‘This is my jihad’, Mostafa Salameh tells ANANYA BORGOHAIN about his life that started as that of a Palestinian refugee but then took him to the greatest heights, literally! At 45, he has climbed the Seven Summits, is planning to take a team of Arab women to the Mount Everest in 2017, spreads cancer awareness, and seeks to reconfigure the misplaced Muslim identity
Mostafa Salameh’s story is nothing short of stuff that dreams are made of, to borrow from Shakespeare, of course. Born to Palestinian refugees in Kuwait in 1970, he has seen life in all its hues. He had seven brothers and two sisters, and he was the second born. Although he does remember his childhood to be pleasant, he also recalls being called a ‘Belgique’, a term of abuse some Kuwaitis use for Palestinians, deeming them second class citizens.
Back in the day, a month of saving enabled him to afford one McDonald’s burger, without the desserts obviously. He grew up amid racism and prejudice. Kuwait gave him education but not rights. Yet in the midst of it, his confidence only soared high because some people are just born to reach the zenith of success. Mostafa did climb up to the greatest heights, and literally so!
At 6’1”, as he walks towards you, it wouldn’t take much guesswork to assume that the man is as fit as a fiddle for his field. He has a towering appearance that beams with confidence but which also cultivates a humble aura around him. He says, “Not that I had a disturbing childhood. It was not problematic and I believe I was happy as a child. I was good at basketball, running, volleyball, and similar games. There were, however, no opportunities for refugees to hone their skills. That was the problem.”
At 18, Salameh left Kuwait with his family for Jordan, stayed with his aunt and funded his own education at the Ammon College for Hospitality and Tourism (now the Jordan Applied University College of Hospitality and Tourism Education) by working as a barman and waiter at many cafes and restaurants there. But deep within, his dream was to break free from the clutches of deprivation and move to England. He believed that reaching “the white cliffs of dover” would put an end to any existing misery in his life.
As luck would have it, the wife of Mohammad Adwan, advisor to Jordan’s then King Hussein, was an American who loved Salameh’s mother’s cooking. As he occasionally catered food from his mother to her, he once met the brother of the Jordanian Ambassador in london. The Ambassador, as it turned out, was looking for someone to work in the kitchen in his london house. Goes without saying, Salameh fit the bill.
In 1992, he was in london, earning 500 pounds a month which went straight to his father at Amman, leaving only 10 pounds for him every Sunday. In spite of the financial crunch, he did have his dream life in london; he partied, danced, smoked frequently. Until he had his epiphany.
Salameh did not grow up in a religious set-up. He was not a regular visitor to the mosque, even on Fridays. But one day at Edinburgh, he dreamed that he was standing at the highest point in the world reciting the call to prayer. He says, “It was January 2004 and I saw that I was at the top of the universe, reciting the azan. There was no moment of doubt for me after that — that the right moment to make my life purposeful had arrived.”
He knew it was no ordinary dream and realised that this epiphanic experience was a call from religion urging him to mend his belief system. At that moment, he knew he had to climb the Mount Everest. There was a little problem though: let alone having any mountaineering experience, Salameh did not even know where Mount Everest was! like every fancy fad, he had presumed Everest was also in the US and googled to know more about it!
While his friends and acquaintances laughed at his interpretation of the dream and thought his new goal in life was utterly hilarious, his conquest had already begun. “You can’t do it without sponsorship. I contacted a few companies for funds but that did not work. So I went back to Jordan for my funding. In Ferdinand Magellan’s quest to discover America, he had secured a meeting with the Queen of Spain.
In my case, I had a similar hope from the King of Jordan. After a friend wrote about my aspiration in a magazine, news soon reached the royal palace and I got a call from them to schedule a meeting with King Abdullah.” Salameh thus secured his sponsorship. He failed twice before finally reaching the top of the Everest on May 25, 2008 — Jordan’s Independence Day.
Today, he is not only the first Jordanian to reach the North Pole, he is also the first to scale the Seven Summits in the world — Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Vinson, Carstensz. This year, he reached the South Pole as well, the first Muslim ever to have done so.
A committed Muslim today, Salameh seeks to spread the message of Islam, a message that spreads benevolence and peace, substantially distanced from its violent connotations. He says,
“It is not only Islam that appeals to me. I have a Sufi teacher and have also learned a lot about Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on. And this is one of the reasons why I am so fond of India because of its diversity and acceptance of so many religions and cultures.”
