The Holy Prophet: where he is buried

The Sacred Chamber in Madinah where Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) lies buried, was the site where the hut of his third wife Aisha stood, fourteen centuries ago. It measured 16 x 12 feet. Aisha's house was just one room, with hardly any furniture or furnishings. Hasan Basri, who was the son of a maid of one of the Prophet's wives (Umm-e-Salma) is on record as saying that, in his early teens, he used to visit these spartan huts where The Prophet's wives lived, and his hand would touch the ceilings.
Such then was the length, the breadth and the height of the abodes where the Prophet lived. Their walls were of mud bricks and their roofs were made of the wood and the branches of the palm trees. Allah alone knows how these roofs sheltered their noble inmates from the torrential rains or the scorching sun. Coarse blankets, made of animal hair, hung at the entrance of these huts. Each hut had a small backyard which was about the size of the hut itself. The backyards were enclosed by the branches of palm trees and mud bricks, and coarse blankets were thrown on them to ensure privacy.
In Madinah, the direction of the "Qibla" is in the south. While going through the following lines, this fact may be kept in mind. Towards the north, and adjacent to Aisha's hut was the hut of the Prophet's youngest and dearest daughter Fatima and her husband Ali who was also the Prophet's first cousin. The doors of the huts of Aisha and Fatima opened in the Prophet's Mosque. Both these sites are today under the Glorious Green Dome.
Towards the east, and again adjacent to Aisha's hut, was the hut of the Prophet's second wife Sauda. In order to further understand its location, it may be added here that the "Baqee" cemetery was, and is, in the east of The Prophet's Mosque.
Towards the south of Aisha's hut was Hafsa's hut which, unlike Fatima's and Sauda's huts, was not adjacent, but was nevertheless very close, to Aisha's hut. Between the huts of Aisha and Hafsa was a lane which was so narrow that only one person could pass through, at one time. As the huts of Aisha and Hafsa faced each other, they would converse, while sitting in their respective huts.
Apart from the four huts of Aisha, Fatima, Sauda and Hafsa, the location of only one other hut is firmly established. In this (fifth) hut lived for barely a few months the Prophet's wife Zainab daughter of Khuzaima. After her very early death, the hut remained, for over half a century, under the use of Umm-e-Salma who outlived the other wives of the Prophet. It is commonly held that Umm-e-Salma alone, out of the Prophet's eleven wives, was alive on the eve of "Karbala" when the Prophet's grandson Husain was martyred.
In the north of Umm-e-Salma's hut, five more huts were raised, from time to time. These were the abodes of the other five wives of the Prophet.
The picture which emerges from the above description is that if we start from the south, the first hut was the abode of Hafsa. As we move towards the north, there were two rows of two huts each.
In the first row, the hut in the west (which also faced Hafsa's hut) was Aisha's. The other one, which faced east and the "Baqee" cemetery, was the residence of Sauda. This completed the first row.
In the second row, the hut in the west (which, like Aisha's hut, faced the Prophet's Mosque) was that of Fatima and Ali. The other one (which faced east and the "Baqee" cemetery and was adjacent to Sauda's hut) remained the residence of Umm-e-Salma for about five-and-a-half decades.
As such, the area presently covered by the Glorious Green Dome was, 1,400years ago, the site of the 16x12 feet huts of Aisha, Fatima, Sauda, Umm-e--Salma, and partly of Hafsa's hut. It was in these humble huts of about 200 square feet each that the Prophet spent the last ten years of his life. In one of these, he breathed his last and lies buried.
By now, it is clear that when a visitor stands, in reverence, before the first of the three circles affixed in the middle green railings which encircles the Sacred Chamber, he stands at a physical distance of just a few meters from the place where the Prophet is resting in eternal peace. As one stands there, one should realise that one is privileged to stand on the site where once stood Hafsa's hut. Right in front of the visitor and, of course, behind the green railings, is the remaining part of Hafsa's hut. Immediately after that (and in the north) is the portion of that narrow lane which once used to run between the huts of Aisha and Hafsa.
Next to that is Aisha's hut which has three graves. The first grave facing the south is that of the Prophet. The Prophet is so buried that his head is in the direction of the west, i.e., the Prophet's Mosque, his feet are in the direction of the east, i.e, the "Baqee" cemetery, and his face is turned towards the south, i.e, the "Qibla". Same is the position of his two companions and caliphs who were also his fathers-in--law. Abu Bakr, the first caliph, was Aisha's father and Umar, the second caliph, was Hafsa's father. Abu Bakr's grave is a little down, and in the north of the Prophet's grave. Umar's grave is further down in the north. Abu Bakr's head is opposite the Prophet's chest; and Umar's head is opposite Abu Bakr's chest.
