Some believe this small, open-air mosque on the Red Sea is the first mosque in Africa.
This is Masjid as-Sahaba, the Mosque of the Companions, in Massawa, Eritrea.
Around 615, some of the first Companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, fled persecution in Mecca. They crossed the Red Sea to the kingdom of Aksum, where its king, the Negus, gave them protection. Among them were Uthman ibn Affan and the Prophet's daughter Ruqayyah, may Allah, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, be pleased with them both.
Local tradition says they landed near here and built a mosque in the early seventh century, though the exact landing place cannot be proven.
Nothing of that first building is known to survive. The structure standing today is much later.
Today it is an open, paved courtyard. A small stone structure holds a prayer niche and a pulpit of four steps, under a small dome.
It stands in Massawa, an old port of coral-stone houses built in Ottoman, Egyptian and Italian times.
Other mosques, in Ethiopia and in Egypt, are also said to be the first in Africa, so the question stays open. It is used for prayer only on occasion today.
Local Muslims generally believe that Massawa, particularly the small island known as Ras Medr off the city's coast, was the place where the Companions (Arabic: الصحابة, romanized: Ṣaḥābah) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad landed in Africa when they fled persecution by non-Muslims in the Hejazi city of Mecca, present-day Saudi Arabia. According to Richard J. Reid, the mosque may have been constructed in the 620s or 630s by members of Muhammad's family among this group.
The present-day site consists of an open-air prayer area (a musalla) with a free-standing stone structure that consists of a mihrab and an attached minbar that resembles a miniature minaret. This latter feature is very similar to one found in the nearby Mosque of Sheikh Hammali, built in the Ottoman period, which suggests that the structure also dates from this period or later.
The History, Architecture and later sections are adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mosque of the Companions”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article. Text has been shortened.
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