1 The Religious Framework

One of the core obligations of Islam, the ʿibādāt, the practice and perception of the hajj, is rooted in the corpus of religious texts. These evidently include the Qurʾan, in which several verses can be found defining the hajj as a religious obligation, and a number of hadiths, which illustrate its practice by transmitting the acts and sayings of the Prophet with regard to the hajj and establishing these as binding examples. The references to the hajj in these authoritative sources situate the doctrine at the heart of the Islamic faith. The hajj is usually thought to be moulded after the example of the Prophet’s ‘farewell hajj’, one year before his death, but a careful analysis of the relevant sources shows that it took some time before a consensus was reached about the proper procedures and the various rituals. It was only under the Umayyad Caliph ʿAbd al-Mālik (r. 646–705) that the form of the hajj as it is known today was established. From then on, the procedures remained remarkably stable, as it became connected to both the notion of orthodoxy and to the era of the Prophet as a source of piety and paradigms (Munt 2013).

The references to the Prophet and the early history of Islam inculcate the hajj with strong historical connotations. For pilgrims, a journey to the Holy Places of Mecca and Medina is first of all a visit to the places where the Prophet received his revelations, where his life unfolded, where his presence can still be felt, and where the great events of the early Muslim community occurred. This historical sensation is projected onto the Holy Places as a sacrosanct domain (Ḥaram), the buildings which embody Islamic history, and, of course, the Kaʿba, the symbolic centre of the Islamic universe, where God’s proximity can be experienced. There is hardly any hajj account, pre-modern or modern that does not refer to this historical dimension emanating from the spatial setting of the pilgrimage. It is conceptualized in the notion of ‘shawq’, or ‘longing’, that is, the desire to visit the ‘House of God’ and the grave of the Prophet. This desire is cultivated in a specific genre of texts (tashwīq) aiming to incite the believers to go on hajj, mainly consisting of compilations of Qurʾanic verses, hadiths, and religious-historical sources proving the merits (faḍāʾil) of the Holy Places (Munt 2014; Peters 1994a; 1994b; Casewit 1991).

A second field in which the religious significance of the hajj was anchored was the tradition of legal scholarship and the practice of juridical argumentation (fiqh) to uncover the requirements of the sharia, the God-given legal precepts. From an early age, all handbooks of legal rules contained a separate chapter on the hajj and many separate compendia were compiled summarizing the rituals and regulations (manāsik) of the pilgrimage. These compendia served as guides for (aspiring) pilgrims and were often kept at hand to be consulted during the rites, so as not to deviate from the proper procedures and render the pilgrimage invalid as a fulfilment of the religious obligation. The manāsik include the rules for both the obligatory hajj, which every Muslim should perform once in his life, if he is capable of doing so, and which takes place during fixed days on the Islamic calendar, and also for the ʿumra, the shortened pilgrimage, which is not obligatory and which can be performed throughout the year.

The main components of the pilgrimage treated in the manāsik manuals are, first, the conditions for embarking upon the journey, such as the ability of the pilgrim to travel without endangering his life and goods and without leaving his family in destitute circumstances; second, the types of hajj that can be performed: the ʿumra and hajj combined without interruption (qirān); the hajj without the ʿumra (but including the ṭawāf of arrival and the saʿy, see below) or preceding it (ifrād); the ʿumra and hajj with an interruption (tamattuʿ); third, the regulations concerning the actual rites of the hajj, including the taking on of the state of consecration (iḥrām) by declaring the intention (niyya) just before entering the ḥaram area, donning two unstitched garments (for men; for women the only rule is that their face may not be covered), and accepting the restrictions of the state of consecration; the circumambulation of the Kaʿba seven times (ṭawāf); running between al-Ṣafā and al-Marwa seven times (saʿy); the congregation, or ‘standing’, on the plain of ʿArafa on the ninth day of the month dhū al-ḥijja, which is the main collective ceremony of the hajj (wuqūf or waqfa); the stoning of three pillars representing the devil (ramy); the shaving of the head and ending the state of iḥram. Other recommended rites include the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa after the wuqūf, the sacrifice of animals (ʿĪd al-aḍḥā), and the farewell ṭawāf after which many pilgrims continue their journey to Medina to visit the tomb of Muhammad, which is called the ziyāra and is not officially part of the hajj.³

