yathrib or athrib (أثرب) used to be the name of madinah munawwarah, until it was changed by RasulAllah ﷺ. shaykh nurudddin ali samhudi (d.911 AH) in his wafa al-wafa bi akhbari dar al-mustafa, lists and explains 94 names of madinah tayyibah, among which are the ancient names such as yathrib. athrib is the first name in the list and discussing which he says: --- ibn zabalah* and ibn shabbah** have reported that the Prophet ﷺ forbade calling madinah as "yathrib" and in tarikh of imam bukhari is the hadith: "whoever says (the word) yathrib once, should say 'madinah' ten times." imam aHmad and abu ya'ala have reported the hadith: "whoever calls madinah as 'yathrib' should do seek forgiveness of Allah (do istighfar). because it is unblemished and immaculate (Tabah)." all the narrators of this hadith are trustworthy (thiqah); and in another report: "..then he should say istighfar three times." it is therefore that yisa ibn dinar said: "one who calls madinah as yathrib, has a sin written upon him" scholars have disliked calling madinah as yathrib. concerning the same name mentioned in the qur'an referring to madinah: here, the qur'an quotes the speech of the hypocrites. the reason why it is disliked is because it is either a derived from the root tharab (ثرب) which means corruption or mischief (fasad); or tathrib, and it is disliked, because it means: 'reproaching for one's sins', or because it is the name of a kafir. one may contend that it is not disliked, because in the two SaHiH books (muslim and bukhari) hadith are mentioned in the words of RasulAllah ﷺ that he said: "...i supposed [wahal] it to be yamamah or hajar, but then it was the city of yathrib" [bukhari #7035] and in hadith of muslim: "i turned towards a land of date palms, and i couldn't see any except yathrib" and thus mentioned in other narrations as well. the answer to this objection is that these are hadith before the Prophet's ﷺ [migration to madinah or his changing the name to taybah]. ---- the hadith of SaHiHayn is about hijrah, the migration. the Prophet ﷺ says: "i saw in my dream that i migrated from makkah to a place full of palm trees; i (first) supposed it to be either yamamah or hajar, but then it was (clear) that it was the city of yathrib" [also in the opening of the chapter 45 on hijrah, just prior to hadith #3897] wahal: there are various interpretations, one is that "my first thought went to yamamah or hajar, but then i realised it was madinah." another is that first he saw in his ﷺ dream which he supposed to be yamamah or hajar, but then it was followed by waHy giving him the choice and he ﷺ chose madinah. hajar: it cannot be claimed with certainty, but some have said it was a place near madinah which nobody knows (aH: after the first century), some said it is in baHrayn, some said it is in yemen; some others said it was a locality in madinah itself, which is implausible because eventually, RasulAllah ﷺ migrated to madinah. Allah ta'ala knows best. [summarised from fat'H al-bari] * muhammad ibn Hasan ibn zabalah, weak narrator accused of forgery, tahdhib al-tahdhib, 9/115. apparently, he is the author of the first known book on the history of madinah, which is now lost. **umar ibn shabbah thiqah narrator, tahdhib al-tahdhib 7/460.
