Rare photo archive of Prophet’s Mosque, peace be upon him, to go on auction

The auction house Sotheby’s has put a collection of 52 original architectural drawings and 216 photographs of the first expansion of the Prophet’s Mosque, peace be upon him, in the holy city of Medina in 1951.

The documents, which belong to the family of Egyptian architect, who was commissioned to design the expansion of the mosque, had been kept for 60 years.

However, the family recently decided to auction the documents as they felt it was a collection that should be in a university or in a museum and available for a lot more people to enjoy. 

Specialist in books and manuscripts Richard Fattorini said that some of the plans actually detail life-size drawings depicting how the marbles, windows, arches and decorations of the columns and the pillars are going to be decorated and carved.