The doctrine and regulations of the hajj were developed by legal scholars over time within the four legal schools (madhhabs). A consensus formed about the main components, or ‘pillars’ (arkān), of the hajj, but differences remained regarding the assessment of other components, which are categorized by some scholars as ‘mandatory’ (wājib) and by others only ‘custom’ (sunna, in its general sense), while others state they are simply ‘recommended’ (mandūb). As can be expected, the manāsik are an integral part of the majority of hajj accounts. Sometimes complete compendia of the manāsik are inserted; sometimes the proper procedures are illustrated by the account of the narrator following the procedures; and, sometimes the regulations are discussed by the author with references to legal authorities. Sometimes authors refer to legal opinions, or fatwā, but in general, perhaps remarkably, fatwā collections contain very few issues relating to the hajj. Shiʿis have their own manāsik, which differ in the time-schedule and some devotional acts (Arjana 2017, 65 ff.). Of course, the excursions into law inserted in hajj accounts are meant, first, to ascertain that the author’s hajj is legally valid and accepted by God (mabrūr); second, as a guidance for future pilgrims; and, third, to represent, or construct, the religiosity and erudition of the author, reinforcing his credentials and reputation as a scholar and a pious believer. In modern hajj accounts, the legal component is often less prominent than before, but the framework of legal prescriptions is always referred to.

The rites of the hajj are not only discussed in the legal tradition, as a set of obligations, prescriptions, and conditions founded on the traditional methodologies and practices of Islamic jurisprudence. They are also considered as symbolic acts in the sense that they are based on specific ‘wisdom’ (ḥikma). This field of hajj discourse is connected with the domain of spirituality, and is explored most elaborately, but not exclusively, within Sufi thought. The hajj as an undertaking is generally symbolically imagined as a re-enactment of the believers death and journey to the hereafter. The pilgrims prepare themselves as if they are departing for their last journey; the iḥrām outfit of male pilgrims is usually compared to a shroud; and, the collective ceremony at ʿArafa is topically associated with the Last Judgement, when all believers together stand before God, but are individually responsible for their sins. After the completion of the obligatory rites, the pilgrims are cleansed of their sins ‘as when their mother bore them,’ according to a hadith (al-Ghazālī 2001, 116). Some of the rites have a plainer meaning, such as the saʿy, exhibiting the physical fitness of the Muslim community, while others have a mere allegorical meaning, such as the stoning of the pillars representing the devil, which, indirectly, symbolizes the purification of sins and the intention to denounce evil.⁴

Some ritual acts contain references to Mecca’s legendary history. The saʿy and the drinking of water from the Zamzam well in the Grand Mosque, for instance, are associated with Hājar, who was banished to the desert by Ibrāhīm and feverously ran to and fro to find water for her son Ismāʿīl. The water is still associated with various magical attributes. Other acts contain mainly symbolic and spiritual connotations, such as the ṭawāf around the Kaʿba, which is imagined as the respectful approach to a royal palace, or the kissing of the Black Stone, which is not only a stone that descended from paradise, but also, symbolically represents the right hand of God—kissing it symbolizes the renewal of the covenant with God. In the Sufi tradition, these symbolic interpretations are developed as ishāra (allusive meaning; symbol), or majāz (metaphor), and are set in the general framework of a mystical cosmography or of trajectories on the Sufi path. In general, the significance of performing the rites is primarily to show total obedience to God (Peters 1994a; 1994b).

