Building Madinah
The mosque, the brotherhood, and the constitution of the new city
In the first year at Madinah the Prophet ﷺ built the Prophet's Mosque, paired every muhajir emigrant with an ansari brother, and issued a written charter — sometimes called the Constitution of Madinah — that defined a single political community of Muslims and Jews.
Overview
This lesson covers the Prophet ﷺ's first year in Yathrib after the Hijrah: choosing the site for the Prophet's Mosque, the formal pairing of every emigrant (muhajir) with a Madinan host (ansari) as 'brothers', and the drafting of a written charter organising the tribes of the city — Muslims and non-Muslim Jews — as a single political community.
Context
Yathrib in 622 CE was not a unified city but a scatter of tribal quarters and fortified farms in an oasis. The Aws and Khazraj had fought a long, exhausting civil war culminating in the Battle of Buʿath a few years earlier. The three main Jewish tribes — Banu Qaynuqaʿ, Banu al-Nadir and Banu Qurayẓa — were long-established, held fortified strongholds and controlled significant markets and orchards. The city needed a shared arbiter and a shared framework. The Prophet ﷺ arrived to acclaim, and to a genuinely open political situation.
The mosque
On entering the city the Prophet ﷺ let his camel choose the site: it knelt at a plot used for drying dates, owned by two orphan brothers. He insisted on paying a fair price, and the first Masjid al-Nabawi was built there — a simple rectangle of mud brick walls, palm-trunk pillars and a palm-frond roof, with an open courtyard, three doors and a raised platform (the ṣuffa) where a group of poor emigrants slept. The mosque was not only a place of prayer: it was courtroom, teaching space, reception hall for delegations and clinic. The Prophet ﷺ's own living quarters were rooms built against its eastern wall. (Ibn Hisham; al-Bukhari's chapter on the arrival at Madinah.)
The brotherhood (muʾakhah)
The Muhajirun had arrived poor. The Prophet ﷺ formally paired each emigrant with a Madinan host, so that the Ansar shared their homes, tools and livelihoods with them. Some pairs are famous: ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn ʿAwf with Saʿd ibn al-Rabiʿ, Salman al-Farisi with Abu al-Dardaʾ. Saʿd offered to share his wealth and even to divorce one of his wives so ʿAbd al-Rahman could marry her; ʿAbd al-Rahman politely refused and asked only to be shown the market — he was a merchant. Within a short time he was self-sufficient. This system replaced tribal solidarity, which had been narrow, with a wider Muslim solidarity that crossed tribal lines.
The Constitution of Madinah (Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīnah)
Ibn Ishaq (transmitted by Ibn Hisham) preserves the text of a document the Prophet ﷺ drew up between the Muhajirun, the Ansar and 'those who followed them from the Jews and joined them'. It defines the Muslims of Quraysh, the Aws and the Khazraj and named Jewish tribes as 'one community (ummah) to the exclusion of other people'. Each group is to help defend Madinah against external attack. Blood-money and ransom rules from the pre-Islamic system are retained within each tribe. Disputes referred back to Allah and to Muhammad ﷺ. The document is widely accepted by academic historians as authentic in substance — its wording and provisions are archaic enough that later fabrication is unlikely.
What this means
Taken together, the mosque, the brotherhood and the charter turned a scatter of tribes into a coherent political community. It was religiously plural (Jewish tribes retained their religion), organised by written law rather than only custom, and centred on a single arbiter who was recognised across the tribes. Adhan (the call to prayer) was introduced in this early Madinan period, after consultation, on the basis of a dream seen by ʿAbdullah ibn Zayd and confirmed by the Prophet ﷺ (Sunan Abi Dawud; Ibn Hisham).
Why this matters
Madinah's founding shows Islam building rather than only critiquing. Worship, welfare and law are set up together. Jonathan Brown (Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction) notes that historians often treat the move to Madinah as a transformation in scale — from a group of believers to a functioning polity — without treating it as a change of message.
Application today
Wherever Muslims land — a new city, a new job, a new stage of life — three practical questions echo Madinah: Where do we pray together? Who welcomes new arrivals? What rules do we agree on so we can live justly with the people already here?
Timeline placement
Rabiʿ al-Awwal 1 AH – end of year 1 AH (622–623 CE). Follows the Hijrah; precedes the Battle of Badr.
Reflection
The Prophet ﷺ set up worship, welfare and shared rules in his first year in a new city. What is the equivalent first-year work for a Muslim community you belong to?