Tbilisi: The City That Holds the Echo

by Selene
Writer • Historian • Seeker of Stillness

I crossed the border into Georgia by land — the drive from Ganja to Tbilisi winding gently through highlands and vineyards, old villages tucked into hills like commas in an ancient sentence. I kept my window open the entire way. I needed to feel the change in air, in light, in silence.

Resize the map with your finger.

It was my final stop. And somehow, I knew it would be the softest.

🛎️ Home in the Hills — My Stay

I had booked my guesthouse in Tbilisi through HalalBooking.com, as I had with every stop before. It was tucked on a quiet slope near the Old Town — no alcohol served, a designated prayer space, and a garden of roses that hadn’t stopped blooming.

In the room:
– A small Qur’an on the shelf
– A woven prayer rug
– A handwritten card with “As-salamu alaykum” in three languages

It felt like someone had been expecting me.

🕌 Unity in a Single Prayer Hall

I walked to the Tbilisi Mosque for Jumu’ah — a single hall where Sunni and Shia pray together. Not side by side in tolerance, but in sincere unity. One imam. One ummah.

The khutbah was in Georgian and Arabic. I understood only parts, but my heart understood all.

“We are all travelers,” the imam said. “Even when we think we’ve arrived.”

And in that moment, I knew: this wasn’t the end of the journey. It was simply a pause before the next breath.

🕌 A City of Confluence and Communion

Tbilisi is a city where religions walk beside one another — churches, mosques, synagogues, and silence. The mosque is the only one of its kind in Georgia — where Sunni and Shia stand shoulder to shoulder, one line, one qibla, one God.

When I entered, no one asked where I came from. They simply gestured gently to the prayer row and smiled.

“La ilaha illallah,” someone whispered behind me.
And for the first time in days, my tears came freely.

🧕 Walking Between Worlds

I wandered the Abanotubani sulfur baths, where steam rose from beneath the earth like breath from the unseen. I climbed to the Narikala Fortress, where history sits under the weight of time, and I listened to the river below carry voices in every tongue.

Georgia doesn’t forget.
It holds its contradictions — Muslim, Christian, Jewish — in open palms.
That is its beauty: not sameness, but peace.

📿 An Olive Pit and a Realization

On my final evening, I sat in the garden — prayer beads in one hand, a bowl of olives in the other. One olive pit slipped through my fingers and landed in the soil beside a jasmine bush.

I smiled.

I’ve spent this journey walking ancient streets and reading the past.
But Islam taught me that the future is written in small acts of intention.
Even a fallen olive pit, if left with care, may become a tree.

🛂 Travel Note: Entry Into Georgia

If you’re following this route from Azerbaijan, be sure to check visa requirements before entering Georgia. Many nationalities are granted visa-free or eVisa access, but always confirm before you travel.

For post-Umrah pilgrims, this route works both ways:

• Jeddah → Tbilisi → Ganja → Sheki → Baku → Jeddah, or
• Jeddah → Baku → Sheki → Ganja → Tbilisi → Jeddah
  Both are supported by the multiple-entry Saudi eVisa, which allows you to return smoothly after exploring.

🛫 Back to Jeddah — But Not Back to Before

Tomorrow, I board my flight home — Tbilisi to Athens, the same way I came: slowly, quietly, through sky and prayer. The route takes me through Jeddah, a familiar stop now, made possible by the multiple-entry Saudi eVisa that opened this path.

For those coming from Umrah, it flows the other way — Tbilisi to Jeddah with Flynas,, a return to the sacred after wandering through lands of light and memory.

As for me, I go back to Athens — to my olive trees, my students, and the quiet prayer mat by the window where all of this began.

But I won’t be the same.

I came seeking stillness.
I found it — in call to prayer, in strangers’ smiles, in tea shared before Fajr, in rose gardens beside tombs, and in the sacred weight of silence.

This was not a vacation.
This was a return.
To myself. To Allah.
To a kind of peace that doesn’t announce itself — but waits to be remembered.

🌍 Selene’s Spiritual Journey — A Post-Umrah Path

For fellow seekers finishing Umrah, this is a path worth walking — soft in step, rich in spirit, and deeply human.

➡️ All accommodations booked through HalalBooking.com — for halal-friendly stays that nourish both soul and spirit.

✈️ For Pilgrims Seeking More

If you’ve completed Umrah and your heart whispers “not yet,” listen.
With the multiple-entry Saudi eVisa, you can explore Baku or Tbilisi, rest in remembrance, then return to Jeddah for your journey home.

Until the next journey,
I remain —
Selene
Born by the sea. Rewritten by light.
Forever walking with purpose, beneath the same moon that named me.