Both the pilgrimage’s legal obligation and the long-felt desire for the Holy Places in the form of shawq are often mentioned in hajj travelogues as incentives to embark on the journey to the Hijaz. The notion of shawq introduces the emotional and experiential element into the very core of the hajj as a religious undertaking. It is a source of spirituality and the component that connects experience with the discursive referentiality of the accounts. It explains why, for instance, the Prophet’s tomb in Medina is such a significant destination for pilgrims, although it is not officially part of the hajj obligations. It explains emotional responses at the first sight of the Kaʿba or the green dome of the Prophet’s Mosque. It explains why travelogues often emphasize the physical hardships of the arduous journey to the Hijaz, or of the exhausting rituals in the blazing Arabian sun, or the illnesses and dangers to which the pilgrims are exposed during their journey. In this sense, it is associated with other tropes that indicate emotional and mental states during the hajj and that recur in hajj accounts, such as khuḍūʿ (humility), khushūʿ (humility), rahba (awe), and ṣabr (patience). In combination with legal precepts and awareness of the ḥikma of the rituals, this emotional spirituality connected the pilgrimage with everyday religiosity and determined its significance for the conduct and piety of the believers.

The spiritual connotations of the Holy Places and of specific sites fostered the incorporation of the hajj into wider patterns of pilgrimage and ritual practices. Pilgrimage to regional and local shrines of pious saints were part of everyday religiosity throughout the Muslim world. These visits (ziyāra) were a source of baraka (blessing) and an opportunity to ask the deceased saints for ‘intercession’ (tawassul) before God to obtain prosperity on earth and bliss in the hereafter (Arjana 2017, 5–16). These practices became widespread at the holy sites in the Hijaz as well, mainly because of the historical symbolism of the places and the belief that the Prophet was still alive in his grave. During the journey, pilgrims visited shrines and graves of pious saints, and in some places, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and many saints’ tombs in Africa and Asia, the hajj rites were enacted during the days of the hajj as a kind of pseudo-hajj to profit from its merits. These ideas and practices were condemned by some orthodox scholars, such as the reformer Ibn Taymiyya (1263), who restricted pilgrimage rites to the time and place of the hajj and rejected the notion of tawassul (Memon 1976).

The rich textual tradition which underlies the concept, doctrine, and practice of the hajj serves as a solid referential framework for hajj narratives. In virtually all travelogues, this religious framework is carefully and conscientiously constructed, in order to link them to the large and hierarchically organized tradition of religious discourse. The intention to go on hajj, including the various events and the spiritual experiences that are connected with specific Qurʾanic verses and hadiths, thereby defines the religious dimension of the text and the journey. During the journey, references to religious discourse may resurface from time to time in the form of quotations from the holy texts or from theological or historical sources, discussions of legal issues, the purchase of religious books, encounters with holy figures or scholars, visits to shrines and sacred places, summaries of the manāsik, etc. Often prayers or meditations are inserted, sometimes referring to the famous devotional work Dalāʾil al-khayrāt, by the Moroccan Sufi al-Jazūlī (1404–1465), which pilgrims were recommended to read during the pilgrimage. Evidently, the religious dimension of the narrative culminates in the actual hajj, both as a discursive element and as an experience. It is the hajj as a religious concept and an experience that structures the narrative as a ‘signifier’ and imbues all components with a religious value within specific cluster of meanings and symbols. It represents a stabilizing framework that determines the way in which the text should be interpreted and, to a certain extent, the main criterion to situate the hajj travelogue as a genre within the religious discursive tradition.

Still, the ways in which the religious framework is integrated in hajj narratives are diverse. Some authors emphasize specific aspects that are neglected by others. This diversity is strengthened by the secular components of the narratives, which are connected to the experiential impact of the journey through the perspective of individual authors. As we will see, the boundaries and coherence defined by the ‘objective’ framework of religious discourse are often subverted by the contingent influences of the actual journey.

