Seerah of Prophet Muhammed 30 - The Beginning of the Madani Era - Yasir Qadhi | April 2012

How many Muhajirun were in Madinah? We can estimate by looking at the number of participants of the Battle of Badr (which will take place later in 2 AH). There were exactly 82 male Muhajirun in the battle. So roughly there were around 300-400 Muhajirun in Madinah including the women and children. They didn't have quantity, but they had quality. Whenever Allah mentions the Muhajirun and the Ansar in the Qur'an, Allah always prefers the Muhajirun over the Ansar. The Muhajirun are always mentioned first, e.g. [Qur'an, 9:100].

 

Verses of Hijrah in the Qur'an: From Lenient to Strict

 

At this point it was fard ayn (compulsory/obligatory) upon every single Muslim to emigrate to Madinah, down to women and children. The Prophet PBUH was one of the very last to emigrate. There were only handful few that emigrated after him e.g. Ali ibn Abi Talib. Ali RA was entrusted to return back all the amanat (أمانات - trusted amounts/items) to people who gave it to the Prophet PBUH to protect. Otherwise the Prophet PBUH was the last to emigrate. Allah SWT revealed many verses, around 8 or 9, with every one of them getting stricter and stricter in command, to emigrate to Madinah. Allah first encouraged to emigrate, and then eventually threatened. E.g. in Surah al-Hajj, a surah revealed some say during the Hijrah, Allah says:

وَالَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ قُتِلُوا أَوْ مَاتُوا لَيَرْزُقَنَّهُمُ اللَّهُ رِزْقًا حَسَنًا ۚ وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَهُوَ خَيْرُ الرَّازِقِينَ

"And those who emigrated for the cause of Allah and then were killed or died - Allah will surely provide for them a good provision. And indeed, it is Allah who is the best of providers." [22:58] This is encouragement. There is no threat.

Fast forward in Surah al-Nisa which came down 2-3 years down the line, Allah says if you do not emigrate, you are a major sinner, and Allah will punish you. One such verse is:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ظَالِمِي أَنفُسِهِمْ قَالُوا فِيمَ كُنتُمْ ۖ قَالُوا كُنَّا مُسْتَضْعَفِينَ فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ قَالُوا أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ اللَّهِ وَاسِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا ۚ فَأُولَٰئِكَ مَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ ۖ وَسَاءَتْ مَصِيرًا

"Indeed, those whom the angels take [in death] while wronging themselves - [the angels] will say, 'In what [condition] were you?' They will say, 'We were oppressed in the land.' The angels will say, 'Was not the earth of Allah spacious [enough] for you to emigrate therein?' For those, their refuge is Hell - and evil it is as a destination." [4:97]

Note this is the sunnah of Allah; laws come down gradually - the first is an encouragement, then it becomes obligatory.

There's now two groups of Muslims in Makkah: (i) Those who were already Muslims when the Prophet PBUH emigrated but they remained behind and didn't emigrate [we don't have any particular names of these people]; and (ii) Those who convert in Makkah after the Prophet PBUH emigrated to Madinah [we have some of their names.] (Note: Dawah still continued in Makkah even after the Prophet PBUH emigrated to Madinah.) And Hijrah was made obligatory on both groups.

 

Ibn Abbas says, "A group of Muslims remained in Makkah. And in the Battle of Badr, because they didn't tell their Islam to others (out of fear of persecution), they were forced to participate on the wrong side." They didn't actually fight; they just kept in the back and did whatever they did; but some of them were killed by the Muslims (because of arrows etc.). So Allah revealed the above verse for those people, that the angels are basically asking, "What were you doing? Why are you on this side? How can you be fighting against the Muslims?" And they will say, "We were weak, we were forced to fight," but the angels will say, "You weren't forced to remain in Makkah. You could have gone to another place i.e. Madinah." Ibn Abbas says, "They were told by Allah that they have no excuse not to emigrate. This verse of Surah al-Nisa was sent to them." (Note: This shows us there's a secret correspondence going on between the Muslims of Makkah and the Prophet PBUH in Madinah - obviously the Prophet PBUH knows who are the Muslims, because they have informed him. So there's some messages [e.g. this Quran verses] being sent by the Prophet PBUH to these Muslims in Makkah.) So Ibn Abbas says, "Some of them tried to emigrate, but the pagans prevented them. [The word used is fatanuhum (فتنوهم) - which basically means they could hurt/persecute them; details are not given.] And so they stayed put again. They didn't emigrate." And so Allah revealed a verse in Surah al-Ankabut which says:

