The Holy Journey (04): The mosques of Medina

The main mosque that we attended for daily prayers throughout the stay in Medina was of course, the mosque of our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi. There were some upgrading works during my visit at that time.


The mosque female entrances are guarded by female mosque guards clad in burqa; they search your bags and also do body search for cameras as cameras are prohibited in the mosque. Most mosques in Medina and Mecca have these guards, and male guards guard the men entrance of course.

The view from entrance Door 29 (Women entrance)

The other side, entrance to the Prophet's (PBUH) grave. But the mosque authority has prohibited the entrance since few years ago, thanks to some visitors creating such a scene crying, screaming and hugging the pillars there.

My most memorable experience was when visiting Raudah, an area within the mosque where it is said that all prayers there would be granted by God. The area opens at certain hour for women, I attended the one at night arranged by the tour, led by Indonesian ustazah. Upon entering the mosque, you will follow the make - shift path made by canvas to walk through the male areas. Then you will wait for your country turn to enter, lucky us Malaysia, Indonesia and SIngapore enter together as the 3rd group. They segregated us under the plaque "Penerangan Agama" which I found to be absurd since the female guard just sat there saying nothing.

Then they further devided our large South East group to two, the first half made such a mad dash into the area that I was left speechless, especially when I watched a few people from the second half disobeyed the order to wait and made a run for the place whenever the guards turned their backs.

When the second half's turn arrived, I was jostled in by the group. Managing to pray a 2 rakaat prayer was a miracle; you couldn't do the sujud without someone walking over your head or worst, kicking and tripping over it. It's that freaking crowded in that small space. The guards screams too made things even worse since they were forever screaming "Cepat ibu (they call everybody ibu)! Cepat ibu! Iran mau masuk! Bahaya! Bahaya!" (Hurry up maam! The Iranians are coming! Danger! Danger!). It sounded to me like the Iranians are coming to bomb us or something LOL. And once you raised up your hands for prayer, they would start pushing you out to make space for other people so it's better to have a long last sujud to cry and say all your long- winded prayers.

Note: The Iranian women are triple or more to our size (if we're talking about an Asian woman with BMI of 18 - 24), if you're wondering why the guards are saying those lines. Their BMI is way beyond 35. Them coming in on us would be like the mass stampede in Lion King and Australia (the movie) and we'll be crushed. Mark my words.


2 other famous mosques in every travel agent itenary: the Quba mosque and the Qiblatain mosque.

Quba mosque, the first mosque to be built upon the Prophet's arrival in Medina. I couldn't get a good shot of it since I was in a hurry and so scared at this Arab guy yelling "Haram! Haram!" behind me. I thought he was admonishing me for taking a picture of the mosque, turned out he was promoting some trinkets of Masjidil Haram. Oh well...

Outside the Quba mosque was a small bazaar selling souvenirs.

The Qiblatain mosque, where the Prophet (PBUH) recieved God words on the change of the Muslim's qiblat from Masjidil Aqsa to Kaaba'.

A small mosque in the city of Medina. Just snapped the photo because I thought it looked cute.