HOLY SITES OF ISLAM

Muhammad at the Kaaba

The three holiest sites in Islam are 1) the Masjid al-Haram, or Grand Mosque, (in Mecca); 2) the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi, or Prophet's Mosque (in Medina); and 3) Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Every year millions of Muslims from all over the world visit Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi as part of the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages.

The two holiest sites in Shia Islam after Mecca and Medina are the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf and the Imam Husayn shrine in Karbala. A significant practice of Shia Islam is that of visiting the shrines of Imams in Iraq and in Iran. In Iraq, these include the tomb of Imam Ali in An Najaf and that of his son, Imam Hussein (Husayn), in Karbala, because both are considered major Shia martyrs. Hundreds of thousands make the visits each year. Other principal pilgrimage sites in Iraq are the tombs of the Seventh Imam and the Ninth Imam at Kazimayn near Baghdad. In Iran, pilgrimage sites include the tomb of the Eighth Imam in Mashhad and that of his sister in Qom. Such pilgrimages originated in part from the difficulty and the expense of making the hajj to Mecca in the early days.*

According to the “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”: In Shiism the family of Ali and the imams became objects of imitation and veneration. Sites associated with their lives or deaths became mosques and shrines, the objects of veneration and pilgrimage. Shrines and holy cities such as Najaf (the burial place of Ali) and Karbala (the site of the martyrdom of Hussein), both in Iraq, or Mashhad and Qum, in Iran, became centers for learning and pilgrimage where rituals of commemoration, prayer, and celebration were performed. In Sunni Islam places associated with the Prophet Muhammad, his family, and companions, as well as with later martyrs and Sufi saints, became shrines and centers of pilgrimage and places for prayer, petitions, blessings, and miracles. [Source: John L. Esposito “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”, 2000s, Encyclopedia.com]

Websites and Resources: Islam IslamOnline islamonline.net ; Institute for Social Policy and Understanding ispu.org; Islam.com islam.com ; Islamic City islamicity.com ; BBC article bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam ; University of Southern California Compendium of Muslim Texts web.archive.org ; Encyclopædia Britannica article on Islam britannica.com ; Islam at Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Muslims: PBS Frontline documentary pbs.org frontline

Shia (Shiite) Holy Sites

John L. Esposito wrote in the “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”: In Shiism the family of Ali and the imams became objects of imitation and veneration. Sites associated with their lives or deaths became mosques and shrines, the objects of veneration and pilgrimage. Shrines and holy cities such as Najaf (the burial place of Ali) and Karbala (the site of the martyrdom of Hussein), both in Iraq, or Mashhad and Qum, in Iran, became centers for learning and pilgrimage where rituals of commemoration, prayer, and celebration were performed. In Sunni Islam places associated with the Prophet Muhammad, his family, and companions, as well as with later martyrs and Sufi saints, became shrines and centers of pilgrimage and places for prayer, petitions, blessings, and miracles. [Source: John L. Esposito “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”, 2000s, Encyclopedia.com]

The two holiest sites in Shia Islam after Mecca and Medina are the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf and the Imam Husayn shrine in Karbala. A significant practice of Shia Islam is that of visiting the shrines of Imams in Iraq and in Iran. In Iraq, these include the tomb of Imam Ali in An Najaf and that of his son, Imam Husayn, in Karbala, because both are considered major Shia martyrs. Before the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), tens of thousands made the visits each year. Other principal pilgrimage sites in Iraq are the tombs of the Seventh Imam and the Ninth Imam at Kazimayn near Baghdad. In Iran, pilgrimage sites include the tomb of the Eighth Imam in Mashhad and that of his sister in Qom. Such pilgrimages originated in part from the difficulty and the expense of making the hajj to Mecca in the early days. [Source: Library of Congress *]

Mecca

Black stone of the Kaaba Mecca (45 miles east of Jeddah) is the Islam’s holiest city. Situated in barren basin between two ranges of steep hills, it is where the Prophet Mohammed was born and raised and had his first revelations from God. After being banished from the city he returned and conquered it and then cleaned a huge black box, called the Kaaba, of idols, an act as important to Muslims as the crucifixion of Christ is to Christians. Each year millions of Muslim pilgrims descend on Mecca for the Hajj to the relive the cleaning of the Kaaba and other events central to Muslim faith.

Mecca is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. The sanctuary there with the Kaaba is the holiest site in Islam. As such, it is a deeply spiritual destination for Muslims all over the world; it is the heart of Islam. Mecca is a place that is holy to all Muslims. It is so holy that no non-Muslim is allowed to enter. Adorning the holy sanctuary in Mecca has traditionally been part of the reverence owed to this sacred place. Made from the best materials and inscribed beautifully with verses from the Qur’an and pious expressions, the textiles have become some of the most iconic objects related to the Hajj.

