i have a question for the muslims here.
Well, I know thats Mecca is the most important city/place of the muslims, And I also know that Jerusalem is the 3rd. So my question is, what is the 2nd most important, and are there more than just 1, 2, 3?
Thank you. =D
[ts] took the three seconds it required to look up the correct spelling of Mecca for the poster. [/ts]
Sorry for the late reply, coz i was quite busy for the past few weeks. Even though there is an adequate answer from Technomagus, i think i might try to answer this as well.
The second most important place for Muslims is the city of Medina or also known as Madinah al munawwarah (Madinah City of Light). Before migration of Prophet Muhammad, the place was called Yathrib. It is located 210 miles north of Makkah.
Since prophet Muhammad received his first revealation from angel Gabriel (Jibril), he preach Islam to people of Mecca for 13 years. During this time, Prophets and his companions received a lot of torture from the people of Makkah. Most of Makkah people did not accept Islam since Islam call to only one God, thus disproves all other gods which are worshipped by people of Makkah at that time.
During the 13 years, prophet Muhammad also sent some of his companion to preach to neighboring areas in order to find a suitable place for Islam to flourish. One of the companion, Mus'ab bin Umaiyr was sent to Yathrib and he was able to revert 2 chief of Yathrib tribe to embrace islam.
Ok, let me tell you about the condition of Yathrib before the era of Islam. There are 3 main tribe in Yathrib at that time, tribe of Aus, tribe of Khazraj (both of them are arabs) and the Jews (they are the merchant). Tribe of Aus and Khazraj was always fight together, and there is a story where they fought for generations just because of a camel. When islam came, both tribe make peace with each other and become brothers.
ok back to our main story. when this to chief embrace Islam, they wanted prophet Muhammad came to Yathrib and became their new leader. Despite all the torture the muslim received in Makkah, prophet Muhammad refuse this proposal because there is no revelation from God to move to Madinah. Besides, he love Makkah very much because this is his hometown since he was born.
However, 1 year after that Allah sent a revelation to prophet Muhammad and his companion to migrate to Madinah. He migrated with his best companion, Abu Bakr; this journey itself is very interesting and you may want to search this in the internet. this is called Hijrah.
When prophet arrived in Madinah, he was celebrated by the people of Madinah. The first thing he did was built was a mosque. Then he make people of Makkah who migrate (the muhajirin) and the people of Madinah (the Ansar) brothers. this is because when they move the Madinah, the people of Makkah bring nearly nothing with them. So the support from the Ansar is very crucial to them.
The prophet also wrote the first constitution in human civillization in Madinah and it is called 'Madinah Constitution'. In this constitution, he outlined the role of Muslim and non muslim (mostly Jews) in protecting city of Madinah. However, several years later, the Jews in madinah plotted a conspiracy with 10 000 enemy of Islam from all over Middle east. after the war, all jews in madinah was evicted out of the land because they broke their vow in the 'Madinah Constitution'.
To put in a nutshell

, Madinah is the first place Islam flourish and gain its strength under the leadership of prophet Muhammad (10 years) and the 4 great companion (40 years). In just 100 year, islam was spread as far as to Spain (al andalus) to the west and to China to the east.
wallahua'lam (God knows best)