Is this narration authentic: "When Omar reached the Qiblah wall, he summoned elders from the people of Medina, from among Quraysh, the Ansar, the Arabs, and the Mawali, and said: 'Come and witness the construction of your Qiblah, so that you do not say Omar changed our Qiblah.' He would not remove a stone except that he put a stone in its place," and can it be inferred from it that the mihrab existed before this addition?

A ruling on the authenticity of the story of the mihrab has not been found, but it is well-known in books of the history of Medina, and Ibn Taymiyyah transmitted it, acknowledging its validity. The issue concerns the mihrab that 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz established in the Prophet's Mosque when he was governor of Medina during the caliphate of al-Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik, and it was the first mihrab established in Islam. The story does not indicate the existence of the mihrab before 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz's addition, for those who narrated this addition from him explicitly stated that he was the first to establish it.