🔊 Three Calls to Prayer, One Mountain: A Soundscape from Khaplu, Pakistan
Our short hike to the Thoqsi Khar Upper Fort was timed so we could watch the sunset from its viewpoint. Balanced high on top of a huge rock, the centuries-old mosque offers a panoramic view of the Khaplu valley and at 9,000 feet (2740 meters), the hike would help us acclimate to our new altitude.
We were a little late getting started and needed a short break to catch our breath half-way up, so by the time we made it to the top, the sun was already touching the horizon. We scurried to take in the views and photograph each other in front of the expansive vista that included Khaplu City, the Shyok River, and Masherbrum, Pakistan’s 9th highest mountain (and the 22nd highest in the world).
With the light fading fast, our increasingly nervous guides, aware of how dark it was about to get, politely ushered us back towards the path down. As we started funneling into a single file line, the first notes of the evening call to prayer, the Maghrib adhan, began floating up from the east side of the valley.
We think it was coming from a Sufi mosque, as it seemed to have multiple voices and harmonies. I pulled out my recorder with the hopes of capturing it, but it was time to move. Thankfully I left the recorder running because what happened next was really special.
My son, Mason, and I were the last of the guests to begin descending, and from the first few steps we relied on the light of Mason’s phone to see the path. (I was holding the recorder as still as possible, so I was no help in the illumination department.) As we began walking, another mosque, this time to the west, began its call to prayer, and moments after that, yet another mosque’s muezzin began singing.
Three calls to prayer, staggered and overlapping, was beautifully bewildering on its own. Add to that the fact that we were silently hurrying down a never ending series of switchbacks lit only by Mason’s cell phone. This is one of the most esoteric and ethereal experiences I’ve ever had, one I’ll probably never have again.
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