Jabal Nur - The Mountain That Doesn’t Care About Your Pride
Chapter 5 — Jabal Nur: The Mountain That Doesn’t Care About Your Pride
Makkah in the morning carried a different kind of light.
Not the sharp brightness of Singapore mornings, filtered through glass towers and polished schedules.
Here, the dawn felt ancient—pale gold spilling over stone and dust, softening the edges of buildings that had watched millions come and go. The air was cooler than the previous night, but it still carried the dryness that made every breath feel deliberate.
Aleem woke before Malek.
He lay for a moment in the hotel room’s dimness, listening to the air-conditioning hum like a steady heartbeat. Malek’s breathing filled the space with the comfort of another human presence—uncomplicated, uncomplicatedly loyal.
Aleem stared at the ceiling.
His body felt tired in the honest way—muscles aching from Sa’i, feet still sore from tawaf.
But his heart felt… awake.
Not healed.
Not peaceful.
Just awake.
As if worship had loosened something inside him and the loosened thing was now rising to the surface.
He sat up, reached for his phone, and saw the message thread from the Chinese girl still sitting there, unopened since yesterday.
A clean ending.
A gentle rejection.
The kind that did not bruise your pride but did bruise your hope.
He placed the phone down.
His mind drifted instead to the sentence he had overheard during Sa’i.
She is single, but it is complicated.
That word—complicated—had lodged itself in him like a thorn.
Because complicated was the shape of his first heartbreak.
Complicated was how you became a backup.
Complicated was how someone kept you close without choosing you.
Aleem stood, performed wudu in the small hotel bathroom, the water cold enough to sharpen him. He prayed quickly, quietly, and in his sujud he made a request that felt less like desperation and more like caution.
Ya Allah… keep my intention clean.
Then he rose.
The day had not even fully begun, and already he could feel the test waiting.
In the lobby, the group gathered with sleepy faces and paper cups of coffee. Some pilgrims looked energized by the novelty; others looked like they had been awake since the beginning of time.
The ustaz stood at the front, clipboard in hand, voice calm.
“Today,” he said, “we have an optional hike for those who are able. Jabal Nur.”
A few people murmured, eyes widening.
He spoke briefly about the significance of the mountain—how the cave of Hira was where the first revelation had descended, where solitude had become the setting for a world-changing beginning. He also spoke about safety. Water. Pace. Not forcing yourself.
Malek’s eyes lit up like a child.
“We are going,” Malek said immediately, before Aleem even had time to decide.
Aleem glanced at him. “We are?”
Malek grinned. “You came all this way. Do not tell me you want to climb your own overthinking instead of a mountain.”
Aleem exhaled through his nose, the closest thing to agreement.
The group moved out.
Buses.
Coordination.
Names counted.
People splitting into smaller clusters depending on stamina and confidence.
It was the kind of logistical shuffle that felt ordinary—mundane even.
And yet, Aleem would later realise this was exactly how fate worked.
Not with thunder.
With small, unremarkable shifts.
At the base of the mountain, the morning sun had risen higher, warming the ground, turning the air thicker. Vendors stood by the roadside selling bottled water, small snacks, and cheap souvenirs.
Pilgrims gathered in uneven lines.
Some took photos.
Some stretched.
Some looked up at the slope of stone and steps and wondered if they had made a mistake.
Aleem adjusted his cap, tightened the strap of his small bag.
Malek leaned close. “Easy pace,” Malek reminded him. “Do not try to compete with the uncles who think they are twenty-five.”
Aleem snorted quietly.
They began to move.
The climb demanded honesty.
It did not care about your job title.
It did not care about your dignity.
It did not care that you were trying to look calm in front of other people.
Within minutes, Aleem could feel sweat forming at the back of his neck. The steps were uneven, the incline unrelenting. The sun climbed with them, turning every breath into something you had to take on purpose.
The crowd stretched out.
Some pilgrims surged ahead, determined to prove something.
Others slowed quickly, bargaining with their knees.
Aleem stayed near Malek—steady, controlled—until a sudden commotion rippled through the line.
An older man ahead had stopped, breathing heavily, his companion looking worried.
Malek immediately moved forward.
“Uncle,” Malek said, voice gentle but firm. “Sit. Please. Sit down.”
The ustaz was called.
Someone offered water.
Malek knelt beside the man, checking on him with the calm of someone who had the kind of confidence that did not come from ego.
“Aleem,” Malek called over his shoulder, “go ahead slowly. I will catch up.”
Aleem hesitated.
He did not like being separated.
Not on a mountain.
Not in a crowd.
