Medina , also transliterated as Madinah, is a city in the Hejaz, and the capital of the Al Madinah Region of Saudi Arabia. The city contains al-Masjid an-Nabawi (“the Prophet’s mosque”), which is the burial place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the second-holiest site in Islam after Mecca.
Medina was Muhammad’s destination after his Hijrah from Mecca, and became the capital of a rapidly increasing Muslim Empire, first under Muhammad’s leadership, and then under the first three Rashidun caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman. It served as the power base of Islam in its first century where the early Muslim community developed. Medina is home to the three oldest mosques, namely the Quba Mosque, al-Masjid an-Nabawi and Masjid al-Qiblatain (“the mosque of the two qiblas”). Muslims believe that the chronologically final surahs of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet in Medina, and are called Medinan surahs in contrast to the earlier Meccan surahs.
Similar to Mecca, non-Muslims are forbidden from entering the sacred core of Medina (but not the entire city) or the city center by the national government.
