Makkah and Madinah Channel

The Holy City of Makkah, which lies inland 73 kilometers east of Jiddah, is the place where the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was born - the place where God's message was first revealed to him and the city to which he returned after the migration to Madinah in 622 AD.

Madinah, which lies 447 kilometers north of the Holy City of Makkah, is the second holiest city in Islam. It was to Madinah that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his followers, faced by the hostility and persecution of the Makkhan merchants, departed in 622 AD - and, when the citizens of Madinah asked the Prophet to live amongst them and to arbitrate in their affairs (an invitation taken to mean their rejection of polytheism and submission to the will of the one God, Allah), it was in Madinah that the Islamic era began.