'There’s no place like the mountains': How three Muslim female hikers turned their struggles into triumphs

What do you picture when you think of a hiker, a man with a bulging backpack and cargo shorts?

Activities like hillwalking and adventuring might attract a certain kind of person, but for these three women, there’s no place like the mountains. 

Zahrah Mahmood, known as The Hillwalking Hijabi, started hiking slightly begrudgingly. Her friends took her to Ben Lomond, a mountain in the Scottish Highlands, to take her mind off the chartered accountancy exams she was studying for. 

“I was picturing scaling the side of a mountain with ropes, but when they told me I could walk the whole way I thought, ‘How hard could that be?’”

It turns out, really hard – what was meant to be a half-day hike took most of the day.

Despite feeling like she was holding her friends back and being stared at, Zahrah felt a sense of accomplishment when she reached the peak.

“I realised I hadn’t been stressing about my exams the whole way, I felt elated,” she remembers. 

Since then, Zahrah has been named president of the walking charity Ramblers Scotland and has kept up hillwalking for not only her mental clarity and physical fitness but her spirituality too.

“My body is a gift from God and I should look after it,” Zahrah says, referencing how the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) used to retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life to seek solitude in mountains and caves. 

“In those moments, he was able to nurture his spiritual connection. I started to see that link and it gave me a greater purpose for being outdoors,” Zahrah adds.

Now, Zahrah likes to break her fasts in Ramadan after a sunset hike with her husband and son. 

In fact, being with her son in nature has been one of Zahrah’s biggest achievements after a difficult delivery and recovery period.

“My son was born prematurely so it was a difficult journey, but I was determined to breastfeed. It was one of the only things I felt I still had control over,” she remembers.

“All the times I’ve managed to breastfeed outside were particularly important for me, within my limits for modesty.” 

An opportunity to fight off Islamophobia 

For Amira Patel, it was her mum who brought her into the outdoors.

“She got married and had kids, which was her focus. Then when she went through a divorce she got back into the things she loved, like nature,” Amira tells The New Arab. 

While Amira’s first hike might have been full of teenage tears, going through her divorce sparked a passion for walking and formed part of her healing journey.

“I had no idea what I was doing, I got lost and I had the wrong kit, but I absolutely loved it,” she says, having since explored the Lake District, Wales, Scotland, Peru, Nepal, Tanzania and more.

Amira’s hiking journey also coincided with a spiritual journey, where she started practising the veil.

“It’s hard when you’re consumed with a busy lifestyle, but your soul needs nourishing. The Quran refers to the mountains, the countryside and all the things he's created,” she adds, saying that the outdoors is a mindful space for her.

“It’s a place where I was able to become still and pray, but it’s also become my playground.” 

Having worked with Trekmates to create an activewear hijab and niqab for modest hikers, Amira says she’s thankful for the range of different kits she can now pull on and carries a travel prayer mat and spray bottle with her while on the move.

While the outdoors remains a white-dominated space, Amira uses any Islamophobia she faces as fuel, hoping that she doesn’t have to be the one continuously fighting for change: “Ten years down the line, I don’t want my children to go through what we have.”

Amira also recognised the importance of fostering women-only spaces and creating supportive environments.

“Unmarried women, women who don’t have children yet, women going through menopause, women whose children have grown up and are wondering what to do now… you can lose your sense of purpose,” she says. 

Remembering being young and divorced herself, Amira felt like she didn’t fit in seeing her friends get married and have babies, “but God said ‘here, have a bunch of divorced women!’ It made me realise that I wasn’t the only one and I blossomed with that community.” 

'I've spent more time in the mountains in my sleeping bag than in my house'

Adventuring can be a tough career that requires sacrifices, something Hafida Hdoubane, Morocco’s first female mountain guide, recognises.

“It can be hard for men to accept a woman that’s out of the house so often,” she says.

“I was married to a European man and it was hard for him. They’re so used to seeing women at home, at least in the evenings.”

Instead, Hafida can be away from home for days, weeks and months at a time.

“I think I’ve spent more time in the mountains in my sleeping bag than in my house,” she laughs.

Initially getting into tourism to meet new people and hear about a world outside of Morocco, Hafida was one of only four women in a group of over 400 who took a shot at mountain guide training in 1993. 

Hafida was the only woman to complete the challenges, something that surprised even Hafida, a modern young trouser-wearing woman from the city.

The men she trained with thought she would give up, but Hafida made a promise to keep going and make it better for the women who came after her. 

Despite considering retiring, Hafida now hikes with Intrepid Travel, who connect small groups of travellers through adventures.

Hafida covers Iran, Egypt, the Emirates, South Africa and Saudi Arabia, hosting expeditions that explore not only the pursuit of peaks but also handicrafts and local communities.

At the end of the day, that’s what makes adventuring special.

“You don’t do this job to get rich,” Hafida laughs. “The real riches are the people. They show me how to be open-minded, to not be scared of different people,” she adds.

“Even if I go to one place a thousand times, I see it differently every time because I’m with different people."

Isabella Silvers is a multi-award-winning editor and journalist, having written for Cosmopolitan, Women's Health, Refinery 29 and more. She also writes a weekly newsletter on mixed-race identity, titled Mixed Messages

Follow her on Twitter: @izzymks