 

وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَقُولُ آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ فَإِذَا أُوذِيَ فِي اللَّهِ جَعَلَ فِتْنَةَ النَّاسِ كَعَذَابِ اللَّهِ وَلَئِن جَاءَ نَصْرٌ مِّن رَّبِّكَ لَيَقُولُنَّ إِنَّا كُنَّا مَعَكُمْ ۚ أَوَلَيْسَ اللَّهُ بِأَعْلَمَ بِمَا فِي صُدُورِ الْعَالَمِينَ

"There are those that say 'we are believers' - but when he is slightly irritated, he considers the fitna of the people to be as bad as the Punishment of Allah." [29:10] The word udhiya (أوذي) could mean 'persecuted' but also 'slightest irritation,' i.e. a little bit of pressure and he collapses. Then Allah says, "But when the help of Allah comes, they say, 'Indeed, we were with you.'" i.e. they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be Muslims, but they also want to remain in Makkah. Why do they want to be in Makkah? Because it's a world where property and wealth is around them. In those days they didn't have bank accounts they could transfer money to, so performing Hijrah meant they need to give up bulk of their wealth; emigration automatically meant poverty. That's the main point here. Allah is saying these small groups of people (probably 3-5 people) prefer living in Makkah for the sake of their wealth over living in Madinah as instructed. And then Allah says, "Is not Allah most knowing of what is within the breasts of all creatures?" [29:10] i.e. "Verily, Allah knows what is in the hearts of the believers."


We have a story of one sahaba who converted after the Prophet PBUH emigrated to Madinah. His name is Junda' ibn Damura (جندع بن ضمرة). Ibn Abbas tells us when Surah al-Nisa was sent, which says, "Those whom the angels come to and they are wronging themselves, the angels will ask them, 'What were you doing?' they will say, 'We were weak in the land.'" [paraphrased from Qur'an, 4:97], Allah did not accept these excuses from them, but He SWT then made an exception and excused those who were truly very weak, as in the case of this sahabi Junda'. In fact, Allah revealed this exception for Junda'.

Junda' ibn Damura was a sahabi that was so weak, elderly, blind, and he couldn't even walk. But when this verse came down, he said, "I am not one of those that have an excuse. I can emigrate to Madinah." He said, "I will not spend another night in Makkah," and so he commanded his servants to lift him up on his chair/couch and walk with him outside the city, and he had tawakkul he would find his way to Madinah. But Allah was merciful to him and he met his death right outside of Makkah. On his deathbed, he put his right hand on his left hand and said, "O Allah, this is my oath of allegiance to the Prophet PBUH upon what he wanted me to do," i.e. "I don't have the opportunity to do it in person, so whatever I can do, O Allah, accept from me." He died in Tan'im (basically near Masjid Ayesha in our times). When the news of his death reached Madinah, the sahaba basically said, "How unlucky. He almost made it" i.e. "He didn't really make it; but he tried," (look at how strict the sahaba were.) At this, Allah revealed the next verse in Surah al-Nisa, which said:

إِلَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةً وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًا

فَأُولَٰئِكَ عَسَى اللَّهُ أَن يَعْفُوَ عَنْهُمْ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَفُوًّا غَفُورًا

"Except for those who are genuinely weak of the men, women, and children, that they cannot find a way out, nor find a passage. For these people, perhaps they will be forgiven." [see Qur'an, 4:98-99] Note Allah SWT says 'asa' (عسى - perhaps); but Ibn Abbas comments that whenever Allah says 'asa,' it is certainty. Meaning Allah WILL forgive him. But still 'asa' is used to show the severity of those who don't have a genuine excuse for remaining in Makkah.

 

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Tangent: Can Muslims in Our Time Live in Muslim Minority Lands?

