CHAPTER I
Al-Madînah
In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, whose help I solicit!
The Prophet in al-Madînah. Says Aḥmad ibn-Yaḥya ibn-Jâbir:—
I have been informed by certain men learned in tradition, biography, and the conquest of the lands, whose narratives I transmitted, abridged and pieced up together into one whole, that when the Messenger of Allah emigrated from Makkah to al-Madînah he was entertained as the guest of Kalthûm ibn-Hidm ibn-Amru’i-l-Ḳais ibn-al-Ḥarîth ibn-Zaid ibn-‘Ubaid ibn-Umaiyah ibn-Zaid ibn-Mâlik ibn-‘Auf ibn-‘Amr ibn-‘Auf ibn-Mâlik ibn-al-Aus[1] in Ḳubâ’.[2] So much, however, of his discourse was carried on in the home of Sa‘d ibn-Khaithamah ibn-al-Ḥârith ibn-Mâlik of [the tribe of] banu-as-Sâlim ibn-Amru’i-l-Ḳais ibn-Mâlik ibn-al-Aus that some thought he was the guest of the latter.[3]
Ḳubâ’ Mosque. Of the Companions of the Prophet, the early Emigrants together with those of the Anṣâr[4] who had joined him had already built a mosque at Ḳubâ’ to pray in, prayer at the time being directed towards Bait-al-Maḳdis [Jerusalem]. Now, when the Prophet arrived in
