Sufaynah

Sufaynah is an old village in the uplands southeast of Medina, with wells, palm gardens and mud-built houses. A branch of the Iraqi pilgrimage road passed through it, and caravans stopped to replenish their supplies. The village is remembered as the home of the poet al-Khansa, who named Sufaynah in elegies for her brothers Sakhr and Mu'awiya. Fortified buildings and a wall protected the older settlement beside the road.