2 Framing the Hajj as a Journey

Apart from any religious intentions, the hajj is a physical journey, with all the vicissitudes this implies. Within the Islamic textual tradition, the travelogue is categorized by the concept of riḥla, which is not precisely defined as a literary form, nor well-researched as a genre.⁵ Here I will not attempt to present a generic definition of riḥla, but rather concentrate on the specific category of hajj accounts. This is partly justified by the consideration that most travelogues written by Muslims across time either were hajj accounts or at least contained a hajj episode. After all, the hajj was one of the few reasons the Prophet gave for travelling, next to education and the necessity to gain a livelihood. With its tendency to give extensive instructions with regard to the moral aspects of life, the Muslim tradition also produced an elaborate code of conduct for travel, covering the permitted reasons for travelling, auspicious days for departure, pious formulas, verses and prayers, luggage, and other practical matters, both for pilgrims and secular travellers. These instructions are often included in hajj travelogues, not only to strengthen the religious layer in the text, but also as a way to contain the unpredictability of the journey by providing a detailed set of practical and moral instructions. Some of these are specifically related to the hajj and integrate the religious framework into the practical layer of the journey. After all, a journey, and especially a pilgrimage journey, is not a morally neutral, physical undertaking; it is also a journey through a ‘sacred’ landscape that contains and reveals the wonders of God’s creation, and in which all kinds of religious references are hidden or exposed. It is the interaction between the vicissitudes of physical travel and the religious purport of the journey through which the experiential component of the narrative is negotiated, as an account of a personal experience embedded in a religious discourse of signification. The ultimate aim of the journey through space was to come closer to God in the spiritual sense (Eickelman and Piscatori 1990).

The tradition of travel literature in Islam is often traced back to the famous works of Ibn Jubayr (1145–1217) and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (1304–1369). However, as has been remarked by others, these texts are perhaps too diverse to serve as the starting point for a definition of a coherent generic type. Whereas Ibn Jubayr’s book is a straightforward hajj account, complemented with a brief journey to Syria and Iraq (Ibn Jubayr 2001; 1400/1980), Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s travelogue is best understood as a partial autobiography, which contains an important hajj episode, but which is concerned much more with the author’s peregrinations through Asia (Ibn Baṭṭūṭa 1958–2000). Furthermore, whereas Ibn Jubayr’s text is a well-balanced, well-structured, compact, and stylized narrative, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s Riḥla is much more varied and filled with digressions, anecdotes, quotations, historical excursions, etc. (Netton 1996; 1993). From about the same period, we also have the less famous texts of al-ʿAbdarī (1289) and Ibn al-Ṣabāḥ (late fourteenth century). The former is a hajj travelogue from Morocco, which is less literary and more fragmentary than Ibn Jubayr’s (al-ʿAbdarī 1968), while the latter, from Andalusia, is a more coherent account of an Ibn Baṭṭūṭa-like peregrination, although it is primarily a pilgrimage account (Ibn al-Ṣabāḥ 2008). Although these four texts certainly have many features in common, it is not evident that these are sufficient to categorize them as belonging to the same generic corpus, unless it is conceded that a certain measure of diversity is part of the definition. And to what extent can the hajj be seen as the element bringing coherence in the corpus?

If we look at the corpus of hajj travelogues in the pre-modern and early modern periods, roughly between the twelfth century and 1800, we find that diversity is an important and persistent quality of the texts, and further that it took some time before the corpus crystallized into a more or less coherent generic type. The diversity is, first of all, brought about by the intentions of each author. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa and Ibn al-Ṣabāḥ were primarily ‘globetrotters’, who were not irreligious, quite on the contrary, but whose intentions were first and foremost to explore the world and perhaps find a living elsewhere. Ibn Jubayr and al-ʿAbdarī, in contrast, were deliberately pursuing a religious aim—the pilgrimage. Apart from these two categories, there is another type of travelogue, also from the Maghrib, which can be characterized as ‘literary’ journeys, because, although their ultimate destination was Mecca, they were primarily focused on encounters with literati and scholars during the journey. An example is the travelogue by the Andalusian scholar al-Tujaybī, which dates back to the end of the thirteenth century (al-Tujaybī 1395/1975). These very diverse texts were connected by the ‘event’ and ‘trope’ of the hajj, but their intentions and formal structures as narratives are quite different. Still, together they exemplify the diverse elements that came to belong to the generic conventions of hajj travelogues, in all its diversity.

