Determination of the Scope of Yathrib/al-Medina in the period of the Prophet; A Critical Approach to Oriental Studies

Yathrib was one of the main settlements in the Hijaz region in early Islam, and it was of great importance because the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Yathrib and founded his state there and many Quranic verses has received in its environment. The question is to what extent were orientalists able to approach the historical geographical reality of the Yathrib and how we could evaluate their views on the border of Yathrib? To answer this question, the orientalist views are presented first, then the results of the other studies are compared with them, in order to identify the errors found in the Oriental studies. On the other hand, due to the siege of Yathrib in the center of lava field area, the GIS will be used to measure the area of the settlement. The results show that, despite numerous studies on Yathrib, orientalists have not reached agreement on its scope. The orientalists did not follow the model of the city state suggested by Wellhausen. The model of the town settlement, presented by Frants Buhl at the beginning of the 20st century and Harry Munt in the end, was not justified enough. Watt remained in doubt between the oasis and the town, and Lacker spoke of the pattern of cluster towns. Ultimately, Marco Schöller did not provide the Yathrib settlement model, but he was the first to measure the Yatrabi area:"a few square miles", but it was not helpful. On the other hand, the reconstructed maps also shows pattern of town considering its area as a limited region reduced to 25 hectares. While studies on the settlements of the Aws and Khazraj sub-trebes show that the area they were live was more than 4000 hectares.