Talk:Prophet's Mosque

Untitled

The bottom picture forces the top one too far to the right... someone should fix this. Xoder 21:52, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Tweaked, hopefully fixed. Please drop a note here if it gives anyone problems on their browser. Turnstep 02:22, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Correction in the The Rawdah Section

Where it says "A green carpet was used to distinguish the area from the red carpet used in the rest of the mosque, though it is now also green." It should be corrected to say that the red carpets in the rest of the mosque have been changed and not "it is now also green". I know Madain Porject is not RS as a general source but it can be used to back specific claims.

Size

This must be one of the largest buildings in the world. Can someone add some statistics please? CalJW 17:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Tourism

Ok, so Saudi Arabia isn't exactly a very tourist friendly country, but is it open to non-Muslims? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.10.39.5 (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrong Name

Calling it Masjid al-Nabawi will totalley change the meaning of the article, it's true when removing al from a single arabic word the meaning won't change, but it's not the same for a combined noun and adjective. for example the word al-Nabawi in al-Masjid al-Nabawi is an adjective, but when changed to Masjid al-Nabawi it'll become a noun and that changes the meaning, until the al before masjed is put back. so I advice using al in both words, and that goes for similar articles as well. AshrafSS 16:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Grave

Perhaps there should be something on the controversy in Islam around building over graves? I heard their prophet warned against it when he was dying.

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia; please remember to sign your posts with four tildes. In any case, where did you learn of this information about graves and Muhammad's warning against building over them? Could I see a source? Thanks Jamutaq (talk) 01:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Merge the tomb article

I think that the newly created article Mohammed's tomb should be merged into this one as the tomb article would fit nicely into this one in terms of subject matter. MP (talk) 13:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sources and images

This page gives more info. about the mosque and it's history (one of the sources is WP itself, but there is another source) and this one provides some images of the mosque (have to check copyright though). MP (talk) 13:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The image

The image of the mosque ia "above" the words "other mosques throughout the world" in the history chapter. Can someone fix it?--217.132.167.148 09:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

What is this picture on the page showing a pig???

Why is it saying Islam is dead???

Please remove it because i think it is vandalized thank u

Merge from Muhammad's tomb

There was an article called Muhammad's tomb, which was barely a stub. The only useful content in it was:

• The sentence Outside of the Mosque a plaque reads "Inside here is bones and nothing more". I copied it here, but marked it as {{citation needed}}. Please check that it is correct.

• The photo, which i put in the description section. Please check that it belongs here and add a caption.

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni 22:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Second holiest?

The intro states that this mosque is the second holiest in Islam. Does that status not belong to the Dome of the Rock? Chesdovi (talk) 20:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't. The Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 19:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

But there are reliable sources stating that this is so, see the info at Dome of the Rock I just readded. Chesdovi (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A little clarification is in order here. The Al-aqsa mosque is the third holiest mosque, but the actual Dome of the Rock is the second holiest place. The mosque must not be equated with the precise location of the dome. Hope this helps. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 20:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! By the way, what is the 3rd holiest place? Chesdovi (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You're most welcome. I'm not sure what the third holiest place is. The Kaaba and the Dome of the Rock tend to be the ones most often discussed when considering 'holiness'. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 20:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really MPatel. thestick (talk) 23:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hala Sultan Tekke

I have never heard of Hala Sultan Tekke and most likely, most other Muslims have never heard of it either. To state that it shares the status of the third holiest site of Islam with the Al-aqsa mosque is, at best, dubious. At the very least, it is not notable. However, see Holiest sites in Islam.. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 20:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It is notable, but it lacks renown because Al Aqsa mosque has become the "3rd holiest" after it was used as a political pawn at the start of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Al Aqsa is still only third in "virtue". No religious book mentions holiness per-se. I think that Shia also view Najaf or Karbala as their third “holiest” sites. Chesdovi (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not notable. Also, some 1400 year old sources like the Hadith and Quran mention several important vitues about the Al-Aqsa mosque and some events related to that site. The "Hala Sultan Tekke" is mostly non-mainstream/dubious/locally revered as the third holiest. thestick (talk) 23:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Distraction

I realize it's the proper thing to do in Islam but having "Peace Be Unto Him" after every instance of Muhammad's name is rather distracting and prevents the article from flowing well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.110.204.129 (talk) 05:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles), the honorific "Peace Be Upon Him" "should generally not be used in articles". --Stormie (talk) 04:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, and it's also a violation of NPOV. Jamutaq (talk) 01:27, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Didn't Mohammed die in Jerusalem?