Apart from the intentions of the authors, most texts are also diverse with regard to their narrative strategies, structure, and form. The basic format of the travelogue is the journal, which is either divided temporally, from day to day, or spatially, from one town to the next. Al-ʿAbdarī, for instance, who travelled by caravan through North Africa, carefully registers the stages of his itinerary, the places where water can be found, the quality of the water, the kinds of landscapes, places to buy food, weather conditions, etc., as a guide for future pilgrims. In this way, several routes through the desert were documented, so pilgrims could prepare themselves for the difficult journey. The Syrian scholar, Sufi, and poet ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī’s travelogue (1693) is systematically constructed as a day-to-day diary with a fixed formula opening the entry for each day. This structural layer of the text is a strong mechanism of referentiality, as a spatio-temporal framework that is directly related to the experience of the travellers and their interaction with their environment. This spatio-temporal structure is even more important because it is connected with the spatio-temporal schema of the hajj, which, of course, is situated in a very specific time and place (al-Nābulusī 1410/1989; Sirriyeh 1985).

The referential framework of the journey functions as a container for various kinds of inserted references to a vast reservoir of textual sources. I have already mentioned intertextual references to religious texts, legal handbooks, and theological and spiritual speculations, which link the narrative to the discursive environment of the religious tradition. As we have seen, sometimes complete compendia of manāsik were incorporated at a certain point into the spatio-temporal framework. Other inserted digressions, usually indicated as fāʾida (interesting note), masʾala (issue), gharība (strange anecdote), laṭīfa (nice anecdote), faṣl (chapter), etc., are concerned with all kinds of literary or scholarly curiosa, and are either comments or advice by the authors themselves or quotations or fragments taken from other works, such as histories, geographical handbooks, literature, biographical handbooks, other travelogues, etc. These intermezzos may be related to specific places where the author passes by, or to persons or events encountered on the way. Some authors make more use of this narrative strategy than others, but in general we can say that travelogues are, as a rule, constructed as collages of text fragments within the framework of the journal.

This strategy not only secures the narrative’s integration into other discursive traditions, such as religion, history, and geography, but also characterizes it as ‘literature’, or adab, a term used to define literary refinement and erudition, which covers a wide range of texts and allows for a great internal diversity. By associating himself with this tradition, the author displays his piety, erudition, good taste, and literary versatility. Therefore, it is no coincidence that poetry is an important component in the corpus of hajj travelogues. There are many examples of hajj accounts in verse, particularly within the Persian and Turkish traditions, and, often, travelogues contain poetry either written by the author himself or quoted by him from other sources. The poems may not only prove the author’s proficiency, but also illustrate his personal sentiments and meditations, as an aesthetic response to his environment. An interesting example of poetic interaction in a hajj travelogue is by al-Nābulusī, who often composed poems impromptu when he visited the graves of pious saints and recorded his emotional and intuitive epiphanic experiences (al-Nābulusī 1410/1989).

Whereas the inserted digressions usually refer to contingent discourses, the spatio-temporal framework firmly connects the narrative with the personal experiences of the author, which, after all, occur in a physical and material setting. This setting consists of physical and geographical conditions, but also of political circumstances, such as territorial boundaries, taxes, travel restrictions, oppression, warfare, rebellions, administrative measures, and general (in)security. Although references to political issues are often not systematic or elaborate, they are part of the referential framework of the journey, as a highly influential category of forces. Pilgrims needed permission to embark upon their journey or to pass through certain areas; they were often taxed and had to submit to specific administrative regulations; and, they were forced to make detours to avoid warfare, seditious regions, or aggressive nomad tribes. More generally, these circumstances represent an element of contingency and change in the corpus as a whole, since historical transformations leave their traces in the texts. Similarly, the encounter with different societies and peoples may evoke an anthropological interest resulting in observations of the customs of ‘exotic’ peoples, villages, and towns, which are often assessed based on religious knowledge and compliance.