The three graves are in a fully sealed, four-walled chamber made of black stones. Nobody has entered it for the last over five centuries. Around these four walls is a five-cornered wall. Today when a visitor stands before the Prophet's grave, he may catch a glimpse of the southern side of the five-cornered wall which is covered with green cloth with Arabic inscriptions. Needless to say, the southern wall is in the direction of "Qibla".
About eighty years after the Prophet's death, the Omayyid caliph, Waleed son of Abdul Malik instructed the governor of Madinah, Umar son of Abdul Aziz to further expand the Prophet's Mosque. It may be noted here that it was not the first expansion. The Mosque had been expanded thrice before that. The first expansion took place during the lifetime of the Prophet; the second expansion was undertaken by the second caliph Umar; the third expansion was made by the third caliph Usman.
However, due to the phenomenal expansion in the area which had come under the writ of the Muslim rule and on account of the exponential growth in the Muslim population, the area of the Prophet's Mosque fell short of the requirements. It may be noted that this had happened within a century of the dawn of Islam. The year when the Omayyid caliph ordered the fourth expansion of the Prophet's Mosque is 91 A.H (710 A.D).
By that time, all the wives of the Prophet had passed away - the last being Umm-e-Salma. Under the caliph's instructions, all the huts, except Aisha's, were demolished so that the open space could be used for the overdue expansion of the Prophet's Mosque.
The day these humble huts were pulled down, there was not an eye in Madinah which was dry. The Muslims said, and continued to say long afterwards, that these huts should have been left as they were so that the coming generations of the Muslims could know how their lord and master, the Prophet of Islam, had passed the last ten years of his earthly life. Had he so wished, he could have easily built spacious and comfortable houses of baked bricks for his daughter and wives, after the conquest of Khyber, in 7 A.H (629 A.D).
It is restated here that the governor of Madinah, Umar son of Abdul Aziz not only left the space of Aisha's hut in tact but also rebuilt its four walls which he later enclosed by an additional seven meter high, five cornered protective wall. During this period, in a rainy night, the eastern wall of Aisha's hut suddenly collapsed.
A contemporary Abdullah son of Muhammad son of Aqeel has this to say about it:
That night, it was raining in Madinah. I used to visit the Prophet's Mosque in the later part of the night. I would first offer salutations to the Prophet and then stay in the Mosque till the "Fajr" prayer. As usual, on that night, too, I left for the mosque. When I reached near the house of Mugayyara son of Shaabah, I felt a fragrance which I had never experienced. I entered the Mosque and offered salutations to the Prophet. I was surprised to see that one wall (the eastern wall) of the Sacred Chamber had collapsed. I went inside and offered salutations again to the Prophet. Shortly thereafter, the governor of Madinah, Umar son of Abdul Aziz arrived. He ordered that the Sacred Chamber should be covered with a large piece of cloth. A mason was summoned in the morning, and was told to go inside. He requested that some other person should also accompany him. The governor volunteered. So did two others. The governor then said, "We should not disturb the peace of the inmates by overcrowding it." He then instructed his freed slave Mazaham to accompany the mason. The freed slave later told us that the first grave was slightly lower than the other two.
About thirty five years earlier, a grandson of the first caliph Abu Bakr, with the permission of Abu Bakr' s daughter Aisha, had visited these graves in Aisha's hut. According to him, the three graves were neither very high above the ground nor level with the ground. They were covered with reddish earth. A contemporary of governor Umar saw these graves during the governorship of Umar, and noticed that these graves were about four inches above the ground level.
Governor Umar reconstructed the four walls of the Sacred Chamber with black stones similar to those used in the walls of "Kaaba" in Makkah. The reason for drawing a five-cornered outer wall, instead of a four-cornered wall, was that governor Umar did not want the Sacred Chamber to resemble the "Kaaba" which has four walls.
The five-cornered outer wall is constructed on the following pattern. In the south, i.e., the direction of "Qibla", the outer wall is in a straight line. It is the southern side which is visible to the visitor when he stands before the Sacred Chamber to offer salutations to The Prophet.
In the east, i.e, the direction of "Baqee" cemetery, the outer wall is not in a straight line, but is in two parts. As one moves from the south to the north, a part of the outer wall is in a straight line, and it then turns, in an angle, towards the north-west.
