Day 275: Medinah Munawwarah

Jan 3 - For centuries, both Mecca and Medina barred the entry of non-Muslims. The reason, in the case of Mecca, comes from a few passages in the Qur’an. The first passage, in the surah At-Tawbah 9:28, explains that polytheists (Mushriks) are impure and cannot be allowed in. At the time (7th century CE), the term Mushriks applied to Hindus, and by default would apply to any animist or worshipper of multiple deities. In the surah At-Tawbah 9:30, the Qur’an also suggests that Christians are, in a sense, polytheists, because of the belief in a ‘son of God’, and also in their veneration of the Virgin Mary. By virtue of this, they are also banned from entry.

While the strict interpretation states that this ban applies only to the ‘Sacred Mosque’, by extension is has been used to bar entry to the entire cities of both Mecca and Medina. This has been the case from the beginnings of Islam until quite recently.

In 2021, the highway signage directing all non-Muslims away from the city of Medina were taken down (I show an example of that same signage for Mecca on Day 271). Though I could not find an official statement on why this was done, it seems obvious that it is part of Vision 2030 and the effort to make the KSA more approachable for non-Muslim tourists. My research on this matter online prior to planning out the KSA chapter of the trip concluded that there was sufficient ‘gray area’ to assume that if we were careful, we would be fine staying in Medina. After all, as detailed above, the Qur’an doesn’t actually mention Medina in the surah, only the Sacred Mosque of Mecca. So my little English copy of the Qur’an could, in theory, be used to get us out of trouble. Or not.

Armed with this somewhat ambiguous conclusion, I planned for two nights here. I chose a hotel far out from the center, on the Second Ring Road, just to be safe.

It is cloudy and wet this morning, but not raining, so I target a parking area near the city center and we drive in. As usual, the roads are a chaos of standing water and weird U-turns to get to where we want. At least the traffic isn’t that bad. We never do find the exact parking area I was looking for, but tucked away in a back alley near a jumble of dumpsters and small shops I find a spot. A woman in full niqab dress is immediately on us, mentioning something about Hajj and I suppose asking for money but it is really difficult to understand her. We head south toward the edge of the First Ring Road. This area is really grubby, full of tiny shops and people in traditional clothing from so many places I soon get lost in the color and complexity of it. A tour bus pulls up and disgorges a mass of people, including a number of men with dyed orange with henna. This is characteristic of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

So, the First Ring Road is sort of a barrier between the normal city of Medina and the core district that is completely dedicated to pilgrims. This road can be crossed in a few spots, but on the north side where we approach it you have to go downstairs and through a subterranean passage. Past this are found the better hotels for Hajj and Umrah use only, some shopping malls, and of course Al Masjid an Nabawi, the vast mosque complex. Al Masjid an Nabawi and its immediate environs is broken out as section called ‘haram’ or sanctuary (also sometimes interpreted as ‘prohibited’), and is essentially the final line of holiness in the city. But to be clear, I also saw monuments at the edge of the city when we arrived yesterday that said ‘entering the haram area’.

I had just watched a YouTube video of a guy entering this area so I knew what it looked like. There are no ‘religious police’ standing around or anything scary like that, so we go through the underground passage. It is lined with shops. Immediately emerging on the other side things are more upscale: it is obvious that pilgrims with more money can afford to stay here, while the poorer set have to do with food and accommodation back outside the ring, like where I parked the car.

There is a strong flow of people toward Al Masjid an Nabawi, so we go with it. I’m seeing so many people from different parts of the Muslim world. There are a few Gulf Arabs, but many more are pilgrims from Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. And a lot of traditional dress that I cannot readily identify, but suspect I’m seeing many from the ‘Stans’ (Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, etc), and north African countries. There is one large family in Nigerian dress, asking a storekeeper (in English) where they can change US dollars. There are many groups of women with like-colored scarves, I suppose to identify them as a single tour group. There is a sense of calm here, no one is being pushy or hurried, just this weird magnetic pull toward the mosque complex.

We stop at the entrance to the mosque itself. There is a sort of checkpoint there, though no one seems to be paying attention and loads of people are going in. Janet wants to just keep going, but I’ve read too much about this part and in the end decide I don’t want to. It has less to do with ‘getting caught’ and more with not behaving like a typical tourist. It is a dilemma I face every so often, when the thrill factor of doing something forbidden takes hold. But I wasn’t sure it was OK to get this far in the first place, and if it hadn’t been for the general peaceful ambiance, I may have backed off earlier. People are noticing us, but at no point do I feel like we are being singled out as oddballs. I can see no one, among the thousands of people in this area, who looks like a tourist, aimlessly wandering around like we are.

Walk back around the mosque complex to the main gate on the northern side. By the time we are here, the flow into the mosque we saw before has reversed, and as we walk by it slows to a trickle.

The rain starts up again, so we cross out of the First Ring Road to the ‘poor’ section. Here are many tiny restaurants, most serving South Asian food. We pick one and have a decent lunch of roast chicken and milk tea.

I wanted to go north of town, to Mount Uhud. But it is raining so heavily I don’t feel like we will accomplish much there. The streets are even worse now, flooding and blocked accesses are everywhere. The water trucks are out in force, pumping out the worse areas. The mountain range to the north looks beautiful, rising above groves of date palms. People are stopped all over the place, out with their cell phones, marveling at the temporary waterfalls cascading down the bare, rocky slopes. We pick our way back to the hotel and go on a grocery run.

In the fruit store, the owner takes my money and asks where we are from.

“America.” (I don’t like to use this term but no one understands when I say ‘The United States’).

“Oh!” he places one hand on his heart, a typical hand movement people make here when greeting others, “welcome, thank you, praise be to Allah.”