Unlike the built sanctuaries at the center of Meccan pilgrimage, Mount Hira carries no mosque, shrine or covering structure at its cave, only the bare rock reached by an unpaved and fairly strenuous climb of a few hundred meters. That absence of construction is itself often read as fitting: the cave is remembered as a place Muhammad sought specifically for solitude away from the city, and Saudi religious authorities have generally discouraged treating the mountain as a formal pilgrimage stop, wary of practices that could shade into venerating the place itself rather than the revelation associated with it.
Visiting it is not part of the Hajj or Umrah and carries no ritual requirement, but it remains, informally, one of the most visited sites in greater Mecca, drawing a steady stream of pilgrims and tourists who make the climb to see the cave where, in Islamic belief, scripture first reached the world. The mountain is sometimes called Jabal al-Nur, the Mountain of Light, a name reflecting its place in the tradition rather than any ancient toponym, and it stands within sight of the city as a companion, in the religious geography of Mecca, to Mount Arafat and Mina, the stations of the Hajj itself, though Hira alone lies outside the pilgrimage's required route.