Book Review: The House of Khadijah bint Khuwaylid in Makkah al-Mukarramah—Allah be pleased with her

A Historical Study of Its Location, Building and Architecture

Abstract

 Ahmed Zaki Yamani. The House of Khadījah bint Khuwaylid in Makkah al-Mukarramah—Allah be pleased with her—A Historical Study of Its Location, Building and Architecture. Translated by Ayman Abdel Haleem. London: Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2014. pp. 176. ISBN 1-905122-58-6.

The House of Khadījah bint Khuwaylid in Makkah al-Mukarramah—Allah be pleased with her documents with meticulous care a unique event in the modern history of Islamic archaeology. In the winter of 1410/1989, during the first phase of the expansion of the outer courtyard of the Masjid al-Ḥarām, construction workers uncovered the remains of ancient buildings on the south-eastern side of the masʿā—the space between the two hillocks, al-Ṣafāʾ and al-Marwah, described in the Qurʾān as being among the shaʿāʾir Allāh (“symbols of Allah”)—and near the former al-Muddaʿā market. The location, known as Barḥat al-Qubbān, lay close to the former site of the school for ḥuffāẓ built by Shaykh ʿAbbās Qaṭṭān, which Makkan historical tradition had long identified as standing over the house of the Mother of the Believers, Sayyida Khadījah bint Khuwaylid, the first wife of the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace.