The Himalayas, a Mosque in the Foothills, and the Humility I Let In

The best things in life are free. The sun, the moon, the mountains and the air, they’re all priceless, but you and I, we have them for free.

And still we forget; yet how can we be blamed? We live in jungles, not the lush green or thorny kind. Ours are made of steel, glass, concrete, and algorithms. Perhaps they are thorny in their own way, they crowd the mind and pierce through it.

I write this to tell you how I managed to get away; not for long, but just enough to carry back.

Also Read: India vs Pakistan: Which is A Better Holiday Destination For Muslims?

The Journey

The destination was a quiet hill station in the lower Himalayas, not yet overrun by tourism. To get there, I flew up to Islamabad, the capital. From there, we took a bus to a stop along the Karakoram Highway, also nicknamed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" for the sheer engineering it took to build. The long, dramatic two-lane highway cuts through mountains and we reach our stop.

From there, we transfer into a dozen old Land Cruiser FJ40s, rugged 1980s-style jeeps that are apparently among the only vehicles allowed, or able, to climb the track up, which was less a road and more of a death-track. A narrow, uneven, and very rocky 50-minute ride takes us to our resort.

The view from the resort was stunning. Mountains folding into one another in shades of green and white. The air felt lighter, cleaner, almost untouched. I was far from the concrete jungle and deep inside a lush green one. As luck would have it, we made our trip on a full moon, and at night me and a few friends wandered off to gaze at it. One of the resort owners casually warned us to be careful at night; “this is an active wildlife territory”. He then headed off in his 4x4, as far as I could tell, to hunt it himself.

All of it, the moon, the wildlife, the view folding out over the valley was the kind of thing I'd love to write about. But this, perhaps to the disappointment of some of my readers, is not about any of that. It is about the humility I let in. It came in a small mosque on the side of a narrow, busy mountain highway, where we stopped for Friday prayers.

The Humility and The Mosque

Anyone who's followed my archives could probably guess I'm a great admirer of mosques and their architecture the world over. This one was not grand. No marble domes, no towering minarets, no polished courtyards or chandeliers or tilework. It was a plain structure, shaded by the slope, and we had to climb a good 200 meters of steep ground to reach it.

Beneath it was a waterfall and a small local market where everything seemed to be happening at once; travelers stopping for tea, workers calling out to guests, water rushing over stone, children weaving through the crowd.

The waterfall was part of the life of the place. Its water helped generate power for the nearby hotels and restaurants. Shop vendors used it to cool drinks and make milkshakes. Men sat on chairs with cups of chai, their feet resting in the cold running water.

The same cold water was used for ablution at the mosque. And it was cold. Running it over my hands, my face, my arms pushed out all the fatigue of the road. Then we prayed Jummah, the Friday congregation. The prayer was simple and altogether ordinary. And yet, for reasons I am still trying to understand, it stayed with me more than many of the grand mosques I have prayed in across the world.

_{Image Credits: Azmi Anees} 

I have been fortunate enough to travel across several continents. I have prayed in mosques that were architectural achievements often overwhelming both to the eye and the heart. I feel beautiful architecture has its own way of disciplining the heart in its own way.

But this small mosque in the Himalayan foothills gave me something different. I remember thinking how beautiful, and almost astonishing, it was that a message from the desert of the Hejaz had traveled all this way, thousands of miles, to a remote mountain stop.

The Best Things in Life Are Free

_{Image Credits: Azmi Anees} 

Modern life makes us feel large and powerless at the same time. We are given platforms, opinions, profiles, ambitions, metrics, and constant stimulation. Yet people starve spiritually and lack contentment. We are more visible than ever and perhaps less present than ever. We have access to everything and attention for nothing.

But on the highway, in the shaded mosque, and amidst the mountains, there was nothing to consume. I had traveled far to see the Himalayas. I had expected the mountains to be the thing that stayed with me. And they did, in their own way. But the memory I carried back was not just of the view. It was of the small mosque, where the heart, for a few minutes, felt less burdened by the world.

I made the trip with the 3Musafir travel community, whose warmth and easy company I'd recommend to anyone heading into northern Pakistan. The roads, weather, and logistics up there are far easier with people who know them.

The best things in life are free. We just keep building places where we can't reach them.