Mount Hira, which is also known as the Mountain of Light or the Mountain of Islam, is where Prophet Mohammad started to have his first revelations, which led to the creation of Islam. That is why, a hike to the cave where the Prophet used to meditate became a very popular addition to most pilgrims’ itineraries during their visit to Mecca. In this week’s article, we will take a quick look into what one can expect to find both at the bottom and atop Mount Hira.
Mount Hira is just a few minutes away from the center of Mecca by taxi. Given the popularity of this hike, Saudi authorities built some facilities for pilgrims to rest and recover both before making their way up to the mountain, and once they are back. This area is known as the Hira Cultural District. We chose to explore this district after our hike, as we really wanted to catch the sunset near the summit, if possible.
Once you walk through the pedestrian street that divides this district in two, you will come across a clearing where, in our case, some folks were riding camels for a quick photoshoot. Behind them, we could see the start of the trail heading to the top of the mountain.
We were recommended to visit Mount Hira about an hour before sunset, so that we could catch it somewhere high up the mountain. However, most people seemed to have had a different idea since this trek became particularly busy only after the sun was set, following the evening prayer.
In my humble opinion, this is yet another reason to do this hike an hour before sunset, as at that time, the way up the mountain (or down for that matter) is just easier to navigate. Even then, you will still have to wait a bit in some narrower stairs for others to pass, so I for one was glad to be here early on.
Once you start your hike properly, you will first be met with this view. Other than the visitor center, you can already see the top of the mountain from here, and quite frankly, it did not look intimidating in the slightest. Those of you who already hiked some taller mountains will probably have no issue with this one. Of course, the desert sun complicates things, but that too can be overcome somewhat by arriving just before sunset, since then the sun remains on the side of the mountain that you cannot hike up anyways.
Once you exit the visitor center you will see your target even more up close. Just for your information, this visitor center is certainly not the last place on this trek where you can buy some drinks and snacks. It may be the last one to do so if all you have is a credit card, but if you have some cash on you, you can find numerous vendors on your way up the mountain who often sell a humble selection of drinks, biscuits, and chips.
As I have been told, the actual hiking experience on Mount Hira changed drastically in the recent years. Before the Hira Cultural District was built, or even the visitor center was raised, one did not have this much infrastructure in the area, including some of the stairs that you can see on this photograph. Each to their own, but I for one really appreciated the stairs, as I am not big fan of walking down any slopes. That is why I tried to take the older dirt road up for the most part but used the stairs on the way back.
Now, while I mention the dirt road and the stairs, there is technically a third path for the courageous. While I am not sure if this is legal or not, I did see some people simply scaling the mountain from any one particular angle that they chose, ignoring the actual route. You cannot see any one of them in this photograph, because for some reason, they only started to do so after the sun was set. I could see a good number of folks using the flashlights from their phone to slowly hike up the mountain on my way back, which did look cool, but risky for those of us who would rather be safe than sorry.
After a brief hike, we were finally greeted with a view of Mecca, the parts of it that we could not see properly just yet no less. We stayed near the Clock Tower and could only become familiar with that area during our trip, but frankly, Mecca is a rather extensive city. It grew around tenfold in just a few short decades, and it does not show any signs of slowing down in that regard. The next time I am back in town, I would like to explore what the other neighbourhoods of Mecca has to offer, to see how the actual locals, and not pilgrims, live here.
Once I was halfway up the mountain, I decided to take a quick look back at the trek, to see if it was getting any busier. It was not. I could see that the Hira Cultural District started to light up ever so slightly, but that was it. Nevertheless, I took this shot to demonstrate just how hilly Mecca truly is, since while I wrote so in a previous article, it is often easier to show than tell.
These hills separate certain parts of Mecca from one another, which are only connected to each other thanks to a patchwork of bridges and tunnels. However, they do not seem to hinder the movement of some pedestrians in the slightest, as here we can see a lone local casually walking down the mountain, presumably back to his home down the hill.
After around half an hour or so of walking up the hill and leaving my mother and uncle behind so that they could hike at their own leisure, I finally managed to get to the final obstacle that stood between me and the summit. This is the part that I had in mind when I mentioned “narrow stairs.” As you can see, this part is a bit busier than the rest of the route, and that is because you often have to wait on the side whenever someone tries to go down the mountain. You also have to wait whenever someone wants to rest a bit on the stairs. It is just how narrow stairs work, there is nothing to be surprised here.
With that being said, I do recommend starting this hike slightly earlier than we did, perhaps ninety minutes or so before sunset instead of an hour. These short stops were unaccounted for in my initial calculations, and they did mean that by the time I was at the summit, the sun already set down. That is why, I decided to just take in the view near the summit, and enjoy the sunset in this particular spot instead, where I could see some other neighbourhoods of Mecca.
Eventually, I made it all the way up to the top, where the view was even better, though my phone’s camera does not do it justice, as the lightning situation was particularly challenging for its puny lenses, so you do have to just take my word for it. Of course, this whole area was more crowded than I could even imagine, and as such I failed to actually see the very cave in which Prophet Mohammad used to meditate in. It is just beneath this small area, but to me it did not seem feasible to go through all those folks without disturbing their prayers or toppling some older pilgrims.
In a futile attempt, I tried to take a zoomed in photograph of the Mecca Clock Tower, but I quickly realized that my phone’s zoom does have its limits, especially when its sensors receive barely any lightning. It was worth a shot, and despite its low quality, it did mean that I finally had a photograph that captured the entire structure of Mecca Clock Tower, and not just bits and pieces of it.
After spending a few minutes appreciating this view, I decided to slowly descend from the mountain, of course only after seeing that my mother and uncle did manage to make it to the summit safe and sound. The way back was not easy, especially the part with the narrow stairs proved more difficult to go down than to go up, with the increased number of hikers and lack of natural lightning. Nevertheless, we made our ways down to the bottom of the mountain in no time.
We were all quite famished at this point, and thus we wanted to check out the available eateries within the Hira Cultural District. This hunt for food proved fruitless when we realized that in between my pescetarianism limiting our options and a newly arrived flood of pilgrims already filling what little seating some restaurants had to offer, it would not be easy to find a sit-down restaurant to enjoy altogether.
Plenty of tour companies include Mount Hira on their itineraries, so when I say pilgrims started to flood this area, I meant it. They would emerge from a never ending stream of buses and often moved in large, indivisible, groups. Many visited the local museums and exhibitions, which all revolve around the revelation and the Quran, whereas some others grabbed a quick bite before starting their hike.
At this point, I must admit that I could have planned this hike better. It would have been smarter to arrive here two hours before sunset, have a quick early dinner at Hira Cultural District when it was sparsely populated, and then enjoy the hike on a full stomach. Next time, I will do just that. Nevertheless, I managed to grab some decent milk tea before requesting an Uber back to our hotel. It was tasty enough to keep me satisfied and happy until some actual food could call my stomach home an hour or two later. Despite being hungry at the time, we were most satisfied with our hike and yet were already thinking about visiting the Thowr Mountain the next time we are back in Mecca. Perhaps one day I can share just how that hike turned out here as well.