In discussions of early Muslims’ veneration of “relics” of the Prophet Muhammad, emphasis has often been placed upon (1) physical objects associated with the Prophet, such as strands of his hair, his staff, and his mantle; and (2) textual “relics” of the Prophet, i.e. the hadith reports, collected and shared orally among early Muslims. However, with the notable exception of the area of the Prophet’s tomb and minbar in the Medina Mosque, considerably less scholarly attention has focused upon early Muslims’ veneration of places associated with the Prophet’s life. Yet as recent work by Miklos Muranyi and Harry Munt has argued, the memorialization of “places where the Prophet prayed” (mawadi' allati salla fihi al-nabi) appears to have begun quite early, being institutionalized textually in al-Bukhari’s Sahih and other early texts, and even architecturally by Umayyad and 'Abbasid authorities. Early reports record Muslims visiting and seeking to pray at these locations, and non-iconographically commemorating the Prophet’s presence in them through the scenting of several such spaces with perfume. Not only objects or texts, but places thus became sacred “relics” for early Muslims through their association with the Prophet Muhammad. This paper will examine the ritualization of some of these “sites of memory” (to borrow Pierre Nora's phrase) associated with the life of the Prophet Muhammad in and around the cities of Mecca and Medina. Utilizing early hadith and akhbar texts, I will outline how these sanctified sites were ritually and materially venerated—-and debated-—in the seventh, eighth, and early ninth centuries. This topic not only addresses the question of which venerational postures (and attitudes) towards these places were considered un/acceptable by early Muslims, but also carries implications for understanding early Muslims’ varying conceptions of the meaning/significance of ritual practice in these sacred cities. Similar to Marion Holmes Katz's discussion of the “competing construals of the significance” of hajj rites such as the kissing of the Black Stone, we will see that there were differing interpretations of the significances of these spaces’ associations with the Prophet Muhammad.