The original mosque was a low building of brick, roofed with palm branches, and much smaller than the present structure. The wooden pulpit from which Mohammed preached appears to have stood on the same place with the present pulpit, in the middle of the south portico. The dwelling of the Prophet and the huts of his women adjoined the mosque. Mohammed died in the hut of Ayesha, and was buried where he died; Abu Bekr and Omar were afterwards buried beside him. In A.D. 711 the mosque, which had previously been enlarged by Omar and Othman, was entirely reconstructed on a grander scale, and in Byzantine style, by Greek and Coptic artificers at the command of the caliph Walid, and under the direction of Omar Ibn Abd-al-Aziz. The enlarged plan included the huts above named, which were pulled down. Thus the place of the Prophet's burial was brought within the mosque; but the recorded discontent of the city at this step shows that the feeling which regards the tomb as the great glory of the mosque, and the pilgrimage to it as the most meritorious that can be undertaken, except that to Mecca, was still quite un known. It is not even certain what was done at this time to mark off the graves. Ibn `Abd Rabbih, in the beginning of the loth cen tury (IN, Cairo ed., iii. 366), describes the enclosure as a hexag onal wall, rising within three cubits of the ceiling of the portico, clothed in marble for more than a man's height, and above that height daubed with the unguent called khaliik. This may be supplemented from Istakhri, who calls it a lofty house without a door. That there are no gravestones or visible tombs within is certain from what is recorded of occasions when the place was opened up for repairs. Ibn Jubair (p. 193 and Samhildi speak of a small casket adorned with silver, fixed in the eastern wall, which was supposed to be opposite the head of the Prophet, while a silver nail in the south wall indicated the point to which the corpse faced, and from which the salutation of the worshippers was to be addressed (Burton misquotes). The smaller chamber of Fatima is comparatively modern. In the time of Ibn Jubair and of Ibn Batuta (unless the latter, as is so often the case, is merely copying his predecessor) there was only a small marble trough north of the rauda (or grave) which "is said to be the house of Fatima or her grave, but God only knows." It is more probable that Fatima was burried in the Baki, where her tomb was also shown in the 12th century (Ibn Jubair, pp. 198 seq.).
The mosque was again extended by the caliph Mandi (A.D. 78T ) and was burned down in 1256. Of its appearance before the fire we have two authentic accounts by Ibn `Abd Rabbih early in the Toth century, and by Ibn Jubair, who visited it in 1184. The old mosque had a much finer and more regular appearance than the present one; the interior walls were richly adorned with marble and mosaic arabesques of trees and the like, and the outer walls with stone marquetry; the pillars of the south portico were in white plaster with gilt capitals, the other pillars were of marble.
Ibn `Abd Rabbih speaks of 18 gates, of which, in Ibn Jubair's time, as at present, all but four were walled up. There were then three minarets. After the fire which took place just at the time of the fall of the caliphate, the mosque long lay in a miserable condition. Its repair was due chiefly to the Egyptian sultans, especially to Kait Bey, whose restoration after a second fire in 1481 amounted almost to a complete reconstruction. Of the old building nothing seems to have remained but some of the columns and part of the walls. The minarets have also been rebuilt and two new ones added. The great dome above the tomb, the railing round it, and the pulpit, all date from Kait Bey's restoration.
The principal street in the city is the one running from the Egyptian gate to the mosque entrance at Bab es-Salam. It is known as Es Silk, and is the market street. The vegetable and cattle market are held just outside the inner wall, near the Bab esh-Shilna, while the grain market is held lower down, near the Egyptian gate. In 1908 a railway line was completed from Damascus to Medina. This increased considerably the prosperity of the city, and many wealthy residents from Turkish lands came here to live. At the height of the Turkish rule the city had pos sibly some 70,000 or more inhabitants, but the unrest in the country since 1912, and particularly the 15 months siege of Medina, had depleted this number to almost 6,000 in 1927. Much of the cultivated land in the neighbourhood of the city has been abandoned for similar reasons. In times of prosperity the volcanic soil among the surrounding hills grew thousands of palms, and beneath their shade were grown cereals, particularly wheat and barley, and also fruits. Many of the fields show evidence of deep digging and removal of the surface soil, so as to utilize the richer soils beneath. The date trade is very important, and has links with Egypt, Syria and India. Medina was at one time a great centre for Mohammedan theological students. About 3 m. from the Syrian gate, on the west of the city, is a large wireless tele graph station, placed beneath the old Turkish fort.
has been described from personal observa tion by Burckhardt (1815) and Burton (1853), and by the Arab geographers, Bakri and YacitIt. Besides Ibn 'Abd Rabbih and Ibn Jubair, Samhadi wrote a history of the region. An extract is published by Wilstenfeld in the Gottingen Abhandlungen, vol. ix. (1861). It deals with the period down to the 15th century. See also C. M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, vol. H.; Eldon Rutter, The Holy Cities of Arabia, vol. ii. (1928).