The Day the City Became the City

The Prophet ﷺ arrived in the main settlement of Yathrib — which would henceforth be known as al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, the Illuminated City — on a Friday in Rabi al-Awwal 1 AH, after having spent approximately fourteen days at Quba and led the first Friday prayer in the valley of Banu Salim. He rode on his camel al-Qaswa, and as he entered the quarters of the settled city, the Ansar gathered in numbers that had not been seen before.

The hadith of Anas ibn Malik, preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, captures the moment with the immediacy of a child's memory: "I never saw a day more beautiful or more luminous than the day the Messenger of Allah ﷺ arrived in Medina." Anas would have been approximately ten years old at the time — young enough to have the memory of that day preserved with the clarity of early childhood impression, old enough to understand its meaning. The description — more beautiful, more luminous — is not simply about weather or ceremony. It is about the quality of the presence that had arrived.

The Procession Through the City

As al-Qaswa moved through the city, every clan wanted the honor of hosting the Prophet ﷺ. They stood in the path, took hold of the camel's bridle, and offered their houses and their hospitality. The Prophet ﷺ responded with consistent gentleness: "Let her go — she is commanded." He did not choose. He let the camel walk where it would, understanding the direction as divinely guided.

Al-Qaswa continued until she reached an open space near the neighborhood of the Banu Najjar — the clan to which Aminah, the Prophet's ﷺ mother, had been connected through family ties, making it, in the warmth of the choice, almost a homecoming. The camel knelt, rose, moved a short distance, and knelt again at the land of two orphan boys, Sahl and Suhayl ibn Amr, which had been used as a drying ground for dates. She refused to move further.

The Prophet ﷺ descended and said: "This, if Allah wills, is the abode." He asked whose land it was and who would take charge of it. Asad ibn Zurara, who had been among the original six Muslims from Yathrib and who was now acting as a host for the Prophet ﷺ, said: "It is ours, O Messenger of Allah — for you." The Prophet ﷺ asked what price the owners wanted. The two orphans said the land was a gift — the Prophet ﷺ refused and insisted on purchasing it. Abu Bakr paid the price, which different accounts give as ten dinars. The land was purchased, and on it would be built Masjid al-Nabawi.

The Songs of Welcome

The women and children of the Ansar sang as the Prophet ﷺ entered the city: "Tala'a al-badru alayna min thaniyyat al-wada' — wajaba al-shukru alayna ma da'a lillahi da'" — "The full moon has risen over us from the valley of Wida'. Thankfulness is our obligation so long as there is one who calls to Allah." This song, associated with the entry of the Prophet ﷺ into Medina, has been sung across the Muslim world in celebrations of his memory for fourteen centuries. Its imagery — the full moon appearing from behind the hills — captures precisely what the Ansar experienced: the illumination that followed a long period of darkness.

The Host: Abu Ayyub al-Ansari

The Prophet ﷺ needed a place to stay while Masjid al-Nabawi was being built. He stayed in the house of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari — Khalid ibn Zayd ibn Kulaib — a member of the Banu Najjar, whose house was the nearest to where al-Qaswa had stopped. Abu Ayyub hosted the Prophet ﷺ for approximately seven months — until the mosque and the attached dwellings were complete enough to move into. Abu Ayyub's care for the Prophet ﷺ during this period — including his insistence on sleeping only on the lower floor while the Prophet ﷺ slept above, a reversal of the usual social hierarchy, because he could not imagine himself standing above the Prophet ﷺ — is one of the most touching accounts of the early Medinan period.

Abu Ayyub later died in Constantinople — in the army that besieged the Byzantine capital — and was buried at its walls, in a grave that Muslim armies would seek out for generations. His life from host to the Prophet ﷺ in Medina to martyr at the walls of Constantinople is the complete arc of the Ansar generation: welcome, service, sacrifice, and death in the way of Allah far from the city he had loved.

The Meaning of the Arrival

The arrival of the Prophet ﷺ in Medina is not merely a biographical event — it is the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the world. For thirteen years, the message had been delivered under conditions of persecution, with no political authority, no stable community, and no military capacity to protect it. From the day the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Medina, all of that changed. He was no longer a preacher under someone else's protection; he was the head of a community that had chosen him and pledged to defend him. He was, from this moment forward, the leader of a city — and in time, of a civilization.

The ten years the Prophet ﷺ spent in Medina — from 1 AH to his death in 11 AH — were the years in which Islam became fully itself: a complete religion governing private worship, public law, interpersonal ethics, economic justice, war, peace, and the relationship between the Muslim community and all other communities. Everything that the Muslim world has been since then traces to those ten years, and to the day that began them: the day al-Qaswa knelt on the land of two orphan boys and the Prophet ﷺ said, "This, if Allah wills, is the abode."

Sources: Sahih al-Bukhari (Kitab Manaqib al-Ansar); Sahih Muslim (Kitab al-Hajj); Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra