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Medina was called Yathrib before the Prophet Muhammad arrived in 622 CE, fleeing persecution in Mecca. His arrival transformed the city and gave Islam its calendar: the Hijri year begins at that migration, the Hijra. The Quba Mosque, built almost immediately upon Muhammad's arrival, is considered the first mosque in Islam's history and stands about three kilometers south of the city center, visited by Muslims who pray two units of prayer there in the same spirit as performing an Umrah. The Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the Prophet's Mosque at the city's heart, was originally Muhammad's own house and has been expanded over fourteen centuries from a modest courtyard structure into a complex that can accommodate over a million worshippers simultaneously during the Hajj season.

The Green Dome over the Prophet's Mosque marks the location of Muhammad's tomb beneath it, and it is one of the most recognizable architectural silhouettes in the Islamic world.

The dome has been green only since 1837; before that it was white, then blue, then rebuilt repeatedly over centuries of earthquake damage, fire, and the simple pace of rain. The Al-Baqi cemetery to the east of the mosque holds the graves of many of the Prophet's companions and family members, visited constantly by pilgrims offering prayers. The entire Haram zone around the mosque is accessible only to Muslims, a boundary enforced at checkpoints on the roads into the city.