Muslim Landmarks Explored

📍 Makkah | Mina — City of Tents These photographs, taken in the late Ottoman era (c. late 19th–early 20th century), show pilgrims encamped in the valley of Mina during Hajj. Just 7km from al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, Mina is where ḥujjāj spend the nights of the 8th, 11th, and 12th of Dhul-Ḥijjah, and where the ritual of ramy al-jamarāt is performed. Long before permanent structures were built, the sacrifices were great. Pilgrims arrived carrying their own tents, their camels still loaded with the provisions of a journey that could take months. They pitched their own tents on the open valley floor — no shade beyond what the canvas provided and with no running water. Summer temperatures in the Ḥijāz regularly exceed 40°C. Today, Mina holds more than 100,000 permanent air-conditioned tents, with organised medical care, food, and transport.

📍 Makkah | Hajj Caravan — Late Ottoman Era A sea of pilgrims and camels making their way toward Makkah al-Mukarramah. This photograph — captioned in both French and Ottoman Arabic — dates to the late 19th or early 20th century, when postcards documenting the Hajj journey were widely produced and circulated across the Ottoman world. Up to the end of the 19th century, Hajj caravans made entirely of camels, horses, mules — and for the poorest pilgrims, on foot — were the only means of reaching the Holy City. The journey could take months. The hardships were immense. Yet they came, generation after generation. They came with one intention. لبيك اللهم لبيك.

📍 Makkah | Ayn Zubaydah — The Howdh of Arafat This photograph shows Hajj pilgrims wading in one of the three great water tanks — the حوض (howdh) — at Arafat, near Jabal Rahmah. Before each Hajj season, these tanks were filled from the Ayn Zubaydah aqueduct. Pilgrims used them for bathing and washing. Ayn Zubaydah was commissioned in the early 9th century CE by Zubaydah bint Ja'far (رحمها الله), wife of Khalifah Harun al-Rashid. She visited Makkah for Hajj and witnessed firsthand the severe water shortage faced by pilgrims. She said: "Build it even if it costs a strike of an axe for a dinar." The aqueduct ran approximately 36 km from Wadi Nu'man near Taif, through Arafat and Muzdalifah, all the way to Makkah — flowing entirely by gravity through underground and above-ground channels. The entire project reportedly cost the equivalent of over 7,000 kg of gold, paid from her personal wealth. It served Hajj pilgrims for over 1,200 years. The system was finally rendered defunct in 1974 as urban expansion and modern water infrastructure replaced it. Remnants of the channel can still be seen today near Jabal Rahmah.

📍 Qatrana, Jordan | Hajj Fort & Cistern Before railways and steamships, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims made the overland journey to Makkah on foot and by camel — often through harsh desert terrain with little water. To protect them, the Ottomans built a series of forts along the 1,500 km route from Damascus to Makkah. Each fort followed the same design: a square structure built around a central courtyard, housing troops who guarded the water facilities while pilgrims camped outside. The fort at Qatrana, in Jordan, was built on the orders of Sultan Suleiman in 1559. Attached to it was a massive reservoir — 69.5 m on each side and 4 m deep — providing water to pilgrims crossing the desert. The overland Hajj route began to decline after steamships reached the Red Sea in the 1840s and the Suez Canal opened in 1869. By the time the Hijaz Railway opened in 1908, the great camel caravans had largely come to an end — and with them, the need for these forts.

📍 Makkah | Hajj 1938 What did Hajj look like 88 years ago? This rare archive footage captures the Hajj of 1938 — a time when pilgrims travelled to Makkah by foot, camel, and car. See what the Mataf looked like nearly 90 years ago, and the immense dedication of those who answered the call of Allah.