Or was he not bodily assumed into heaven at the location of the Dome of the Rock? Could someone clarify this for me? Thanks.

According to the Muhammed article it was in Medina and is sourced from here. The highly esteemed CBW presents the Talk Page! 21:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I must have been confused. That was a very thorough article. If only that magazine could produce something so glowing and complementary about Christianity...

Picture of pilgrim

I have removed the picture prominently showing a smiling pilgrim with Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in the background. This is entirely inappropriate for an encyclopedia as the image is of low quality and the focus is clearly upon the person and not the subject of the article. DO NOT replace this picture with out at least discussing the issues I have raised—Wikipedia is not a depository for tourist pictures. Xargon666x6 (talk) 22:23, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with this statement. 198.7.235.73 (talk) 20:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Wrong Picture

This picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tombstone_of_Umar_%28r.a%29_by_mohammad_adil_rais.JPG is identified in this article as the tomb of Muhammad, but the picture's caption says it's the tomb of Umar...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.230.177.44 (talk) 17:29, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

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Addressing the prophet

With all due respect, I will like to say that the editors and writers of this article should put Peace be upon him(shortly PBUH in parenthesis when referring to the holy prophet) or they can use a much easier form which is (S.A.W), abbreviation of the transliteration 'Sallalaahu Alaihi Wasallam' after his beloved name. Eg. Prophet Muhammad(S.A.W) or (PBUH). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.217.133.252 (talk) 21:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd say that would be against Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Also, Muhammad isn't holy nor a prophit to everyone, just like Jesus isn't holy nor a prophit to everyone. No offense intended, just want to help clear up some possible misunderstandings. Jamutaq (talk) 01:30, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Map?

I'd like to see a floor plan of the Mosque detailing the era of the different expansions. --Error (talk) 03:25, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Masjid al-Haram which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 12:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 9 September 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus DrStrauss talk 17:26, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

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Al-Masjid an-Nabawi → Prophet's Mosque – Consistency with using English names as in this move discussion about the other sacred mosque and WP:COMMONNAME in reliable English-language sources:

• "Prophet's Mosque" Medina: 700 hits
• "Mosque of the Prophet" Medina: 621 hits
• "Masjid al-Nabawi" Medina: 305 hits
• "Masjid an-Nabawi" Medina: 121 hits

Additonally, the first "Al-" (Arabic definite article) has really got to go per WP:THE. HyperGaruda (talk) 05:44, 9 September 2017 (UTC) --HyperGaruda (talk) 13:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

• Arabic grammar changes matters. "Nabawi" is an -īy adjective meaning "belonging to the prophet". "Al-Masjid an-Nabawi" means "the mosque that belongs to the prophet". In "Masjid an-Nabawi", losing the first "Al-" changes it into a genitive construction: "the mosque that belongs to someone/something that belongs to the prophet". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, the current name is more common in reliable sources. Al can't be removed because of the reason stated by Anthony Appleyard. Khestwol (talk)

The 74 hits I get for "Al-Masjid an-Nabawi" is clearly less than the 700 hits for the "Prophet's Mosque" as pointed out in the opening post. --HyperGaruda (talk) 21:17, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support for the same reason we have an article on the Dome of the Rock instead of on "Qubbat al-Sakhrah". Academicoffee71 (talk) 22:40, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

New account, see ongoing Sock investigation In ictu oculi (talk) 20:07, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Referring to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kauffner I presume. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:02, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose, per totals of 3 Arabic variant vs 1 English variant, cf reason given by Anthony Appleyard. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:09, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
• Can we please focus on the move to "Prophet's Mosque" and ignore my little grammar mistake about "Al-". I did not propose to move it to "Masjid al-Nabawi" to begin with, if you had not noticed. --HyperGaruda (talk) 13:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: are you sure you counted correctly? I listed two English and two Arabic variants, with the English variants totalling to over 3 times as many hits as the Arabic ones. --HyperGaruda (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh you're right, I was looking at another 3rd minor Arabic variant, but you do have two English ones above. Hmm. 20:19, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support this or Mosque of the Prophet. These are far and away the most WP:COMMONNAME for the subject by both Google Scholar and Google Books ("Mosque of the Prophet" Medina is the most common on Google Books).--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:11, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Official Website

