Mosque of Al-Ghamama

This guide to the Mosque of Al-Ghamama in Medina tells you the pale stone domes here look ancient but are not: for decades this was just flattened sand outside the town, an overflow prayer ground for a growing community. It follows the day word reached Medina that Ashama, the Christian king of Abyssinia who had once sheltered the earliest Muslim converts, had died far away, and the Prophet Muhammad led a funeral prayer here over a body none of them could see. The same ground later gave the site its name, tied to a prayer for rain during a drought. Muhammad also chose it for Eid prayers in his final years, favoring open sky over any roof.