Al-Ahsa
Banu Abd al-Qays, a tribe of eastern Arabia, were among the first communities outside the Hijaz to accept Islam, sending a delegation to Nabi Muhammad ﷺ in…
Banu Abd al-Qays, a tribe of eastern Arabia, were among the first communities outside the Hijaz to accept Islam, sending a delegation to Nabi Muhammad ﷺ in Madinah. On their return they built a mosque at Jawatha, their settlement in the oasis of al-Ahsa, and it became the second place in Islam where the Friday prayer was held, after the Prophet's ﷺ mosque in Madinah. Parts of the old mosque survive and have been restored in recent years, in the village of al-Kilabiyah north-east of al-Hofuf. Archaeologists have found several layers of earlier building beneath it, and the site is one of the most important early Islamic monuments in eastern Arabia.