He has raised a lot of money through climbing which has gone to charity. He works to rescue misguided Arab youths from radicalisation, is also a motivational speaker and works for the well-being of cancer patients. Every time he reaches the peak of a mountain, he reads aloud a verse from the Quran. He is associated with the King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC) with patient activities and raising funds for their treatment. He also launched the ‘From the lowest Point to the Highest
Point for Cancer’ initiative lH4C, that led 20 people up to and back from Everest Base Camp in April 2013. It raised $600,000 for KHCC.
In February 2014, he led a group of Jordanians to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and this time raised $1,400,000, which also went to KHCC. He says, “I was speaking for some children at a cancer hospital and it left such a deep impact upon me that I was gripped by an urge to do something for them and others going through the same.”
He has four children with his Scottish wife, and in 2017, he plans to take Arab women up to the Everest. “These women have already been selected and their sponsorship has been arranged. This will be the first summit to the Mount Everest for women empowerment. It is a group of five women and they come from different backgrounds — Jordanian, Muslim, Christian, etc. Their training has started and we are all looking forward to it.
“I believe women are as strong as men. To be able to endure such pain and give birth, create life, that is like climbing Everest 10 times. Women have the right to attain all equal opportunities to prove themselves. I hope we achieve that with this expedition,” he adds.
His memoir, Dreams of a Refugee (Bloomsbury, Rs499) released this year. The inspirational story is attached to a much deeper and significant struggle than what meets the eye. After hard work, training and selling his house and car to afford his Everest feat, his dream came true. He says, “When I finished high school, I had no money. I did odd jobs for the basic amenities and had no training in mountaineering. My point is, open that door, take the risk. I was eager to learn. I consumed a lot of literature on mountaineering, I familiarised myself with the equipment. If you have the grit and determination, nothing can stop you.”
About his objectives, he says, “My cause in life is three-fold. I want to present the tolerant, peaceful aspect of Islam. Islam had sought to spread peace, to liberate us. Wahhabism, that engulfed Saudi Arabia in 1830, is not what Islam originally is. Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim, the first verse of the Quran, seeks the blessings of the merciful God. No religion teaches disciples to kill. Only when your country faces an obstacle or is under attack and you fight back because you have no other option, are you a martyr. Anybody who murders people in the name of God can never be a martyr. For the record, ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, just like KKK has nothing to do with Christianity, and violent Israelis are not messengers of Judaism.”
But that is only the first of his two causes. He continues, “My second cause is education. The Middle East educates people about religion but we need a more progressive and methodical system of spreading awareness and nourishing culture. The Israel-Palestine conflict needs as much attention and closure and the world needs to pay attention to it. The media should be more alert and prompt and we need more proactive avenues to resist crises. Besides raising funds for cancer victims, my other cause is to highlight a cosmopolitan worldview, to see different places and bring them to people’s notice.”
And that is what he does every time he fumbles in his risk-laden journeys across the toughest terrains of the world. He recalls, “At the Shishapangma mountain, which is over 8,000 m high, I suddenly lost balance and slipped almost 20 m down until I was held by a rock. This was before my Everest climb and I felt a stroke of luck that day.”
And so along with sponsorship, Salameh says his training would be same as that of a beginner’s as every feat requires specific training. For his feat at the South Pole, he trained with a sled harness that weighed 120 kg, for instance; and while training for Everest, everything from training, oxygen supply to down suits had to be systematic. In other cases, cycling and cardiovascular activities help too.
About his diet and training, he divulges, “I do not drink alcohol and avoid junk food generally, but apart from that I eat almost everything. My day starts with two pints of water. I go for a swim or a trek. I run 10 km three times a week and hit the gym for at least 30 minutes at least five times a week. When I have leisurely time, I like reading non-fiction and spending time with my family; they are always apprehensive about my safety.”
This is also where the pertinence of the title of his memoir comes across. With a life of achievements like that, one might wonder how much of a refugee he is today, after leaving his mark at the highest points in the world, or how much of a dreamer he himself is after inspiring so many people.
He says, “I believe in omens. When you dream and if things are meant to be, they will happen. I had only dreamed of being at the highest spot in the world, but it did eventually come true. I also always aspired to write my story and then Bloomsbury actually approached me for the book. Now, maybe it will also be adapted into a film. After this, there will be newer dreams. My focus, of course, is on the refugees. I take the Scottish and Jordanian flags with me always as a reminded of where I come from. Steve Jobs was also a Syrian refugee, you know. My message to the Arab and Gulf countries is that they could do so much with their money and enormous resources; that it’s sheer tragedy that they do not use their enormous wealth to help humankind.
“In today’s world, where the refugee situation is taking a toll on human conscience, these countries should come together to uplift the needy. I never heard the term jihad used at home, at school or on the street, and similarly never heard the terms Sunni or Shia. But this, what I do today, if it has any meaning at all, then this is my jihad.”
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