Most of the references to history, geography, anthropology, or politics can be related to texts in some way or another and thereby contribute to the intertextual entanglement of the narrative. Other forms of referentiality are more exclusively related to the physical conditions of the journey, such as exhaustion, thirst, hunger, illness, accidents, heat, cold, rain, storm, fear, pain, anger, etc., and mishaps, such as being attacked and robbed by nomad tribes, brigands, and thieves. One pilgrim reports that even his clothes and the cooking pots on the fire were stolen by Bedouins on the way, while another complains about an ulcer in his foot. Travellers in a caravan through the desert are most always afraid of being attacked or of missing a water well, while travellers by sea are harassed by storms. These inconveniences are not restricted to the journey itself, but include the rites and experiences in Mecca. Many pilgrims become ill in the Holy Places and sometimes cholera causes the roads to be lined with corpses; pilgrims complain about crowdedness, particularly during both the saʿy, because the street is filled with sellers of vegetables, general goods, camels, and donkeys, and during the return from ʿArafa, when the pilgrims have to squeeze through a narrow passage where many fall from their camels and get killed; hygienic circumstances are insufficient and pilgrims complain about other pilgrims urinating at holy sites, cooking inside mosques, or using the graveyard as a place to graze their animals; the fighting around the Kaʿba to reach the Black Stone, resulting in casualties and endangering women, is generally condemned; and, theft and Bedouin attacks are rampant and cause casualties and property loss. In general, in most hajj narratives the experience of the rituals is euphoric, but the description is often combined with an unrestrained picture of their inconveniences, already in the earliest accounts.

Among the recurring structural components of the hajj travelogue, from an early stage onwards, is the practice of visiting scholars and literati on the way. This includes passing by specific religious sites, such as tombs of pious saints and scholars, prominent mosques, and religious institutions. We can already recognize this component in the account of al-ʿAbdarī (thirteenth century), who visits many scholars along the way to discuss religious issues, exchange texts, and report on colleagues. In general, these encounters resulted in ijāzas, or certificates attesting to the proficiency of a scholar in reciting and interpreting specific texts, thereby transmitting authority from one scholar to another. Some later travelogues by Maghribi authors, from the thirteenth century onwards, consist mainly of short biographies of scholars and literati with whom the authors communicated in various places during the journey, including examples of their poetry, prosopographic information, and references to their texts. It is not difficult to see that this practice, and the records which resulted from it, were conducive to the formation and preservation of scholarly and intellectual networks, in which texts circulated, forms of authority were constructed, and personal relationships were established. In al-ʿAbdarī’s text we can see that these visits could result in personal friendships. In later travelogues, the encounters along the way and in the Hijaz remained a significant element, sometimes in the form of appendixes and lists along with the insertion of ijāza texts and their chains of transmission.

Among the inconveniences of the hajj was the inevitable intercourse with people of dubious religious credentials. Travelers through North Africa often complained about the lack of knowledge about the Qurʾan or legal rules in certain villages, the impudent behaviour of women, or laxity in religious morality. Heterodoxy was even more abhorred, for instance when a caravan passed through ʿIbāḍī territory in Algeria and sometimes the hated and feared ʿIbāḍīs, an isolated heterodox sect, joined the travellers. In the Hijaz itself, it was the confrontation with Shiʿis that annoyed the Sunni majority of pilgrims. For Shiʿis, the pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala, the holy sites in Iraq, were just as important as the hajj, and the two pilgrimages were usually combined (Arjana 2017, XXV). In Mecca, the Shiʿis, mostly Persians, were obliged to pay extraordinary taxes and were often harassed by Bedouins. They were despised because of their particular rituals and litanies, which were often more fraught with emotion than the Sunnis were accustomed to. Conversely, the Persians, who often spoke only rudimentary (or ‘Qurʾanic’) Arabic, and who belonged to a privileged elite, looked down on the uncouth Bedouins and the unsophisticated conditions of the hajj. In this way, the hajj functioned as a touchstone of religious orthodoxy and normative behaviour and an occasion where differences in religious practice came to the surface. As a result of these encounters, in the early modern period Mecca and Medina became centres of religious debates and education, including the exchange of hadith scholarship and theological opinions, which subsequently influenced debates in the various parts of the Muslim world and strengthened a sense of orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