But Malek’s eyes were steady.
Aleem nodded once.
He moved forward.
The line shifted again.
People passed.
Some stopped.
Others turned back.
A family with children decided to rest and wait.
And in the small chaos of movement, the group that had been together became scattered.
Aleem climbed for a few more minutes, then paused, expecting Malek’s familiar presence to appear beside him.
It did not.
He turned.
The crowd below was a staggered ribbon of people.
And there, a few steps behind him, was Almahirah.
Alone.
Not with her mother.
Not with friends.
Just her.
She stood with her hands on her bag strap, catching her breath, eyes lowered.
Aleem’s heart tightened.
Of all the people.
Of all the possible arrangements.
It had become just the two of them.
Aleem’s first instinct was to move—either speed up or slow down enough to merge with another cluster.
Anything to avoid this.
But his feet did not.
He stayed where he was.
The mountain did not care about his discomfort.
It waited.
Almahirah lifted her gaze briefly.
Their eyes met.
No smile.
No dramatic shock.
Just mutual recognition.
The air between them felt thin.
Aleem swallowed.
He forced his voice to work.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
It was a practical question.
A safe one.
Almahirah nodded. “Yes,” she replied softly. “Just… tired.”
Aleem reached into his bag, pulled out a bottle of water, and held it toward her.
She hesitated, then accepted with a quiet “Thank you.”
Their fingers did not touch.
Even that felt like a boundary both of them understood without discussing.
They stood in silence for a moment, then continued climbing.
Step.
Breath.
Step.
Breath.
The mountain forced them into the same rhythm.
Aleem kept his gaze forward.
But his awareness of her was constant—her footsteps behind him, her breathing, the way she paused at certain steps and then pushed herself onward.
He hated how familiar it felt.
Not the pain.
The care.
It returned too easily.
As if his heart had not learned the lesson his mind insisted it had.
After several minutes, Aleem slowed slightly.
“You can take your time,” he said, voice controlled. “No need to rush.”
Almahirah’s answer was quiet. “I do not want to be the one holding you back.”
Aleem’s chest tightened.
The sentence echoed a different era.
Back then, she had held him back by keeping him waiting.
Now, she was afraid of holding him back by simply being tired.
The contrast unsettled him.
They reached a small resting area where people paused to drink water, wipe sweat, and stare at the view below as if asking it for encouragement.
Aleem stood near the railing, looking out.
Makkah spread beneath them like a dense sea of buildings.
The Haram was visible in the distance, its lights still bright even under daylight.
For a moment, the sight made him feel small in the right way.
He heard Almahirah’s footsteps stop beside him.
Silence.
He could keep it that way.
He could let them climb this mountain like strangers who happened to share a path.
But something in him—perhaps worship, perhaps exhaustion, perhaps simple adulthood—refused to let him carry tension without naming it.
Aleem turned slightly.
He did not say her name.
He did not reopen the past.
He did not ask for explanations.
He chose dignity.
He chose simplicity.
“Assalamualaikum,” Aleem said, voice quiet.
Almahirah looked at him.
“Waalaikumsalam,” she replied.
“I am Aleem,” he said.
The words sounded strange.
As if he were introducing himself to a version of her that had never known him.
As if he were introducing himself to a life that had not broken.
Almahirah’s gaze held steady.
“I am Almahirah,” she said softly.
Not a joke.
Not an apology.
Not a plea.
Just a name.
Two adults.
Meeting again.
Not as a wound.
As people.
Aleem nodded once.
They both looked away again, toward the city below.
It was not closure.
But it was a beginning.
On the climb upward, conversation came in fragments.
Not forced.
Not dramatic.
Just the kind of talk that happened when two people were walking toward something larger than themselves.
“What do you do now?” Almahirah asked after a while, voice cautious.
Aleem hesitated.
It would be easier to keep things impersonal.
But he had already spoken his name.
He could not pretend they were strangers.
“I am working as a software engineer,” Aleem said. “Three years now.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Amd,” Aleem replied.
Her eyes widened slightly. “AMD?”
Aleem nodded, a faint pride slipping through despite himself. “Yes.”
Almahirah looked away, as if processing it. “That sounds… intense.”
“It is,” Aleem admitted. “Some days it feels like my brain never turns off.”
She let out a small breath, almost a laugh. “I understand that. In a different way.”
“Nursing,” Aleem said, the word not a question but a memory.
Almahirah nodded. “KK Hospital,” she replied. “Four years.”
The name landed between them with the weight of reality.
Not a teenage romance.
Not a university drama.
A hospital.
A place where life and death did not care about your heartbreak.
