Islam's three holiest sites, and the Damascus mosque awaiting Jesus's return
Sunni and Shia Muslims agree on the top three: Mecca's Masjid al-Haram first, then Medina's Prophet's Mosque, then the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem. Beyond that the lists diverge, and Shia shrine cities such as Karbala and Mashhad draw the largest crowds of pilgrims anywhere in the world each year.
Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad and of Islam, is closed to non-Muslims. At its heart stands the Kaaba, which pilgrims circle seven times. Tradition holds that Abraham built it and that an angel brought him the Black Stone, which had fallen from heaven onto Abu Qubays Hill and is thought to be the only surviving piece of his structure. In 605 CE, before his prophethood, Muhammad settled a quarrel among Quraysh clans during flood repairs by having the stone lifted on a cloth by all of them, then setting it in place himself. Every Muslim able to do so must make the hajj once in a lifetime.
The Prophet's Mosque began on land owned by two orphans, Sahl and Suhayl, who offered it free; Muhammad insisted on paying, and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari covered the price. Once an open-air space serving as court, school and community centre, it now holds Muhammad's tomb beneath the Green Dome, alongside the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar. In 1909, during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, it was fitted with electric lights, a first for the Arabian Peninsula. Nearby stand the Quba Mosque, counted as the first mosque ever built, and Masjid al-Qiblatayn, where the direction of prayer switched from Jerusalem to Mecca about 16–17 months after the migration.
The Jerusalem compound, which contains the Dome of the Rock and the Qibli Mosque, is tied to the night journey of 610 CE, when tradition says the angels Gabriel and Michael carried Muhammad from Mecca to lead the prophets in prayer before he rose to heaven from the Foundation Stone.
Other sites carry special weight. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is believed to hold the head of John the Baptist and one of four original copies of the Quran, and Muslims expect Jesus to descend at its Minaret of Isa during dawn prayer at the end of time. On Jabal al-Nour outside Mecca, around five thousand visitors a day climb to the Cave of Hira during the hajj season, the spot where Muhammad received the first verses of the Quran.
Source: Holiest sites in Islam