Mecca was major religious center long before Islam. Located at the crossroads for all major caravans in the area, it attracted ancient caravans, trade fairs and pilgrims who payed a fee to see the 360 idols in the Kaaba, which including an image of Uzza (the Arabian version of Aphrodite) and representations of celestial gods for the moon, sun and morning star from ancient Sheba. The city also has links to Abraham. Non-Muslims are not only banned from Mecca they are banned from an area 25 kilometers around it.

The Kaaba

The Kaaba is a 45-high-foot, 33-foot-wide, 50-feet-long empty box made of cement and draped in black silk. Regarded as the House of God, it is most sacred thing there is in Islam. It is as important to Muslims as the True Cross and the Holy Grail are to Christians, and what makes it better is that it is still around. Even so, it is not an object or worship; it simply signifies a direction imposed by God to maintain unity and uniformity among the faithful.

The Kaaba is an imperfect cube structure that lies at the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. It is extremely old and its origins are unknown, Muslims believe it was originally part of temple erected in the beginning of second millennia B.C. by Abraham and his son Ishmael at God’s command. Abraham is regarded as the founder of monotheism. Some say the temple he established was raised on the site of a sanctuary built by Adam.

The Kaaba is neither a temple or shrine. It is empty except, Muslims say, for the presence of God, and symbolizes the abstractness and oneness of Allah. When pilgrims circle the shrine they recite in Arabic: "Lord God from Distant Land I have come unto Thee...grant me shelter under Thy throne”; or they chant "In the name of God; God is most great!"

Sacred Mosque in Mecca

Harram Mosque (central Mecca) is Islam's holiest shrine. Also known as the Sacred Mosque or the Great Mosque, it is comprised of a perimeter of buildings that surround a massive courtyard and a gallery that encloses the hills of Safa and Marwah, where it is said Abraham's servant and lover, Hagar, searched for water for her son Ismail. At the center of the massive courtyard is the Kaaba, the House of God, Islam’s holiest object. When Muslims bow to Mecca five times a day this is where their prayers are directed. During the hajj pilgrims enter the courtyard through the outer buildings at the Gate of Salvation.

The original structure was begun in the 8th century and reconstructed by the great Ottoman architect Sinan (1490-1588). In the 1960s a $100 million, 15-acre addition was added that completely surrounded the courtyard. Later more money was spent to double the mosque’s floor space to over 3.5 million square feet with the construction of a four tiered area that could handle two million people on the first day of the hajj. No mosque is allowed to have more minarets than the Sacred Mosque and according to one story a seventh minaret was added by the Ottoman Turks so that the Blue Mosque in Istanbul could have six.

The Great Mosque is now an air- conditioned super complex dominated by Egyptian-style, neo-Ottoman Empire structures built in the 20th century, with octagonal minarets and granite and marble walls. High-tech additions include domes that open and close according to the weather and huge mechanical umbrellas that provide shade. Few people are allowed to climb the 100-meter-high minarets for a look. A wide avenue leads to the mosque. There is large square around the mosque lined with shops and hotels. People enter the mosque through enormous outer galleries beneath two towering minarets.

Pilgrims gather around the Kaaba at al-Haram Mosque

Medina

Medina (400 kilometers north of Mecca, connected by a superhighway) is Islam’s second holiest city after Mecca. It is where Muhammad fled with a handful of followers after he was banished from Mecca. In Medina he established the first Muslim community and built and lead an army that raided Meccan caravans. After conquering Mecca, Muhammad returned to Medina and spent most of his last years there and died there in the lap of his favorite wife. Medina is also where the first Muslim caliphs launched the conquest that would make much of world Islamic.

Medina is known in Arabic as (al-Madina al-Munawwarra (the Illuminated City). Its importance lies in the fact that it was the place that the Prophet Muhammad migrated to in 622 – the first year of the Islamic calendar. The Prophet built the first mosque at Medina. Although visiting Medina is not an official part of Hajj, most pilgrims will go there before or after visiting Mecca. Amir Ahmad ‘Alawi (1879–1952) wrote: “The long line of camels…and the pilgrims waiting eagerly to catch their first sight of the house of their beloved messenger of Allah caused a strange welling up of emotions inside me. Tears came into my eyes.” [Source: British Museum]

Medina contains Muhammad’s tomb as well as the tombs of two of Shiite Islam’s most important imam Ali and Hussein. In Muhammad’s time Medina was an oasis and caravan stop called Yathrub. Later it became known as Madinat al Nabi "City of the Prophet" and finally, simply as Al Madinah, "The City." Thomas Abercrombie wrote in National Geographic, "Mecca awes, overpowers; Medina is more to a human scale. Despite comfortable modern suburbs, it retains the pious charm of a religious scholars town, a retreat where the pilgrim can rest his spirt after the cosmic experience of Mecca."