After quite an extensive search on the web I couldn't find the official website of the mosque, is there any? Moughera (talk) 09:58, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Nizam's Rubath Suggestion

The 5th Nizam of Hyderabad, Afzal Uddaula, built more than thirty buildings around Masjid Al-Haram and Masjid An-Nabawi for pilgrims visiting these holy places for Hajj.
Nenetarun (talk) 12:02, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

References

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Addressing the prophet

After reading the article it highly concerned me that every time the name of Prophet Muhammad was mentioned it only mentions the name, not the Prophet or PBUH or SAW. Now I saw arguments stating that He is not honoured to everyone so it's not mandatory to say the titles. I would like to state that whether other religious leaders or honourable person are not mentioned with titles we, muslims take this as a serious note and say Prophet before the name Muhammad(SAW). If you can't show minimal respect towards Him in an article related to Him and in such a big platform where many muslim may visit,,, then don't need to write anything about Him and His life.It's not any radical or irrational comment, I am just expressing my grief that how people wish cultures, outlooks and behaviours to be fixed and same. Our Prophet is special to us, just like our parents.So if you want to talk about my parents I expect you to honour them, and that's what we also want for our Prophet. 103.81.199.66 (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree, it hurts me to see the name of our beloved prophet mentioned without adding PBUH. We respect Jesus and Maria in the same way. 86.3.26.173 (talk) 22:18, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 22 August 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved, to Prophet's Mosque. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 11:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

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Al-Masjid an-Nabawi → Mosque of the ProphetMosque of the Prophet – Or "Prophet's Mosque" if preferred. Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGLISH.

The fact that the current lead gives the Arabic name in italicized transliteration and then says "known in English as the Prophet's Mosque" just further begs the question as to why the latter isn't the title, with the Arabic name given in the opening line per MOS:ALTNAME, as is usually the case. Online searches are imperfect, but as general indicators it's clear that the English names are more common in English sources:

• Google Books:
  • Mosque of the Prophet (55,300)
  • Prophet's Mosque (18,300)
  • Masjid an-Nabawi (1,920)
  • Masjid al-Nabawi (2,430)
  • Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (1,130)
  • Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (1,770)
• Google Scholar:
  • Mosque of the Prophet (1,520)
  • Prophet's Mosque (1,500)
  • Masjid an-Nabawi (316)
  • Masjid al-Nabawi (533)
  • Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (240)
  • Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (285)
• JSTOR (smaller academic database): 247 for Mosque of the Prophet vs 33 for Masjid al-Nabawi (feel free to look up the other variants).
• Ngram shows the same, but it has annoying quirks with hyphens and apostrophes. (I couldn't get the variants with "al-" before "masjid" to generate results, but given the results above they shouldn't hold any surprises.)

Notes: If you're looking directly at Google Books search results, toggle the "Tools" button to see the number of hits. All the searches above should be set to filter non-English results; but depending on your settings/cookies, you might see slightly different numbers, though proportionally about the same. Also, the search results overlap; e.g. the results for "Masjid an-Nabawi" also include results for "al-Masjid an-Nabawi". I'm providing all these variants just to reduce the chance of results being skewed by minor differences.

I have no strong feeling about "Prophet's Mosque" versus "Mosque of the Prophet". I picked the one that seems more common across most results above, but I note that the Ngrams seem to favour "Prophet's Mosque". I would equally support a move to the latter if responses below indicate a preference for it. R Prazeres (talk) 21:21, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Support Prophet's Mosque per Ngrams trend prevalence and brevity. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

General source issues

Just noting that the article currently has some sourcing issues that could potentially justify a review of its GA status. I've tried to tag all of these inline. In particular, the "Ottoman period" section is partly unsourced and the last few sections on "Mihrabs", "Minbars", and "Minarets" cite what looks like a non-scholarly religious website (). I don't suspect the information is wrong, but we should cite a more reliable source per WP:RS.

I don't have time to fix all of this myself, but I'm hopeful it can be resolved without necessarily doing a GA review. If anyone knows of additional references that could be cited, for example, mentioning them here might already make it easier. R Prazeres (talk) 21:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Remove the "List of imams" section?

This section has been poorly-sourced from the start, with names and citations added haphazardly over time and not entirely in line with WP:RS. As I mentioned above, this threatens the article's GA status. Aside from that, I'm not sure that such a section is reasonable or WP:DUE to begin with: the mosque has existed for some 1400 years and it has had Islamic officials of one designation or another running it this entire time, so why would we include a list of only some of the recent names? This raises WP:RECENTISM issues in addition to general quality issues. The names of past imams do not tell us anything about the mosque, unless there is something notable about those imams in particular, in which case they could be mentioned, with reliable citations, in the history section instead.

