Al-Masjid an-Nabawi & the Rawdah

Built by his own hands on the orphans' lot; between his house and his minbar lies a garden of Jannah.

The account

When al-Qaswa knelt, the Prophet ﷺ bought the drying-yard of two orphans at a fair price and built, with his own hands in the brick-line, the headquarters of the religion: mosque, school, court, shelter for the poor of as-Suffah, and along its wall the rooms of his household. One prayer in it is better than a thousand elsewhere, except the Sacred Mosque (Bukhari 1190).

Inside it lies the most precisely bounded ground in the tradition: "between my house and my minbar is a garden from the gardens of Jannah" (Bukhari 1195, Muslim 1390), the Rawdah, where the ummah still crowds shoulder to shoulder to stand momentarily on ground heaven has claimed for its own. Here the pilgrims' rites were taught, here Abu Bakr led the prayer of the final illness, and here, in Aisha's room on its edge, the Prophet was buried where he died. Visiting greetings are given to him and his two companions to this day. The mosque of the emigrant grew into the ummah's second sanctuary; its minbar, he said, stands over his Basin.

The facts

LandBought from two orphans
Prayer value1,000×
The RawdahA garden of Jannah
HoldsHis grave ﷺ, Abu Bakr, Umar

The narrations

Between my house and my minbar is a garden from the gardens of Jannah, and my minbar is upon my Basin.

Bukhari 1195 · Muslim 1390

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