In the narrow streets of the old town, beyond the bazaar, balconies from opposite buildings almost meet. Here you can find old cobblestone streets, lively markets with street dentists and merchants selling flat bread, carpets, colorful silk and cotton cloth, prayer beads, prayer rugs, Qur’ans, precious stones and dates for which the city is famous. Many of the buildings feature Turkish architecture, evidence of the long Ottoman occupation. The wooden latticed balconies on the narrow streets of Aguwat recall Istanbul. At “a small, domed library endowed by a Turkish savant, scholars sit cross-legged, scrutinizing rare Islamic texts.”

Prophet's Mosque in Medina

Medina is also a modern city filed coffeehouses, air conditioned hotels and wide avenues. During prayer times everything come to a stop, including the traffic, as the faithful bow towards Mecca. Gravel and rock mountains in the distance. Medina is closed to nonbelievers, but the outskirts of the city are open to travelers. This includes the airport and some hotels such as the Medina Sheraton.

Muhammad's Mosque

The Prophet built the first mosque at Medina and for Muslims this place has great significance. The Prophet’s Mosque contains within it the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as the tombs of his companions and successors Abu Bakr and ‘Umar. Other members of the Prophet’s family — including his daughter Fatima and several of the Imams revered by the Shi‘a branch of Islam — are buried in the Baqi‘ cemetery outside the mosque. [Source: British Museum =]

The Prophet's Mosque in Medina is where Muhammad is buried. The second most important Muslim site after Mecca and known in Arabic as Masjid ar-Rasul, it features towering minarets and is supported by arches of basalt and limestone with geometric designs. A high green dome marks Muhammad's tomb, which contains gold and silver grillwork around green-draped bier. On the red carpets believers pray and read Qur’ans. It is forbidden to pray to Muhammad so the pilgrims that gather here direct their prayers to Allah.

The simple mosque that Muhammad built is a simple green-domed structure within the Prophet's Mosque. The mosque complex also contains the grounds of Muhammad's house. Muhammad said that the empty space between the house and mosque — an area of a few hundred square feet — is the garden of Paradise, the only earthy manifestation of heaven,

The Prophet's Mosque is dominated by Egyptian-style neo-Ottoman Empire structures built in the 20th century. The Prophet's Pilgrims was renovated under the Ottoman Caliph Abd al-Majid in 1860 and enlarged by the Saudi government in 1955. In the 1980s and 90s, it was enlarged to ten times the Ottoman-era size to 165,000 square feet. A state-of the-art air conditioning system in another building is considered the largest of it kind in the world.

Muhammad's Tomb

near Muhammad's tomb

The tomb chamber of the Prophet has a green dome and is surmounted by a fiery nimbus. The grille and tomb itself are covered with a green-and white, chevron-patterned textile The Prophet’s pulpit (minbar), on which he preached sermons to the community, is depicted within the arcades on the right. In the centre is the tomb of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, in the garden that she planted with two palm trees when her father was alive. The tombs of some of the Prophet’s companions — including the tombs of the first two Caliphs (the Prophet’s successors) and of the Prophet’s daughter — are beyond the sanctuary walls. Outside the walls is an area used by Hajj pilgrim, that in the old days contained camels, luggage and tents. The historical sites of Mount Hira and Mount Uhud are beyond the walls.

In addition to the textiles made for the Ka‘ba and the holy sanctuary in Mecca, similar textiles were also made for the Prophet’s Mosque at Medina. These textiles either adorned the tomb of the Prophet or hung on the grille near the tomb. Fragments of a cover for the Prophet’s tomb were highly treasured. After the cover had been taken down from the tomb chamber it was cut up and lined with another fabric to preserve it.

Dome of the Rock and El Aqsa Mosque

Dome of the Rock (in the middle of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) is world’s oldest and, in the minds of many, most beautiful mosque. Known to Muslims as the Mosque of Omar, it is an eight-sided structure with a golden dome that was built by the Umayyad Muslim Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik between A.D. 688 and 692. The first great building built in the Muslim world, it symbolizes the ascent that all Muslims make to God, who is represented by the circle of mosque’s great golden dome.

The Dome of the Rock was the first real mosque and it set the tone for all mosques that were to follow. Simple and austere, it contains no human figures and instead was decorated with Qur’anic verses written with Arabic calligraphy. The great dome suggests balance and space. Lawrence Wright wrote in The New Yorker, “Here the Arab love of mystical geometry and intricate ornament has been given its greatest expression. The structure...may be imagined as three rectangles, encompassing a circle. Hushed, sombre, but almost always overwhelmingly sensual, the chamber imbues one with a sense of religious awe that few holy places in the world can match.”