This brief outline suggests that it is possible to define a fairly consistent framework for identifying a coherent corpus that is governed by shared generic conventions. Hajj travelogues are internally fragmented texts with strong intertextual ramifications and organized primarily by spatio-temporal and religious frameworks; they are characterized by encounters, personal experiences, references to a combined physical and ‘sacred’ geography, and structured by the hajj as the main ‘signifier’. It should be stressed that although this format is to a large extent shaped by narrative conventions and referentiality, hajj travelogues generally contain distinctly personal elements, both as experiences and as meditations. They can therefore be perceived as narratives in which personal forms of religiosity are constructed and conveyed by the author by combining the subjective, contingent experience of the journey with references to a solid, ‘objective’ framework of religious discourse, in order to negotiate a place in the broad spectrum of Muslim religiosity. Although tendencies to idealize the hajj experience can be perceived, the overall impression is that the corpus presents a genuine experience of the hajj, including its inconveniences and adversities. Significantly, over the course of time pilgrims began referring to their predecessors and incorporated often long excerpts from their accounts in their own travelogues, suggesting that the authors were conscious of being part of an ongoing tradition.

3 Periodization, Cultural Background, and Modernity

The overview presented above is mainly based on a textual approach to the hajj travelogue as a narrative form. However, as I have argued, the element of travel as a ‘real’, contingent experience implies that the texts are necessarily co-constructed by influences from outside the text and the historical setting in which they were conceived. We have seen that the paradigms I underscored were mainly derived from the Maghribi tradition (Andalusia and Morocco), which produced the earliest examples of hajj travelogues and which steadily developed into a coherent corpus over time (Māgāman 2014). This corpus came to maturation in the monumental work of Abdallāh al-ʿAyyāshī (1627–1679), which became a paradigm of hajj travel narratives and which contains all the elements that became part of the corpus during the previous centuries (al-ʿAyyāshī 2011). The question arises: To what extent do other traditions of hajj travelogues, from other parts of the Muslim world, fit in this paradigm, taking into their different cultural backgrounds and periodization into account?

In general, we can say that the hajj travelogues which emerged in Ottoman Syria, Persia, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent followed their own trajectories, which were influenced by the particular literary conventions and historical temporalities of those regions. Whereas the first Maghribi travelogues appeared from the twelfth century onwards, the Persian tradition, which included texts from Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, dates back to the eleventh century with the hajj travelogue of Nāṣer-e Khosrow (1004–1088), a rather frugal but still personal diary, which was, however, not succeeded by other travel accounts until the mid-sixteenth century (Nasir-i Khusraw 2001). An important text within the Persian tradition was the Futūḥ al-Ḥaramayn by Muḥy al-Dīn al-Lārī (d. 1526), which is not a proper travelogue, but a description of the pilgrimage and the Holy Places, accompanied by drawings (Burak 2017; Milstein 2006). In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries some interesting travel accounts were written in Persian, but the great upsurge came during Qajar rule in the nineteenth century (Kiyanrad 2020; al-Afsgar 2002; Daniel 2002; Hanaway 2002). The first travelogue in Urdu, from the Indian subcontinent, was written in the mid-nineteenth century, while the Ottoman-Turkish tradition evolved as an offshoot from the Persian tradition and was initially marked by rather factual itineraries and guidebooks. The poet Yūsuf Nābī (1642–1712) was among the first to write a personal hajj account in Ottoman Turkish in the early modern period (Çoşkun 2000; 1985). In Syria, travel literature as a literary genre began to flourish from the seventeenth century onwards and developed its own poetics. Its highlight was the aforementioned hajj travelogue written by al-Nābulusī, which gained a paradigmatic status similar to al-ʿAyyāshī’s text (Elger 2003). Travelogues of pilgrims from West Africa, Malaysia, and the Indonesian archipelago were first written during the nineteenth century (al-Naqar 1972). The different temporalities of these traditions can be explained by historical circumstances, such as the combination of a sophisticated literary and scholarly culture in the pre-modern Maghrib combined with its distance from the Islamic core lands and the increased integration of the Muslim world after the emergence of the great early modern empires in the sixteenth century under the Ottoman, Safawid, and Mughal sultans.

