Al Masjid an Nabawi - Medina, Saudi Arabia

Prophet’s Mosque, courtyard of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, Arabian Peninsula, which was the model for later Islamic architecture. The home of Muhammad and his family was a simple structure, made of raw brick, that opened on an enclosed courtyard where people gathered to hear him. In 624 Muhammad decreed that prayer be directed toward Mecca. Against the wall facing Mecca, the qiblah wall, he built a roofed shelter supported by pillars made of palm trunks. Against the opposite wall of the courtyard stood a roofed gallery to shelter his companions, the antecedent of the roofed oratories in later mosques.