Dome of the Rock

The rock inside the temple under the dome is a room-size slab of weathered sandstone sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians. Many say it is where God stood when he created the world, where Adam was made and where Cain killed Abel. A golden dome sits over the rock and a wooden balustrade surrounds it. Pillars of marble and porphyry support the inner dome. Surrounding it are marble floors, large red and green oriental carpets and a neck-high wall that children need a boost to see over but tall people can reach over and touch the rock. There isn't a whole lot of standing room between the wall and the circle of blue and white alabaster columns and striped arches that support the wooden inner surface of the dome. Illuminating the rock and the golden swirling tiles above the arches are rays of lights colored by stained glass windows in the dome.

El Aqsa Mosque (near the Dome of the Rock) is the largest mosque in Israel. Constructed by the Umayyad Muslims in A.D. 715, rebuilt several times and extensively renovated in the 1930s, it is built on the site a simple wooden mosque raised Caliph Omar in the 640s. It lies right next to the Western Wall and is where, Muslims believe Muhammad tethered his horse before he rose to heaven. Al-Aqsa Mosque is said to rest on the place where the scales of justice will be set up on the Judgement Day. It is vast and airy and filled with marble columns and pigeons. It is used as a place of worship by local Muslims. Open to the public when prayers are not in session, it boasts a silver dome made with lead and long stable-style blocks with hidden sanctuaries. It doesn’t have any minarets.

Umar and the Dome of the Rock

Oleg Grabar wrote in “The Formation of Islamic Art”: “The conquest of Jerusalem by the Arabs in 637 was a major moment in the conquest of Syria. The Christians demanded the presence of the caliph Umar himself for the signing of the treaty of capitulation, and once the treaty was signed Umar, accompanied by the patriarch Sophronius, was led through the city. As this tour of the Holy City was endowed by later writers with a series of more or less legendary incidents, it is not easy to ascertain what happened. Most sources, early or late, Muslim or not, seem to agree on two points. [Source:Oleg Grabar, “The Formation of Islamic Art”, Yale University Press, 1973, beginning with pp. 43- 71.Oleg Grabar (1929-2011) was a French-born art historian and archeologist and professor at Harvard |]

“First, Umar was intent on seeing one specific site in the Holy City. All sources agree on that, and, in later traditions his quest and the patriarch Sophronius's opposition to it were transformed into a dramatic contest. Second, the early sources refer not to the Rock as the main object of Umar's quest, but to the Haram area in general, which they saw as the site of the Jewish Temple, the mihrab Dawud ("sanctuary of David") of the Qur’an (38.20-21) or the naos ton loudaion ("temple of the Jews") of Greek sources. The latter mention only Umar's interest in the area of the Jewish Temple and add that a Muslim sanctuary was built on its emplacement. Although mentioned in the tradition transmitted by the Muslim historian Tabari, the Rock plays no part in the prayer and recitations made by the caliph when he reached the Haram area, and in this tradition Umar rejects the suggestion made to him by Ka'b, a Jewish convert, that the Rock be on the qiblah side of the Muslim sanctuary, that is, that the faithful at prayer turn themselves toward it, because this would be reverting to a Jewish practice. |

El Aqsa Mosque

“In these texts then, the Rock, together with the whole Haram area, appears primarily as the symbol of the Jewish Temple, but the Rock itself was not taken into any particular consideration by Umar. It may be that Umar was merely looking for a large area on which to build a mosque and that Sophronius used the Haram's Jewish background to persuade the caliph to build the mosque in the empty space of the Haram. But it is perhaps more likely, in the face of the enormous impact of Jewish traditions on early Islam and specifically on Umar at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem, that the caliph was genuinely interested in reviving the ancient Jewish holy site, inasmuch as it had been the first Muslim qiblah. At any rate, the Muslims took over the Haram area with a definite knowledge and consciousness of its significance in Jewish tradition, but with very few clear Muslim associations. |

“Later chroniclers very clearly point out that Umar withstood pressures to transform the site into a major center of Muslim worship. This fact shows, on the one hand, that Umar was pressured by Jewish and Christian groups to take up their religious quarrels. By wisely remaining aloof, the caliph emphasized the unique character of the new faith in the face of the two older ones. But, on the other hand, in building anew on the Temple area, even though in primitive fashion, the Muslims committed a political act: taking possession for the new faith of one of the most sacred spots on earth and altering the pattern imposed on that spot by the Christian domination, without restoring it to its Jewish splendor. In all these undertakings the Rock itself played but a minor part...Some sixty years after the conquest of Jerusalem, however, the Rock had become the center of the whole area.” |

Text Sources: Internet Islamic History Sourcebook: sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Arab News, Jeddah; “Islam, a Short History” by Karen Armstrong; “A History of the Arab Peoples” by Albert Hourani (Faber and Faber, 1991); “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); Metropolitan Museum of Art, Encyclopedia.com, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Library of Congress and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024