Medina (/mdin/; Arabic: , officially al-Madnah al-Munawwarah, "the radiant

city", or al-Madnah, also officially transliterated as Madinah by the Saudi

Government and in modern Islamic literature generally) is a modern city in the Hejaz region
of western Saudi Arabia, and the capital of Al Madinah Province. An alternative name is
Madinat Al-Nabi ("The City of the Prophet", i.e., Muhammad). The Arabic word madinah
simply means "city". Before the advent of Islam, the city was known as Yathrib but was
personally renamed by Muhammad.
The burial place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, it is the second holiest city in Islam after
Mecca, a very sacred place. Medina is critically significant in Islamic History as
Muhammad's final religious base after the Hijrah and the location of his death in 632 AD/11
AH. Medina was the power base of Islam in its first century, being where the early Muslim
community (ummah) developed, first under Muhammad's leadership and then under the first
four caliphs of Islam: Abu Bakr, `Omar, `Othman and `Ali.
Medina is reportedly home to the three oldest mosques in Islam which were built in the days
of Muhammad, namely Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (The Prophet's Mosque), Quba Masjid (the first
mosque in Islam's history),[2] and Masjid al-Qiblatain (The Mosque of the Two Qiblahs the
mosque where the direction of Muslim prayer, or qiblah, was switched from Jerusalem to
Mecca).
Similarly to Mecca, entrance to the sacred core of Medina (but not the entire city) is restricted
to Muslims only; non-Muslims are not permitted to enter nor are they allowed to cross
through the city center.[3][4][5]
Muslims believe that the final chapters (surahs) of the Qur'an chronologically were revealed
to the Prophet in Medina and are called Medinan surahs in contrast to earlier Meccan surahs.
[6][7]