Now the whole issue of Hijrah and living in Dar al-Kufr and Dar al-Islam is very pertinent to our times today. It requires a long fiqh discussion but to summarize a few major points, the ruling of Hijrah from Makkah to Madinah was fard ayn for the Muslims of that time. After the Battle of Ahzab in the 5th year of the Hijrah, when it became clear that the Muslims are the more powerful, the ruling became laxer, and after the Conquest of Makkah, this ruling was abrogated. In Sahih Bukhari, the Prophet PBUH said, "There is no Hijrah after the Conquest of Makkah," meaning the Hijrah from Makkah to Madinah has been nullified. If anyone emigrates now, they won't get the reward promised by Allah for the emigration. Also it means the commandment to emigrate to Madinah is abrogated. This led to controversy in later fiqh among the four madhhabs. Is it allowed to live in a land that is not Islamic? In medieval Islam when there was a true Islamic land, there were two opinions on this issue.

1) Majority of Hanafi & Hanbali, and also standard Shafi'i, said it's permissible to live in a land that's not Dar al-Islam with the condition that he can live an Islamic life i.e. he can pray without being tortured, not being forced to do haram, has access to halal food, and live an Islamic life. This is based on a sahih hadith: Towards the end of the Prophet's PBUH life, a sahabi by the name of Fudayk (فديك) came to Madinah and said, "O Messenger of Allah, the people are saying that whoever does not do Hijrah will be destroyed." And in one version he said, "My people are upon shirk (شرك), so I have been told to make Hijrah." His land is not a land of Islam. The Prophet PBUH said, "O Fudayk, establish the salah, avoid the sins, and live with your people wherever you like." This hadith is reported in Ibn Hibban's Sahih. This hadith is as explicit as you can get. Fudayk's people were mushriks and people were telling him his Islam in not valid because he is living with people that are committing shirk. But clearly the Prophet PBUH is telling him that he can live with his people.

2) Maliki school were stricter here. Generally speaking they consider it to be impermissible for a Muslim to live in Dar al-Kufr if there is a Dar al-Islam. The reason that they were the strictest in this regard is because of what happened to Andalus, which was of course the land of Maliki schools and Maliki scholars. Andalusia really changed their perspective about Muslims living in Dar al-Kufr. Post Spanish Inquisition, what happened to the Muslims was very sad: They were forced to eat pork, forced to dress un-Islamically, etc. In the beginning, the conqueror Ferdinand and Isabella said the Muslims would be safe etc., but within the next 100 years, the Muslims were being persecuted. So the Andalusian scholars basically said, "This is what happens to those who remain in Dar al-Kufr." So the Maliki school became very strict on this issue.

Now can we import these 500 year old fatawa, when there was an actual Dar al-Islam and khilafa, into our times? In our days, in India alone there are 200 million Muslims - where do you expect them to go? If you do the math, you will get half a billion Muslims living in minority lands. Scholars in our times who say it's wajib to emigrate, with all due respect, they are not being realistic. Even in the time of the Prophet PBUH, Hijrah was only wajib because of the circumstances of Makkah and Madinah. Therefore we say: if any land becomes difficult to live and practice Islam in, then yes, Hijrah will become wajib. For every land, it's for the scholars of the land to judge. In America, UK, etc. there is complete freedom to practice Islam. So there is no need to emigrate.

 

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When Did the Prophet PBUH Emigrate?

When did the Prophet PBUH emigrate? Everybody loves to quote 12th of Rabi' al-Awwal for everything, e.g. for the birth date of the Prophet PBUH, for the first date the Quran came down (which obviously cannot be true, since it came down in Ramadan), but really we don't know the exact date. It was however most likely the first week of Rabi' al-Awwal, which corresponds to September 622 CE.

 

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Arrival to Madinah

 

Now, Madinah at the time wasn't a continuously populated city - every tribe were in their small areas, separated by desert and trees. The very first settlement, the furthermost settlement outside central Madinah, was Quba. (In our days, the city of Madinah is so big that it goes even beyond Quba.) The Prophet PBUH and Abu Bakr arrived in Quba and waited for Ali RA, Aisha RA, and Asma RA. They waited around a week for them - and when they arrived, they entered central Madinah with them. And it's said they entered central Madinah on a Friday. When the Ansar heard that the Prophet PBUH is entering, they all dressed up in their armor and over 500 went to Quba and accompanied the Prophet PBUH into Madinah.

