Abū Ayyūb al-Ansārī removed the camel’s saddle and escorted him to his home. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ lodged in an upper room of Abū Ayyūb’s house and remained there until the mosque and the adjoining living quarters were completed on that threshing floor. He had offered to purchase the plot, but the clan of al-Najjār refused to sell; they donated it to Allah and themselves compensated the two orphans. He ﷺ ordered that the graves be exhumed and the ruins levelled. He built the two gateposts of stone, set the columns of palm-tree trunks, roofed it with palm fronds, and the Muslims laboured on it purely for Allah’s sake.

Around that time Abū Umāmah Asʿad ibn Zurārah al-Ansārī died of a throat infection. He was among the nobles of the Ansar and one of their righteous leaders. The Prophet ﷺ was deeply grieved by his death and had cauterised him. After him he did not appoint another leader over al-Najjār, saying, “I am your leader,” and they took pride in that.

Yathrib had not yet become a full-fledged city; it was a constellation of scattered villages. Banu Mālik ibn al-Najjār lived in one village—something like a town quarter—known as the dwelling of such-and-such a clan, as in the hadith: “The best quarters of the Ansar are the quarters of Banu al-Najjār.”

Similarly, Banu ʿAdiyy ibn al-Najjār had their own quarter, as did Banu Māzin ibn al-Najjār, Banu Sālim, Banu Sāʿidah, Banu al-Hārith ibn al-Khazraj, Banu ʿAmr ibn ʿAwf, Banu ʿAbd al-Ashhal, and every other branch of the Ansar. The Prophet ﷺ said, “There is goodness in every quarter of the Ansar.”

He ﷺ commanded that mosques be built in these quarters. The term dār, as noted, means “village”; the dār of Banu ʿAwf is Qubāʾ. The mosque of the Prophet ﷺ was built in the territory of Banu Mālik ibn al-Najjār, which was a small village.