Given these issues, I propose that we remove the section altogether. I'd like to get other editors' opinions on this. R Prazeres (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

PS: Note that a similar problem can be raised with Masjid al-Haram, although it is not a GA article. R Prazeres (talk) 18:23, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Imams removed

It’s super unfair to not credit our beloved Imam’s who led in Nabawi and have whole playlists of their taraweeh in nabawi and tons of videos of salah etc. All I did was add Khalid al Ghamidi in 2010 and 2013 which he lead tarawih and tahajjud, and it seemed to have gotten removed along with many other Imam’s. So if anyone has the means of someone resolving this by either removing the list completely or adding all the names back please do so as it’s only fair to give proper credit to our Imam’s. Kai7176 (talk) 05:18, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not exist to pay tribute to individuals, it's an encyclopedia that reports the content of reliable sources. That being said, if this list is awkward or badly incomplete, as I imagine it must be, I would indeed prefer to remove it altogether. I'm not confident that it belongs here to begin with: it's common for current heads of institutions to be named in an infobox, but a whole section attempting to list all past and current staff is uncommon, probably WP:UNDUE, and probably unfeasible given the mosque's fourteen centuries of history. And as mentioned, it's constantly subject to uncited additions and changes. If such a list is useful, it might be better moved to its own list article. (Note that the equivalent section at Masjid al-Haram has all the same problems... it might benefit from similar consideration.) R Prazeres (talk) 05:51, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

PS: I see that the list article suggestion has just been implemented by Inu06 and material has been transferred to List of Imams of the Two Holy Mosques. This looks to me like a significant improvement overall. Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 15:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Article review

It has been a little bit since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed the "unreliable" orange banner at the top of the page. Is this banner still valid? If so, should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 16:41, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Sorry for the belated response, but I agree that a review would be good (thank you for starting it below). On the bright side, from what I've seen, I think most/all of the problems can be reasonably fixed. My schedule is in flux and I may not be able to take the lead on fixing everything, but any editor is free to ping me for any specific help and I'll try to respond quickly. I have access to a few reliable references which can usually help for architecture or history-related content issues. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 18:24, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Prophet's Mosque

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Issues do not appear to have been resolved. Bgsu98 (Talk) 22:39, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Uncited paragraphs, especially in the "Ottoman period (1517–1805 and 1840–1919)" section, and an orange "additional sources needed" banner at the top of the "Under subsequent Islamic states (750–1517)" section. Z1720 (talk) 19:14, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Minor update: the "additional sources needed" was supposed to be under the "Ottoman" section, but was moved to the preceding section for no reason on 25 January 2026 (), so I've restored it to its original position (). It is indeed the Ottoman section in particular that needs citations. R Prazeres (talk) 01:37, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

There are some dead links as well as unreliable sources cited in the imams, mihrabs, minbars and minarets sections.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Specific information updates

Certain claims on the article are vague, incorrect, incomplete or need revision. Below I am listing a few details that need to be revised or improved on and adding starting sources I found the details on, if there's better sources available, listed ones can be replaced

1. There are / were six mihrabs in the mosque (https://madainproject.com/mehrabs_of_masjid_al_nabawi)
2. "Minbars" when discussing minbar of the mosque, it is discussed as a single entity and not a sequence of historical minbars (https://madainproject.com/minbar_of_the_prophet_(masjid_al_nabawi)), however each of the historical minbar can be discussed as a separate entity. The reason even though historically there have been other minbars beside the one called "minbar nabawi" they did not have their own distinct identity and all were called "minbar nabawi". However, other minbar structures did exist such as Summer pulpit but it remained outside and did not have any significance in this context.
3. the section about green dome talks more about the tomb enclosure beneath the dome more than it does about the dome itself (https://madainproject.com/green_dome)
4. Apparently the claim "The Ottoman prayer hall, which is the oldest part of the mosque, lies towards the south." in section "architecture" cited as "Otto, Frei (1996), Finding Form: Towards an Architecture of the Minimal, Bodo Rasch, ISBN 3-930698-66-8" comes from (https://madainproject.com/ottoman_prayer_hall_of_masjid_nabawi) and not the cited source

MuhemedMuneeb (talk) 12:53, 19 April 2026 (UTC)