Pilgrims and Sultans : Hajj Under the Ottomans

The Hajj - the pilgrimage to Mecca - is of profound spiritual significance in Islam, yet it has had surprisingly little historical coverage.

During the 16th and 17th centuries Mecca was ruled by the Ottoman sultans, whose bureaucrats left a wealth of documents describing the pilgrimage and its administration.

Suraya Faroqhi's study takes full advantage of this material to provide a detailed description of how the Hajj was organized.

Negotiations with provincial governors, the sheriffs of Mecca and Beduin leaders to ensure the pilgrims' safe passage were often long and tortuous.

But political agreements were only the beginning: the pilgrimage then had to be financed, and the pilgrims and their animals housed, fed and watered, and protected from marauders. To balance this official view of the pilgrimage, Professor Faroqhi has also made extensive use of the pilgrims' own accounts of their everyday experiences as their caravans criss-crossed the Ottoman Empire.

Religion was ubiquitous and unquestioned, but many of the sights and sounds the pilgrims encountered were new and exotic - and not always pleasant.

They were sometimes robbed in the desert, there were squabbles over the repayment of money lent to their caravan commanders, and conditions were often very trying.