(Tangent: There is a famous story that when the Prophet PBUH was entering, there were little girls singing, "طلع الـبدر عليـنا مـن ثنيـات الوداع (tala' al-badru 'alayna, min Thaniyat al-Wada' [The full moon rose over us, from Thaniyat al-Wada'])" - but this story for sure did not happen during the Hijrah. It's impossible because Thaniyat al-Wada' has nothing to do with the road from Madinah to Makkah (southward). In fact it's the road to the exact opposite side (northward). So even IF this incident occurred, it happened AFTER the Battle of Tabuk [9 AH]. Thaniyat al-Wada' is literally on the opposite side of Quba, so this story cannot take place during the Hijrah.)

We do know that the Ansar accompanied the Prophet PBUH into Madinah and then every sahaba wanted him to live with them. But it was decided to let the Prophet's PBUH camel walk freely and wherever it sits and whomsoever's house it is near to will be where the Prophet PBUH will reside. The Prophet PBUH said, "Let the camel be, because Allah has taken charge of it." When the camel sat down, the Prophet PBUH understood that is where Allah wants him to build his masjid. The camel sat on a small plantation that was used by the people to dry their dates. There were a few trees, it was an open ground by and large, and the villagers would dry their dates there. When the camel sat down, the Prophet PBUH asked, "Who amongst my family is the closest to the camel?" (Remember, the Prophet PBUH had distant cousins in Madinah - his great-grandmother is a Madani [Banu Najjar].) So Khalid ibn Zayd (خالد بن زيد), who was also known as Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (أبو أيوب الأنصاري), said, "O Messenger of Allah, I am from the Banu Najjar," and Abu Ayyub is roughly the Prophet's 6th cousin. Remember the Arabs memorized their lineage and genealogy. So because of this ancestry, the Prophet PBUH decided to live with him. (And this shows the rights of the relatives.)

 

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Staying at the House of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari

The Prophet PBUH lived at the house of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari for half a year while he waited for his own house and masjid to be built. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari was a relatively upper middle class man so he had a two-storey house that could easily allow the Prophet PBUH, Abu Bakr RA, and some of the sahaba to live in. And so Abu Ayyub and his wife moved upstairs; the Prophet PBUH and Abu Bakr RA lived downstairs.

Ibn Hisham mentions: In the middle of one night, Abu Ayyub was sleeping, and in turning over, he knocked over a jar of water. He became worried that the water would seep through the floor and drip onto the Prophet PBUH, so he woke his wife up and the two of them spent the entire night soaking up the water with their blankets. In another narration in Musnad Imam Ahmad, it is mentioned that one evening, Abu Ayyub and his wife suddenly realized, "We are walking above the head of the Prophet PBUH!" meaning their feet were above the head of the Prophet PBUH and they felt that was inappropriate. So they sat with their feet withdrawn in for the entire night.

The next morning, they go down to the Prophet PBUH and say, "O Messenger of Allah, please move up." The Prophet PBUH replied, "The bottom floor is easier for me," meaning, "You have more privacy. I have guests coming in here," etc. But Abu Ayyub said, "No, wallahi, O Messenger of Allah! We can never ever be on top of you, on a roof that your head is under." So, amazingly, they disobeyed him out of respect. So the Prophet PBUH and Abu Bakr RA for the bulk of the time were upstairs (only a few weeks they were downstairs).

 

It's also narrated that Abu Ayyub and his wife would always cook the food, send the full dish up to the Prophet PBUH, and then eat the leftovers. When the leftovers are sent down, Abu Ayyub would ask, "Where did the Prophet PBUH eat from?" and he would eat from where the Prophet PBUH ate from. One day, the food came down untouched, so Abu Ayyub panicked - he rushed upstairs and asked, "O Messenger of Allah, what have I done? Is there something wrong?" etc. The Prophet PBUH said, "No, but the food has garlic in it." Abu Ayyub asked, "Is garlic haram?" The Prophet PBUH said, "No. But I speak to those whom you do not speak to (i.e. the angels)." (Tangent: Most people in our times misunderstands that it is makruh [مكروه‎ - disliked/discouraged] to eat garlic; but look, the discouragement is meant only for uncooked garlic, because it has a bad after-smell. If you grind it, cook it, etc., that removes the odor, so there is no problem. And even if you ate raw garlic, it is still halal. But the Prophet PBUH said, "Whoever eats garlic should not come to the masjid," because the masjid is the place of angels. So if your breath is smelling really bad with garlic, then you should wait until the bad smell goes away. But otherwise garlic is no issue cooked - and in our times no one eats it raw anyway.)

