ISLAMICA publishes here exclusive images of the house of Sayyida Khadija and explains how it was found, excavated and then buried.

 
EDITOR'S NOTE: Images available in the print edition. Subscribe to Islamica today.  

The House of Sayyida Khadija was rediscovered during the Haram extensions in 1989, then hurriedly covered over so as to obliterate any trace. This was the house where the Prophet Muhammad received some of his first revelations and it is also where his children Umm Kulthum, Ruqqaya, Fatima, Zaynab, Qasim and ‘Abdullah were born. ISLAMICA publishes here exclusive images of the house of Sayyida Khadija and how it was found, excavated, studied and then buried. The House of Sayyida Khadija was located just outside Safa and Marwa and which now falls under the paved area. Above it, the Wahhabi hardliners have built public toilets.

In the late 1980s plans were drawn up to flatten the area immediately outside Safa and Marwa in the Haram in Mecca and make way for a paved area. Those behind the proposed plan were well aware that the area around Safa and Marwa had a number of sites of historical and religious importance—with many dating back to Abbasid and pre- Abbasid times—and that it would be threatened by any major development initiative for the area. The plan, however, was approved by the then king and it was undertaken by the Bin Ladin construction company.

The work began in 1989 and over 60 old houses were demolished to make way for the paved area (see image 1). However, after demolishing one of the buildings, the Bin Ladin company found remains of a house under the foundations of the building. This turned out to be the House of Sayyida Khadija and of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of God be upon him.

There are numerous references to the House of Sayyida Khadija in historical documents giving minute details as to its location and layout. In fact, a British explorer, Eldon Rutter, saw the house when he visited Mecca in 1925 and describes the house in his book (see E. Rutter, The Holy Sites of Arabia, vol.1, London, 1928). The house was an important site for pilgrimage and it remained preserved in people’s memories for many generations to come. However, by the early 20th century and with the rise of the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula, the house suffered neglect and in order to preserve it Sheikh ‘Abbas Qattan obtained permission from King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to open a Qur’an school as it was the site of some of the first revelations of the Qur’an and the place where the Prophet lived until he migrated to Medina. Over time this school too became derelict, with the various political upheavals and the declining fortunes of traditional Islam. The school was eventually replaced by housing and gradually the existence of the remains of the House of Sayyida Khadija were little known among the general population of Mecca—apart from a few.

Image 2 on the right shows the remains of the house that were found when the present residential block was demolished. It had several rooms and matched the historical accounts exactly in terms of its distance from the Haram and the layout of the house.

Image 3 shows the early stage of escavation and also the proximity of the house to the Haram with Safa and Marwa in the background. News spread among the citizens of Mecca that the House where the Prophet once lived had been found, even though local newspapers remained on the whole quiet and did not give it much importance, in keeping with Wahhabi sentiments. However, some did show interest, as image 4 shows Saudis lining up in the background to catch a glimpse of the house.

Image 5 shows a bird’s-eye view of the house. Area A was the room of Sayyida Khadija where she has two mihrabs, or prayer niches. Area B shows the prayer room of the Prophet with its own mihrab. A more detailed image of the mihrab is seen in image 7 once excavation was complete. A small green-colored geometric design was found on the stone floor where the Prophet would have put his noble head in prayer. This was, of course, a later addition but shows the efforts taken by succeeding generations of Muslims to exalt the sanctity of the site. The Prophet’s children were born in this house; Fatima, for example, is said by traditional accounts to have been born in the room shown on image 6.

Image 8 shows the corridor of the house as seen from inside the room of Sayyida Khadija. The authorities, although aware of what they had unearthed, buried unceremoniously the whole house in soft clean sand.

Image 9 shows the site completely covered. And to add insult to injury, the Wahhabi authorities then went on to build public toilets above the site (see image 10 and inset). Circled in orange in image 10 is the old library built on the site of the Prophet’s birthplace and which is now threatened by a new development project (see next article by Shafiq Morton).