📍 Makkah | The Journey to Hajj A historic photograph of Muslim pilgrims aboard a steamer ship, c. 1913. From the 1850s onwards, steamships transformed the Hajj for sea-travelling pilgrims. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought regular steamer traffic from Europe and Africa through the Red Sea to the port of Jeddah, around 55 miles from Makkah. But the steamship was only part of the journey. After disembarking at Jeddah, pilgrims still faced the final overland leg to Makkah — relying on convoys of camels, horses and donkeys to reach the holy city, on journeys that could take months in total. It was only in 1924 that pilgrims were ordered to cease using camels and instead rely on motor vehicles — though due to the lack of proper roads, camels remained in use for years after.

@iamrana The viewing holes still exist at the front of the Sacred Chamber. This is from the side.

wasn't there a grilled gate which one could see through inside many years ago? i remember looking inside a grilled door?

📍 Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, Madinah This gilded green door, marks the place behind where the house of Ali ibn Abi Talib (رضي الله عنه) and Fatimah az-Zahra (رضي الله عنها) — the beloved daughter of the Prophet ﷺ was located. It is on the eastern side of the Rawdah Mubarak (Sacred Chamber) The house was gifted by Haritha ibn Nu'man (رضي الله عنه) after he learned that the Prophet ﷺ wished for his daughter to live close to him. This home is believed to have witnessed the births of Hasan and Husayn (رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُمَا) — the blessed grandsons of the Prophet ﷺ. It stood until 706–709 CE / 87–91 AH, when during the Umayyad expansion of the mosque under Caliph al-Walid I, it was absorbed into the masjid.

📍 Madinah | Masjid al-Nabawi — Painting of the Path to Masjid Quba This painting, found within the front Ottoman section of Masjid al-Nabawi, depicts the historic path from Masjid al-Nabawi to Masjid Quba — a road once lined with date palms and a solitary minaret rising in the distance. The Ottoman section, the oldest surviving section of Masjid al-Nabawi, was elaborately decorated during the renovation of Sultan Abdulmajid I in the mid-19th century. Its walls and arches were adorned with calligraphy, tilework, and depictions of sacred sites. The path shown was one the Prophet ﷺ himself walked — and rode — regularly. Ibn Umar (رضي الله عنهما) narrated: "The Prophet ﷺ used to go to the Mosque of Quba every Saturday, sometimes walking and sometimes riding." [Sahih al-Bukhari] And the reward for making that journey is immense. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Whoever purifies himself in his house, then comes to the Mosque of Quba and prays there — he will have a reward like that of Umrah." [Ibn Majah]

📍 Istanbul | Ayasofya Mosque In 1934, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk issued a decree transforming Ayasofya into a museum — a move widely seen as an effort to defuse tensions with Greece and the Orthodox Christian world, and to signal the new secular identity of the Turkish Republic. A masjid that had served the Muslim ummah for nearly 500 years was closed to worship overnight. This newspaper clipping captures that moment — announcing the opening of the Ayasofya museum the following day. For 85 years, the adhan fell silent within its walls. While use of the complex as a place of worship was strictly prohibited, it wasn't until 1991 that the Turkish government allowed even a small pavilion within the complex to be used as a prayer room. Then, on 10th July 2020, Turkey's top court ruled that the conversion to a museum had been illegal, and President Erdoğan declared Ayasofya open to Muslim worship once more. Jummah (Friday) prayers were held there for the first time in 85 years.

📍 Madinah | Ustādh Shafiq-uz-Zamān Khān — Calligrapher of Masjid al-Nabawi ﷺ Born in Rawalpindi and raised in Karachi, Ustādh Shafiq-uz-Zamān Khān spent his early years painting shop signboards — never imagining where that passion would lead. In 1991, the administration of Masjid al-Nabawi announced a competition to select a calligrapher to restore Ottoman-era Qur'anic inscriptions within the mosque — some over 130 years old — and produce new work for the mosque's expanding structures. Competing against calligraphers from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and beyond, Ustādh Shafiq won. He has worked in Masjid al-Nabawi ever since — for over three decades. His script, in the Thuluth (ثلث) style, now adorns the mosque's domes, walls, and doors. Three of his works hang on al-Rawdah al-Sharīfah itself, rendered in 24-carat gold where the Prophet ﷺ is resting.