 

So these are a few narrations about Abu Ayyub and his wife. And the Prophet PBUH stayed at his house for around 6 months.

 

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Building Masjid al-Nabawi

Back to the story of the camel: The camel sat down around a land that wasn't used for date palms, but used for drying the dates. The Prophet PBUH said, "Who does this land belong to?" And it's said it belonged to some orphans (Sahal and Suhayl / سهل وسهيل) that inherited it from their father. They said, "O Prophet PBUH, this is a gift to Allah from us." The Prophet PBUH said, "No, I will only take it with its due price." And he negotiated a price with them and paid them the agreed money. Further, he ordered the date trees be cut down, and two corpses which were buried in the land to be dug up and buried elsewhere. This shows us the permissibility of digging up graves for a legitimate reason. This also shows us a fiqhi point: One may cut down the trees of the Haram for legitimate needs e.g. construction work.

Note the very trees the Prophet PBUH cut down, he used them to make the front and back walls of the masjid; the other sides were built with clay bricks the sahaba constructed. Note the Prophet PBUH physically participated with the construction. He was a part of the line that was moving the bricks along etc. The sahaba told him to sit down, but the Prophet PBUH refused, and he built the masjid with them. And it's said the Prophet PBUH began saying lines of poetry/du'a at the time, "اللهم إنه لا خير إلا خير الآخرة * فانصر الأنصار والمهاجرة (O Allah, there is no good other than the good of the hereafter; so have mercy on the Ansar and the Muhajirun.)" - recorded in Sahih Bukhari. They were all saying it together just to get the time go by as they pass the bricks to one another, etc. And it's reported in al-Bayhaqi's Dala'il that it took almost two weeks to build the masjid. For its time it was very large. (Even for our time it is quite big - if you go to the actual Rawdah (روضة), you get an idea it's a large place. Allah knows best, but some modern estimates have said the masjid was around 100 x 130 ft. [more of a square than rectangle].)

 

Also we learn that there were at least three main doors:

1. South side: Bab al-Rahma (باب الرحمة - Door of Mercy)

2. West side: Bab Jibril (باب جبريل - Door of Gabriel)

3. East side: Bab al-Nisa' (باب النساء - Door of Women)

To this day there are pillars which say, "Bab al-Rahma," "Bab Jibril," and "Bab al-Nisa'" i.e. exactly where they used to be. One door was assigned for women because Umar RA told the Prophet PBUH men and women should not enter with the same door. In addition to this, there were private entrances to the masjid. The three were public entrances, but there were at least half a dozen private entrances directly from houses on the other side of the walls of the masjid.

We know Abu Bakr RA was one of those whose house was attached to the masjid. How do we know this? Because the Prophet PBUH, on his deathbed, said, "Every [private] door to the mosque should be closed/sealed from now on, except for the door of Abu Bakr RA." The Prophet's PBUH house (Aisha's house) was also connected to the masjid, separated only by a curtain.

 

The roof of the masjid was very low, and initially the Prophet PBUH only covered one area of the masjid with a roof (the northern portion) which at the time was the one facing the qibla (Jerusalem). Later when the qibla direction changed to Makkah (facing southward), the roofed area became the back of the masjid. And anyone who wanted to spend the day in the masjid would have to spend it under that shelter, so that area was called al-Suffa (الصفة).

The Prophet PBUH eventually built a roof above the whole masjid; but it was a roof that was only to protect them from the sun (not coldness, rain, etc.). We know this for sure, because in Sahih Bukhari, it's stated that on the 22nd of Ramadan, probably in the 8 year of the Hijrah, it rained, and the entire masjid got muddy, but the Prophet PBUH still did full sujud, and when he came up, there was the traces of mud on his forehead and nose. This shows that the roof was leaking - it wasn't a solid roof.