“That is… heavy,” Aleem said quietly.
Almahirah’s gaze softened. “It is. But it also teaches you what matters.”
They climbed.
The sun rose higher.
Sweat darkened Aleem’s cap.
He watched Almahirah carefully when the steps became steeper, not hovering, just aware.
“You look tired,” Aleem said at one point.
Almahirah inhaled, then nodded. “I am. But I want to finish.”
Aleem nodded too. “We will finish,” he said.
The phrase surprised him.
We.
He had not meant to include her.
But the mountain had made it natural.
They spoke about adulthood.
About parents.
About how friends drifted into marriage and children and suddenly your weekends were empty.
About how time passed too quickly and you kept realising you were older than you felt.
They did not speak about the past.
The past stood beside them silently, waiting.
But neither of them invited it into the conversation.
And that restraint—their mutual refusal to weaponise history—felt like a kind of maturity Aleem did not know they were capable of.
It made his chest ache.
Not with pain.
With something softer.
More dangerous.
Nostalgia.
Because as Almahirah spoke, as she laughed faintly at something Malek would have said, Aleem saw flashes of the girl he once loved.
It was not the same.
But it was enough.
She was back.
Not in the sense that the past had returned.
In the sense that the part of her that had once felt gentle and good still existed.
And Aleem hated how quickly his heart recognised it.
Near the top, the air thinned.
Not literally.
But the heat made every breath feel more valuable.
They reached a viewpoint where the crowd gathered, some taking photos, others sitting in silence, staring at the horizon like they were trying to see beyond their own lives.
The cave of Hira was nearby.
Aleem could see people climbing toward it, faces determined.
He did not feel the need to enter.
Being here was enough.
He stood with Almahirah beside him, and for a moment, neither spoke.
This mountain had once held the beginning of revelation.
A man alone.
A cave.
A world about to change.
Aleem looked out at Makkah, the Haram distant but shining.
He wondered what Allah was revealing in him.
Not answers.
Not romance.
Just truths.
That he had been running.
That he had been hard.
That he had turned pain into a religion and called it caution.
He swallowed.
He felt Almahirah’s presence beside him, quiet and steady.
He did not turn to look.
Because he was afraid that if he did, he would see too much.
The descent was harder on the knees.
The steps felt crueler going down, and the crowd moved in uneven waves. Aleem stayed slightly ahead, careful not to crowd Almahirah, but alert to her pace.
At one point, her foot slipped on a step.
It was small.
Not dramatic.
Just enough.
Aleem’s hand shot out instinctively.
He caught her forearm, steadying her.
For a brief moment, their skin touched.
Warm.
Real.
Too familiar.
Almahirah stiffened slightly, then relaxed when she found her balance.
“Thank you,” she said, voice softer than the heat.
Aleem released her immediately, not because he wanted to pull away, but because he did not trust what staying would awaken.
“Be careful,” he said.
“I am,” she replied.
But her eyes flicked to his hand as if she had also felt the electricity of something unspoken.
They continued down.
The conversation became lighter, almost against Aleem’s will.
At one point, Almahirah laughed quietly at her own exhaustion.
“I thought I was stronger,” she admitted.
Aleem’s mouth twitched. “Hospitals and mountains use different muscles.”
Her laugh grew slightly. “True.”
The sound was small.
It did not belong to the past.
It belonged to now.
And Aleem felt unsettled by how much he didn’t hate it.
They reached the base.
Malek was there, waiting, eyes scanning the crowd until he spotted Aleem.
Relief crossed Malek’s face.
Then Malek’s gaze shifted.
He saw Almahirah beside Aleem.
His expression flickered—recognition, understanding, then a deliberate neutrality.
Malek did not tease.
He did not make a joke.
He simply walked up, placed a hand on Aleem’s shoulder briefly, and asked, “You are okay?”
Aleem nodded.
He could not explain what had happened on the mountain.
Nothing had happened.
And yet… everything had.
Back at the hotel later, Aleem showered, letting the water run over his head until his thoughts slowed.
When he lay down that night, his body exhausted, his mind refused sleep.
He stared at the ceiling, the air-conditioning humming, Malek’s quiet movements in the other bed.
Aleem thought of Almahirah saying her name.
Not as a memory.
As a present fact.
He thought of her laughter.
Her steadiness.
The way she had not chased him.
He had expected anger to return when he met her.
He had expected bitterness.
Vindication.
Closure through coldness.
Instead, he had felt something worse.
Softness.
And Aleem realised, with a discomfort that sat in his chest like a stone:
What if forgiveness felt like falling again?