query: country masjid al-qiblatayn
supports: The Makkah Region or Mecca Region ("") is the most populous region (mintaqah) in Saudi Arabia. It is located in western Saudi Arabia and has an extended coastline. It has an area of 153,128 km² and a population of 6,915,006 (2010 census). Its capital is Mecca (also transliterated as Makkah), the holiest city in Islam, and its largest city is Jeddah, which is also Saudi Arabia's main port city. The third major city is Taif. The Qibla ("direction"), also transliterated as Qiblah, Qibleh, Kiblah, Kble or Kibla, is the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during "salah" prayers. It is fixed as the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. Most mosques contain a wall niche, known as mihrab, that indicates the Qiblah. Most multifaith prayer rooms will also contain a Qibla, although usually less standardized in appearance than one would find within a mosque. The Judaean Mountains or Judaean Hills ("Harei Yehuda", "Jibal Al Khalil"), is a mountain range in Israel and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of . The Judean Mountains can be separated to a number of sub-regions, including the Mount Hebron ridge, the Jerusalem ridge and the Judean slopes. These mountains formed the heartland of the Kingdom of Judah, where the earliest Jewish settlements emerged. Jeddah (sometimes spelled "Jiddah" or "Jedda" "Jidda" ) is a city in the Hijaz Tihamah region on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, and the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. With a population currently at 4.2 million people, Jeddah is an important commercial hub in Saudi Arabia. Al-Masjid an-Nabaw (Prophet's Mosque) is a mosque established and originally built by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, situated in the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia. Al-Masjid an-Nabawi was the third mosque built in the history of Islam and is now one of the largest mosques in the world. It is the second-holiest site in Islam, after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. It is always open, regardless of date or time. Abraha (also spelled Abreha) (died after AD 553; r. 525at least 553), also known as 'Abraha al-Ashram (Arabic:  ), was an Ethiopian general then the viceroy of southern Arabia for the Kingdom of Aksum, and later declared himself an independent King of Himyar. Abraha ruled much of present-day Yemen and Hijaz from at least 531 -547 AD to 555 - 565 AD. Mecca or Makkah ("" ) is a city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia that is also capital of the Makkah Region. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during the "hajj" ("pilgrimage") period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of "Dhu al-Hijjah". Judaism (from , derived from Greek , originally from Hebrew , "Yehudah", "Judah"; in Hebrew: , "Yahadut", the distinctive characteristics of the Judean ethnos) encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic religion, with the Torah as its foundational text (part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible), and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world. Islam (' ;) is a religion articulated by the Quran, a text considered by its adherents to be the verbatim word of God ('), and, for the vast majority of adherents, the teachings and normative example (called the "sunnah", composed of accounts called "hadith") of Muhammad (5708 June 632 CE). It is the world's second-largest religion and the fastest-growing major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population, known as Muslims. Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion that upholds that God is one and incomparable and that the purpose of existence is to worship God. Muslims consider Muhammad to be the last prophet of God. Masjid al - Qiblatayn ( Arabic :    ) , or the Mosque of the Two Qiblas , is a mosque in Medina that is historically important for Muslims as the place where , after the Islamic prophet Muhammad received the command to change the direction of prayer ( qibla ) from Jerusalem to Mecca , the entire congregation led by a companion changed direction in prayer . Thus it uniquely contained two prayer niches ( mihrabs ) . Recently the mosque was renovated ; the old prayer niche facing Jerusalem was removed , and the one facing Mecca was left . The Qiblatayn Mosque is among the three earliest mosques in Islam 's history , along with Quba Mosque and Al - Masjid al - Nabawi . Medina (', "the radiant city"; or , ', "the city"), also transliterated as Madnah, is a city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia that is also the capital of the Al Madinah Region. The city contains al-Masjid an-Nabawi ("the Prophet's Mosque"), which is the burial place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and is the second-holiest city in Islam after Mecca. Muhammad (c. 570 CE  8 June 632 CE) is the central figure of Islam and widely regarded as its founder by non-Muslims. He is known as the "Holy Prophet" to Muslims, almost all of whom consider him to be the last prophet sent by God to mankind to restore Islam, believed by Muslims to be the unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. Muhammad united Arabia into a single Muslim polity and ensured that his teachings, practices, and the Quran, formed the basis of Islamic religious belief. The Kingdom of Judah ("Mamlekhet Yehudh") was an Iron Age kingdom of the Southern Levant. The Hebrew Bible depicts it as the successor to a United Monarchy, but historians are divided about the veracity of this account. In the 10th and early 9th centuries BCE the territory of Judah appears to have been sparsely populated, limited to small rural settlements, most of them unfortified. Jerusalem, the kingdom's capital, likely did not emerge as a significant administrative centre until the end of the 8th century, prior to this archaeological evidence suggests its population was too small to sustain a viable kingdom. In the 7th century its population increased greatly, prospering under Assyrian vassalage (despite Hezekiah's revolt against the Assyrian king Sennacherib), but in 605 the Assyrian Empire was defeated, and the ensuing competition between the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire for control of the Eastern Mediterranean led to the destruction of the kingdom in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582, the deportation of the elite of the community, and the incorporation of Judah into a province of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Dead Sea (lit. Salt Sea), is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, Earth's lowest elevation on land. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With 34.2% salinity (in 2011), it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean, and one of the world's saltiest bodies of water. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is long and wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and its main tributary is the Jordan River. Canaan (Northwest Semitic: ""; Phoenician: ; Biblical Hebrew/ Masoretic: ["; nan]") was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. In the Bible it corresponds to the Levant, in particular to the areas of the Southern Levant that provide the main setting of the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, i.e., the area of Israel, Philistia, Phoenicia, and other nations. The Hajj ("" "pilgrimage") is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the most holy city of the Muslims, and a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and can support their family during their absence. It is one of the five pillars of Islam, alongside Shahadah, Salat, Zakat, and Sawm. The Hajj is the largest annual gathering of people in the world. The state of being physically and financially capable of performing the Hajj is called "istita'ah", and a Muslim who fulfills this condition is called a "mustati". The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to God (Allah). The word Hajj means "to intend a journey", which connotes both the outward act of a journey and the inward act of intentions. Israel , officially known as the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's financial and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem is internationally unrecognized. Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, known as Christians. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah (the Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament. The Madinah Region ("Al-Madnah al-Munawarah") is a region of Saudi Arabia, located on the country's west side, along the Red Sea coast. It has an area of 151,990 km² and a population of 1,777,973 (2010 Census), subdivided into seven governorates ("muafaat"): The Kaaba (' , "The Cube"), also referred as Al Kaaba Al Musharrafah"' (The Holy Kaaba), is a building at the center of Islam's most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, al-Hejaz, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered the "House of Allah" and has a similar role to the Tabernacle and Holy of Holies in Judaism. Wherever they are in the world, Muslims are expected to face the Kaaba when performing "salat" (prayer). From any point in the world, the direction facing the Kaaba is called the "qibla". Jerusalem , is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem was named as ""Urusalima"" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Saudi Arabia, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab sovereign state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately , Saudi Arabia is geographically the fifth-largest state in Asia and second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert or barren landforms. The Hejaz, also Al-Hijaz ("", literally "the Barrier"), is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. The region is so called as it separates the land of the Najd in the east from the land of Tihamah in the west. It is also known as the "Western Province." It is bordered on the west by the Red Sea, on the north by Jordan, on the east by the Najd, and on the south by Asir. Its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better known for the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. As the site of Islam's holiest places, the Hejaz has significance in the Arab and Islamic historical and political landscape.
candidates: al madinah region arabia israel jerusalem jordan judah kuwait lebanon palestinian territories saudi arabia syria united arab emirates west bank world yemen
answer: saudi arabia