which money he secured from abu-Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddiḳ. By the Prophet's orders, bricks were prepared and used for building the mosque. Its foundations were laid with stones; its roof was covered with palm branches; and its columns were made of trunks of trees.[1] When abu-Bakr became caliph he introduced no changes in the mosque. When ʿUmar was made caliph he enlarged it and asked al-ʿAbbâs ibn-ʿAbd-al-Muṭṭalib to sell his house that he might add it to the mosque. Al-ʿAbbâs offered the house as a gift to Allah and the Moslems; and ʿUmar added it to the mosque.
In his caliphate, ʿUthmân ibn-ʿAffân reconstructed the mosque with stone and gypsum, making its columns of stone, and its roof of teak-wood. ʿUthmân also added to the mosque and carried to it small pebbles from al-ʿAḳîk.[2] The first caliph to plant in it maḳṣûrah[3] was Marwân ibn-al-Ḥakam ibn-abi-l-ʿÂṣi ibn-Umaiyah who made his maḳṣûrah of carved stones. No change was thereafter introduced in the mosque until al-Walîd ibn-ʿAbd-al-Malik ibn-Marwân succeeded his father. This al-Walîd wrote to his ʿâmil [lieutenant, governor] in al-Madînah, ʿUmar ibn-ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz, ordering him to destroy the mosque and reconstruct it. Meanwhile, he forwarded to him money, mosaic, marble, and eighty Greek and Coptic artisans from Syria and Egypt. Accordingly, the ʿâmil rebuilt it and added to it, entrusting the supervision of its work and the expenditure for it to Ṣâliḥ ibn-Kaisân, a freedman of Suʿda, a freedmaid of the family of Muʿaiḳîb ibn-abi-Fâṭimah ad-Dausi. This took place in the year 87, some say 88.[4] After this, no caliph