 

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Tangent: Expansions of Masjid al-Nabawi During Various Khilafa

 

In terms of expansion, Abu Bakr RA didn't touch the masjid during his reign. Umar RA was the first one to solidify it, put pillars of wood, and install a waterproof roof. He also expanded it by 10-15 rows. Then during Uthman's RA reign, he did a major expansion, by around 50%.

 

The next Umayyad khalifa a few generations down the line, al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (الوليد بن عبد الملك بن مروان), in approximately 96 AH, was the one who destroyed the entire old mosque and built a fully expensive, decorative, solid mosque. He was also the one to incorporate the grave of the Prophet PBUH and the house of Aisha RA inside the masjid. There's a common misconception/myth that, "The Prophet PBUH was buried in the masjid." But that is not the case. He was buried in his house, and his house was outside the masjid. (It was connected to the masjid, but was outside it.) And al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik was the one who incorporated the house of Aisha RA into the masjid. And he literally more than doubled the space of the masjid in all four directions. He is the only person in our entire history to do this. He added 15 rows including towards the direction of the qibla, so the original mimbar of the Prophet PBUH is actually not where the imam prays right now in Madinah - the mimbar is 15 rows back which is why the imam does khutbah there, then walks through the crowd to lead the salah. Al-Walid also destroyed all the houses of the sahaba (except for Aisha's, because that's where the Prophet PBUH is buried). Of course a number of tabi'un objected - Sa'id ibn Jubayr (سعيد بن جبير) said, "You are including the graves inside the masjid, but graves should not be in there!" Indeed Islamically speaking, graves and masjid should be separate. Others objected as well - they said, "You are destroying the heritage of the Prophet PBUH and the Mothers of the Believers! Let these buildings remain so people can see how simply the Prophet PBUH lived!" (Subhan'Allah, this was only 80-90 AH but even within a century luxury began. Even the later sahaba lived 10x better than the earlier sahaba.) But al-Walid had his reasons and so all houses were destroyed other than the house of Aisha RA.

 

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Two of the Blessings of Masjid al-Nabawi

Of course the blessings of the masjid are well known.

 

1) A prayer in Masjid al-Nabawi is equal to 1,000 prayers anywhere else.

 

2) The Prophet PBUH said, "What is between my house and my mimbar is one of the Gardens of Jannah (the Riyad al-Jannah / رياض الجنة)." Scholars have differing interpretations: Some say: that very land will be transferred to Jannah. Other more common interpretation say: worshiping Allah on that land will get you to Jannah. However, note that the blessings of the 1,000 prayers is for the entire masjid, and not just the Rawdah. The Rawdah al-Jannah is blessed for other reasons - dhikr, du'a, etc.

 

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Story of the Crying Stump

We know that in the beginning (in the early portion of the Madinan period), one of the stumps of a tree was used for the Prophet's PBUH mimbar. It was rather large that he would, in one hadith it's said, pray his salah on the stump to show the Ansar how to pray (and of course he stepped down during sajdahs). And for a few years, the Prophet PBUH would give the khutbah on this stump. Then in Sahih Muslim it's said one time the Prophet PBUH told one of the Ansari ladies who had a slave who was a carpenter to, "Tell your carpenter to make for me a [proper] mimbar." So the carpenter made a mimbar of three steps. This narration is found both in Bukhari and Muslim. During the first khutbah that he gave on those three steps, away from the tree stump, the sahaba said, "We began to hear a wailing/crying like that of a baby camel, and we found that the source of the noise was the stump. And the Prophet PBUH interrupted his khutbah, came down, and hugged the stump, and it sniffled and stopped crying." (This is a miracle - Allah SWT allowed the sahaba to hear the emotions of the tree.) Anas ibn Malik RA said, the Prophet PBUH said, "If I hadn't hugged it, it would have cried until the Day of Judgement." Obviously the tree is jealous that the Prophet PBUH has left him for another mimbar. So the Prophet PBUH gave the tree its wish by digging it under his new mimbar.

 

At this, al-Hasan al-Basri (الحسن البصري), after narrating the hadith to his students, said, "O believers, look, this was a tree that was crying because it wished to be with the Prophet PBUH. Is it not more befitting that those of us who are men should cry even more to be with the Prophet PBUH?"

Note here the Prophet PBUH did not even build his own house until the house of Allah was built. He built the masjid first, and only then attention was turned to his own house.

031 - Building of the first Mosques in Islam