📍 Jaffa, Palestine | Pilgrims Setting Out for Makkah (~1900) A caravan of Persian pilgrims photographed in Jaffa — a port city that once served as a gateway not just to Palestine, but to Makkah itself. Before the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate over Palestine, Muslim pilgrims regularly visited Jerusalem and Masjid al-Aqsa asas part of their Hajj journeys. The pilgrims in this photograph — captured by an American photographer around 1900 — could not have known that within decades, this route would be closed to Muslims entirely.

📍 Algiers | Djamaa el-Djazaïr (Great Mosque of Algiers) Completed in 2019, this is one of the largest mosques in the world— and the largest in Africa. Its minaret stands at 265 metres, the tallest in the world. The complex spans 400,000 m², houses 120,000 worshippers, and contains a Qur'anic school, library, museum of Islamic art, and a research centre. The prayer hall holds 618 columns and 6 km of laser-engraved Quranic calligraphy. In April 2026, Pope Leo XIV became the first Pope to visit Algeria, and began his trip with a visit to this mosque

📍 Madinah | The Green Dome of Masjid al-Nabawi Beneath that green dome lies the house of 'Ā'ishah (رضي الله عنها) — and within it, the resting places of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, Abū Bakr, and 'Umar (رضي الله عنهما). The chamber is enclosed by a five-sided wall, deliberately irregular so it could never resemble the Ka'bah. No dome stood here for over six centuries. The first was built in 678 AH (1279 CE) by the Mamluk Sultan al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn — wooden, unpainted, barely two metres tall. It was rebuilt after a devastating fire in 886 AH by Sultan Qāytbāy, this time in brick and stone. The Ottomans later raised a new dome above it in 1817. It was initially painted blue — then in 1837 it was painted green for the first time and has remained green till today.

📍 Makkah | Al-Kaʿbah — The Story of the Two Doors Maintenance work carried out last week gave us the opportunity to see the Kaʿbah without its Kiswah, revealing the ancient stones beneath — and inviting a closer look at one of Islamic history's most overlooked stories: the Kaʿbah's missing door. When Prophet Ebrāhīm (عليه السلام) raised the Kaʿbah with his son Ismāʿīl (عليه السلام), it had two openings — one in the east for entry, one in the west for exit — both at ground level, open to all. When the Quraysh rebuilt it approximately five years before Prophethood, limited funds forced them to exclude the Ḥijr Ismāʿīl from the structure. They also sealed the western door and raised the eastern door above ground level, making entry a matter of permission. The Prophet ﷺ never forgot what had been lost. He confided in ʿĀʾishah (رضي الله عنها): "O ʿĀʾishah! Had not your people been still close to the pre-Islamic period of ignorance, I would have dismantled the Kaʿbah and would have made two doors in it — one for entrance and one for exit."[Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 126] Out of wisdom for a community still new to Islām, he ﷺ chose not to act — but the wish was preserved. It was ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Zubayr (رضي الله عنه) who finally fulfilled it. When the Kaʿbah was damaged by fire during the siege of Makkah in 64 AH, he rebuilt it from the Ebrāhīmic foundations — restoring the Ḥijr, lowering the door to ground level, and adding the second western door, exactly as the Prophet ﷺ had wished. It did not last. After his martyrdom in 73 AH, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf — under orders from Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān — demolished his construction and returned the Kaʿbah to the Quraysh layout. When ʿAbd al-Malik later heard the ḥadīth in full, he reportedly said: "I wish we had left it as Ibn al-Zubayr had made it." When the Abbasid Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd sought to restore it again, Imām Mālik (رحمه الله) advised him against it — warning that the Kaʿbah must not become a plaything in the hands of kings. The Caliph accepted his counsel. And so it has remained. What remains of the sealed doorway is the faint outline showing where it was positioned.

