airport lays out the city's story with more than 2,000 artefacts and scale models of the mosque through its expansions. And at the King Fahd Glorious Quran Printing Complex on the northern edge of the city, visitors tour the world's largest Quran press, which prints millions of copies a year in dozens of languages.
Getting there and around
The Haramain high-speed railway links Medina with Mecca in about two hours twenty minutes and continues to Jeddah, arriving at the striking Madinah Station west of the centre; Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz Airport is a further twenty minutes north. The Prophet's Mosque, Al Baqi, the dates market and the Ottoman station are all walkable from one another; Quba, Uhud and Qiblatayn are short taxi rides. Visit between November and February for days in the twenties Celsius — summer regularly tops 45°C — and expect the city to be at its busiest, and most atmospheric, during Ramadan.