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She moved back and forth through the crowd, then at last stopped ncar
some land belongmg to t\I;O orphans. As menooned previousl}'. the
Pro phet paid the price due to them. On this spot, building o f his dwelling
place and a mosque immediately began.
In building these three mosques, the Prophet was pointing to the
importance and centrality o f the mosque in the relation to God, to space,
and to human comlllunities. The b uild ing o f a /Has;id (the phce where one
prostrates oneself) institutes a specific sacralized space within the pcimarr
ann e<;<;enrial sarr:tliry o f fhe IlnJVerse as a who le; as t he Prophe t s aid,
"The whole earth is a magid, a mosquc."S Once built, the mosque
becom es the axial space of the Muslim spiritual community in which it I S
situated, but it also expresses the reality of settlement, of acceptance of
th e hosting space, which is then turned into a space for oneself, a. home.
Indeed, the p resence of the mosque reveals that a place has been 3 dopt-
ed as home, and that the believing conscience is "at home" because the
place of worship, a remmder of meaning, has been set up. The Prophet's
repeated act is in itSdf a teaching: whatever the exile or jo urney, whatev-
er the movement o r departure, one must ne,'er lose sight of meaning and
direction. Mosques tell of meamng, direction, and settlement. Yathrib had
become Medina,
Exile: Menning nnd Teaching s
The Prophet and all his Companions had had to leave r-.lecca because o f
persecutions and adversity from their own brothers ancl sisters within
their respective clans. The situation had become unbearable: women and
men had died, others had been tortured, and the Qura)'s h had finally
decided to set upon Muhammad himself and get rid of hIm. The emigra-
tion is fir St of all the objective reality of b elieving women and men who
were not frec to practice theIr faith and who decided to make a clean
break for the sake o f their beliefs. Becau se "God's earth is spacious," as
rht" Qllrnn puts it. thl:"y decitlt"tI to leave Iheir h ..... meland, to break wuh
their universe and habits, and to experience exile, aU fo r the sake o f their
faith.6 Revelation was to praise the courage and deternunation of those
believers who, by raking sueh a d ifficult and humanly costly step. ex-
pressed theIr trUSt in God: