page_title: Medina
section_title: Second Ottoman period
hierarchical_section_title: Medina / History / Ottoman rule / Second Ottoman period
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hejaz (or Hedjaz) railway was a narrow-gauge railway that ran from Damascus to Medina, through the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. In Jordan it is now primarily used for phosphate transit. Русский: Хиджазская железная дорога. Вади Рам — пустыня в Иордании. Каменистая пустыня, песчаник и гранит, отдельные сухие деревья и кустарники, горы, каньоны, провалы и возвышенности.
context_page_description: Medina, officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah, commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah, is one of the three holiest cities in Islam and the capital of the Medina Region of Saudi Arabia. The 2020 estimated population of the city is 1,488,782, making it the fourth-most populous city in the country. Located at the core of the Madinah Province in the western reaches of the country, the city is distributed over 589 square kilometers, 293 km². of which constitutes the city's urban area, while the rest is occupied by the Hejaz mountain range, empty valleys, agricultural spaces, older dormant volcanoes and the Nafud desert.
  The city is considered to be the second-holiest of three cities in Islamic tradition, the other two being Mecca and Jerusalem. The Masjid al-Nabawi built by Muhammad in 622 CE, is of exceptional importance in Islam and is the site of burial of the last Islamic prophet. Muslims visit his rawdhah in what is known as Ziyarat at least once in their lifetime, although this is not obligatory. The original name of the city before the advent of Islam was Yathrib and it is referred to by the same name in the Qur'an in Chapter 33, al-Ahzab.
context_section_description: Four years in 1844 CE (1260 AH), after Muhammad Ali Pasha's departure, Davud Pasha was given the position of governor of Egypt under the Ottoman sultan. Davud was responsible for renovating the Prophet's mosque on Sultan Abdulmejid I's orders. When Abdul Hamid II assumed power, he made Medina stand out of the desert with a number of modern marvels, including a radio communication station, an power plant for the Prophet's Mosque and its immediate vicinity, a telegraph line between Medina and Istanbul, and the Hejaz railway which ran from Damascus to Medina with a planned extension to Mecca. Within one decade, the population of the city multiplied by leaps and bounds and reached 80,000. Around this time, Medina started falling prey to a new threat, the Hashemite Sharifate of Mecca in the south. Medina witnessed the longest siege in its history during and after World War I.
caption: The Hejaz railway track near Wadi Rum in Jordan. Jordan uses the railway today for transporting phosphate.
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