Jabal al-Nour

Jabal al-Nour "The Mountain of Light", or "Hill of Illumination",is a mountain near Mecca in Saudi Arabia's Hejaz region. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Mecca. The mountain houses the famed Ghar-E-Hira or Hira cave. The cave is quite small, four arm's length long by 1.75 arm's length wide.^[1] The mountain is barely six hundred and forty meters tall. It does however, take two hours to make it to the cave and is extremely strenuous on the individual. However, the mount and the cave hold tremendous significance from Muslims throughout the world. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is said to have spent a great deal of time in the cave meditating and it is believed that he had received his first revelation from the archangel Gabriel, inside this cave from God.

How Jabal-al Nour looks today

One physical feature that differentiates it from other mountains and hills is its strange looking summit, which makes it look more like two mountains on top of each other. The top of the Mountain of Nour in the mountainous desert is one of the loneliest of places. However, the cave within, which faces the direction of the Ka’ba, is even more isolated. While standing in the courtyard back then you can only look over the surrounding rocks. Now a day you are still able to see the surrounding rocks as well as buildings that are hundreds of meters down and hundreds of meters to many kilometers away. Hira is both without water or vegetation other than a few thorns. Hira is higher than Thabir, and is crowened by a steep and slippery peek, which the Apostle with some companions once climbed. Muhammad was in the habit of staying here with his wife.^[12]