English Translation

Abd al-Samad told us, my father told me, Abu al-Tayyah Yazid ibn Humayd al-Dubay'i told us, who said: Anas ibn Malik told me, who said: When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, arrived, he stayed in the upper part of Madinah, among a clan called Banu Amr ibn Awf, and remained among them fourteen nights. Then he sent for a group of the notables of Banu al-Najjar, and they came girded with their swords. He said: It is as if I can see the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, on his riding-beast, with Abu Bakr riding behind him, and the notables of Banu al-Najjar around him, until he came to a stop at the courtyard of Abu Ayyub. He used to pray wherever the time of prayer found him, and he prayed in the pens of the sheep. Then he ordered the mosque to be built, and sent for the notables of Banu al-Najjar, and they came, and he said: O Banu al-Najjar, name a price for this walled garden of yours. They said: By Allah, we seek its price only from Allah. And it contained what I must tell you — it contained graves of polytheists, and it contained cultivated land, and it contained palm trees. So the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, ordered the graves of the polytheists to be dug up, the cultivated land to be leveled, and the palm trees to be cut down. They lined up the palm trunks toward the qiblah of the mosque, and made its door-posts of stone. And they began carrying those stones while chanting verses, and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was with them, saying: O Allah, there is no good but the good of the Hereafter, so grant victory to the Ansar and the Emigrants.