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Are non-Muslims allowed to visit the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, assuming you are allowed into Saudi Arabia in the first place?

Wikivoyage mentions that non-Muslims aren't allowed into central Medina:

WARNING: Non-Muslims are strictly prohibited from entering Central Medina. The minimum penalty is deportation from the country. Documentation will be checked upon entry and anyone not showing proof of being Muslim will be denied entry. However, many parts of the city, notably the outskirts and the Medina Airport, are open to all.

but it only explicitly talks about which hotels are within central Medina, as opposed to the mosque.

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Non-muslims are allowed to enter Saudi Arabia freely.

However, they are prohibited from entering two areas:

  1. The entire city of Makkah.

  2. The city of Medina, except for the outskirts (most notably, the area around the airport and its surroundings). They are strictly prohibited near the center of the city, near the areas of the Prophet's Mosque. There is a large cluster of hotels around this area as well - to deal with the steady stream of visitors to the Mosque.

There are various checkpoints around these areas and documents are checked at random.

Now, there is a possibility that you could sneak into the Prophet's Mosque as a non-muslim (higher chance than trying to get to the Haram in Makkah), however I would not risk it - the chances of being caught are high (there is a lot of security presence in these areas, including undercover police).

Punishment at minimum is deportation - but that's before you are a guest of the government for an indeterminate amount of time, and have to be presented before a judge.

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    @BurhanKhalid What did the punishment use to be 18 years ago?
    – Crazydre
    Oct 4, 2016 at 10:28
  • How do they "check" if you are Muslim? Couldn't someone lie?
    – user541686
    Nov 22, 2017 at 4:32
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    @Mehrdad Easy enough: all visitors to Medina need to have ID showing their religion as Muslim or a Muslim name, or a certificate of conversion from a mosque. And forgeries aren't going to fly if you're not circumcised or can't recite the Shahada.
    – lambshaanxy
    Nov 22, 2017 at 5:48
  • I don't have enough reputation to post this as a separate answer, so I'll write this as a comment: I think this answer is no longer correct when it comes to Medina. At least when I was there in January 2022, tourists could walk around the city center and all the way up to the fence surrounding the mosque without any issues. I did not see any checkpoints. The only thing that was prohibited was passing through the gate in that fence, i.e. entering the compound of the mosque.
    – balu
    Mar 2 at 21:43
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Non Muslims are not allowed in prophets mosque in Medina also in Al Masjid Al Haram in Mecca. Non Muslim not allowed in all Mecca city but In Medina some prohibited area are not allowed non Muslims people, another area can access which also Saudi Arabia Government allowed.

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