📍 Madinah | A Rare Glimpse of the City in the Early 20th Century This colourised photograph was originally captured by H. A. Mirza & Sons, photographers from Delhi, around 1907. The vantage point is believed to be Jabal Sela' — the volcanic mountain just northwest of Masjid an-Nabawi, the same hill from which the Prophet ﷺ supplicated to Allah during the Battle of the Trench. In the middle ground, the Ottoman city walls — raised to 25 metres under Sultan Abd al-Aziz in 1868–69 — stretch across the frame, with the Bab al-Shami (the Syrian Gate) visible along their length. Beyond the walls, the five minarets and domes of Masjid an-Nabawi rise above a dense expanse of mud-brick dwellings. The green dome marking the resting place of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is visible on the horizon.

📍 Minaret of Prophet Isa (عليه السلام) | Damascus, Syria Standing at the southeastern corner of the Umayyad Mosque, Muslims believe this minaret marks the very spot where Prophet Isa (عليه السلام) [Jesus] will return before the Day of Judgement. Muslims hold that Prophet Isa (عليه السلام) was not crucified and did not die. Allah (ﷻ) raised him to the heavens, and he awaits his return to earth at the appointed time. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: "Allah will send the Messiah, son of Mary. He will descend near the white minaret to the east of Damascus, dressed in two garments dyed with saffron, with his hands resting on the wings of two angels."[Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2837] At the time this was said, Damascus had not yet come under Muslim rule and the mosque did not exist. He will descend at the time of Fajr, joining Imam Mahdi and the believers who are preparing to face the Dajjal (the AntiChrist). He will pursue and kill the Dajjal, and the earth will enter a period of justice and peace.

📍 The opening and closing of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre | Jerusalem The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is the holiest place for Christians as its where they believe Isa (عليه السلام) [Jesus] was crucified. This is why 'Good Friday' is commemorated. Muslims completely reject the crucifixion of Isa (عليه السلام). The Quran is explicit — he was neither killed nor crucified, but was raised up by Allah. He will return before the Day of Judgement. "They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him — it only appeared so." — Surah al-Nisa, 4:157 Yet this church — the holiest site in Christianity, where Christians believe Isa (عليه السلام) was crucified, buried, and resurrected — has been opened and closed by a Muslim every single day for over 800 years. When Umar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه) entered Jerusalem in 637 CE, he was invited to pray inside the Church by the Patriarch Sophronius. He refused — concerned that future Muslims would use it as justification to convert the church into a mosque. He prayed outside instead. The Mosque of Umar marks that spot today. Following Salahuddin's reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187, custodianship of the church's keys was entrusted to two Muslim families: the Joudeh family, responsible for safeguarding the keys, and the Nuseibeh family, responsible for opening and closing the doors each day. The reason was practical wisdom. Six Christian denominations share the church, and rivalries between them run deep. There are regular, and sometimes violent skirmishes as each vies to maintain their territory within the church. Therefore as neutrals, Muslims open and close the door. The Joudeh family holds two keys — one around 850 years old, now broken, and one still in use today that is approximately 500 years old. A tradition born from Islamic principles of protecting places of worship — still observed to this day.

📍 Ustuwanah Aisha | Masjid-e-Nabawi, Madinah Inside the Rawdah of Masjid-e-Nabawi stands a pillar known by three names — the Pillar of Aisha, the Pillar of Casting Lots, and the Pillar of the Emigrants. Aisha (رضي الله عنها) once said to the Sahabah: "In this masjid there is a spot — if people knew its true virtue, they would draw lots just to pray there." She refused to reveal it. Only her nephew, Abdullah ibn Zubayr (رضي الله عنه), persisted until she showed him. He went quietly and prayed. The companions watched from a distance to identify the spot. That spot is this pillar. It sits in the first row closest to Mihrab al-Nabawi, third from the minbar. The Muhajireen would regularly gather here. Abu Bakr and Umar (رضي الله عنهما) both prayed at this spot. Today it is marked by a golden wreath and inscription inside the Rawdah.