In the west, i.e, the direction of the Prophet's Mosque, the pattern of construction of the outer wall is similar to the one on the eastern side. On the western side of the outer wall, as one moves from the south to the north, one sees three pillars which are half inside the green railings and half outside it. These pillars are named:
(1) "Al-Sarir", ie, the "Bed Column"; (2) "Al-Hars", i.e., the "Guard Column"; and (3) "Al-Wafud", ie, the "Delegates Column". As one moves from the first to the third column, a part of the outer wall (which is, of course, inside the green railings) is in a straight line and then, like its parallel wall, it proceeds, in an angle, towards the north-east and joins the parallel outer wall, in the north.
At times, the Prophet offered the "Tahajjud" prayer outside the hut of Fatima and Ali. This site is commemorated by an arch, which is under the Glorious Green Dome, and is in the north of the hut of Fatima and Ali. A platform is built in front of this arch which is enclosed by beautiful brass railings, and a bookshelf, with hundreds of copies of the Quran, is placed here. The arch is, therefore, not visible. Right in front of the railings is the passage which leads, in the east, to Bab-e--Jibreel and, in the west, to the Garden of Paradise. To comprehend it more easily, if one enters the Prophet's Mosque through Bab-e-Jibreel, one would notice, to one's left, the above mentioned brass railings, and, to the right, a carpet-covered platform which many mistakenly take for the shaded and the elevated place used, during the Prophet's time, by his companions known as Ahli-Suffa. The present platform was raised for, and used by, the persons who performed services, including custodial services, in the Prophet's Mosque. The platform was built over eight centuries ago, in 557 A.H/l 162 A.D, by the ruler of Egypt and Syria, Sultan Nuruddin Zangi whom we shall presently refer in the following lines. The original site of the "Suffa", which has no plaque or identification mark today, was much ahead of this platform, in the western direction. To be precise, if one walks northward from the pillar known as "Aisha's Column", the fifth column was the site of "Suffa". This site was the northern-most boundary of The Prophet's Mosque, before 7 A.H (629 A.D).
In 557 A.H/1162 A.D, two Christians of Moroccan origin made an abortive attempt to take away the body of the Prophet from the Sacred Chamber. This incident is narrated in "Wafa-ul-Wafa", the short history of Madinah, by its famous author Allama Nuruddin Abul Hasan Samhoudi who lived between 844 A.H and 911 A.H (1440 A.D - 1550 A.D). He writes:
One night, after Tahajjud prayer, Sultan Nuruddin Zangi saw the Prophet in his dream. The Prophet pointed towards two red-skinned persons and asked the Sultan to save him, i.e, the Prophet from them. The Sultan woke up with a start, performed ablution, offered supernumerary prayer, and went back to sleep. He again had the same dream. He got up, performed ablution, offered supernumerary prayer, and again went back to sleep. He was visited by the same dream, the same night, for the third time. The Sultan now lost his sleep.
He called his advisor Jamaluddin Al-Musali and narrated his dreams. The advisor said, "Why are you here? You should go to Madinah immediately. In the meantime, please do not relate your dreams to anyone." The Sultan left for Madinah the very next day with an entourage of only twenty persons, including his advisor, and carried many expensive gifts with him.
He reached Madinah in sixteen days. Immediately on his arrival, it was announced that he had brought many gifts for distribution among the residents of Madinah. The Sultan sat in The Prophet's Mosque and presented a gift to every visitor, turn by turn. During this process, he closely scrutinized the face of every recipient to match his features with those seen by him repeatedly in his dreams.
When none was left without a gift, the Sultan asked the assemblage, "Have all the male residents of Madinah met me?" The people said, "Yes, indeed." The Sultan said, "Are you sure?" This time, the reply was: "Everyone, except two." The clue was there. The Sultan asked, "Who are they? Why haven't they come to get their gifts?" The residents replied: They are two pious Moroccan Muslims. They do not accept any gift from anyone. They rather feed the needy very generously. They offer prayers regularly, including the Tahajjud prayer, observe fasts and regularly offer salutations to The Prophet. They also visit the Quba Mosque, once a week.
The Sultan exclaimed, "Subhanallah!" (Glory to Allah). He ordered immediately that these two "pious persons" may be asked to come and receive their gifts. When this urgent message was conveyed to them, they replied, "By the grace of Allah we have everything. We don't need any gifts or charity." Their reply, together with their thanks, was conveyed to the Sultan who ordered that both of them should be produced before him, without delay. And so they were.
One quick glance was sufficient. The Sultan, however, kept his cool and asked politely, "Who are you? Where are you from?" "We are Moroccans," they said, "We came for Haj, and now wish to stay as the neighbours of the Prophet." The Sultan said curtly, "Why don't you speak the truth?" This remark silenced them. The Sultan enquired about their residence which, he was told, was in the southern most wall of the Prophet's Mosque, and very close to the Sacred Chamber.