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the peculiarities of the travelogues that were conceived within these diverse cultural and political environments. May it suffice to say that all these strands within the corpus of hajj travelogues show some remarkable similarities, such as the basic frameworks of religion and the journey along with an often-fragmented structure, enabling the author to include references and texts of various kinds. Some accounts are focused mainly on the practical component of the journey and the itinerary, as a guide for future pilgrims, while others reduce this part to a minimum, concentrating on the religious and spiritual aspects of the undertaking. The fascinating text written by the Mughal scholar and Sufi Shāh Walīallāh (1703–1762), for instance, uses the spiritual and historical symbolism of the Holy Places to report on his epiphanies and conversations with the Prophet. The aim is not only to use the connotations of the hajj to explain his spiritual philosophy, but also to present himself as an authority endorsed by the Prophet himself (Shāh Walīallāh 2007). However, this was not specific for Indian texts; another account from the Indian subcontinent, by Rafīʿ al-Dīn al-Murādābādī (1721–1788), who travelled to Mecca in 1786, shows a much more balanced composition of spiritual and practical components (al-Murādābādī 2004).

The different traditions seem to converge into a more or less coherent genre during the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not only because of their shared referential frameworks, but also as a result of the increased interactions between the different cultural domains of the Muslim world during the advancing process of globalization. As a phenomenon transcending territorial boundaries, the hajj was particularly affected by the processes of globalization, which not only intensified encounters between Europe and the Muslim world, but also the communication and exchange between the various Muslim lands and empires. The hajj and the networks it maintained became a significant mechanism in the intricate political configurations that developed from the end of the fifteenth century onwards, and it can be argued that the hajj travelogue, as a genre practiced all over the Muslim world, was co-produced by processes of globalization, which provided the continuity between its early models and newly emerging trends.

It is my presupposition that no sharp rupture can be perceived in the development of the corpus of hajj between a ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ period. Instead, I suggest that we should consider the changes that occurred as a development within a continuous and dynamic discursive field. The basic patterns of the hajj account, which I sketched above, remained in use during the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, even in its most conventional forms. Still, the circumstances in which these accounts were written underwent significant changes from the onset of the nineteenth century onwards, which also affected the form and content of hajj narratives. The invasion of Egypt by Napoleon, the rise of the alliance between the Saʿūd family and the Wahhābī reformers in the Arabian Peninsula, which resulted in their occupation of the Holy Places between 1805 and 1810, and the occupation of Algeria by the French in 1830, heralded a new era. European nations rapidly established their world-hegemony in the fields of politics, economy, and culture, and came to dominate most parts of the Muslim world in Africa and Asia through colonial rule. New routes for trade and travel were opened up, particularly after the introduction of steamships and railways, which made the need for caravans obsolete. The hajj, too, became increasingly supervised and organized by colonial governments, who attempted to control the rapidly increasing number of Muslim pilgrims from their domains (Green 2015; Gelvin and Green 2014).

The rise of European coloniality in Africa and Asia heralded the decline and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, which brought the Middle East under European control and wiped away age-old administrative structures. Apart from the almost total control of travel routes by European maritime companies, the consequences for the hajj were twofold: first, due to the improved facilities for travel, the number of pilgrims rapidly increased during the nineteenth century; second, pilgrims became dependent on newly founded mechanisms of control, such as permissions for travelling, visas, transport tickets, passports, bank deposits, etc. An additional change during this time came about due to cholera epidemies in Mecca, which stemmed from the large growth of pilgrims. International conventions controlled by European powers imposed various sanitary regulations on the hajj, such as quarantines for pilgrims travelling to and from Mecca. The main facilities for quarantine were on the island Karamān near the Arabian coast, al-Ṭūr in Sinai, and Beirut, while temporary facilities were built in Yanbūʿ, on the Arabian coast, and Bombay. Obviously, these measures greatly affected the experience of pilgrims, who on the one hand profited from faster and cheaper modes of travel, but on the other hand had to suffer the restrictions imposed upon them by non-Muslims (Mishra 2011; Pearson 1996).⁶

The transformations during the nineteenth century were not confined to the practicalities of the hajj, but also involved the imposition of values, institutions, and administrative forms under European tutelage and the imposition of the European form of modernity in all fields of society. European domination was experienced as intruding and oppressive, and over the course of the nineteenth century throughout the Muslim world strategies were conceived to achieve a form of political and cultural emancipation, which aimed not only to restore the Muslims’ past glory and sense of dignity, but also to cultivate new, modern vision of Muslim societies. A modern outlook on religion was thought to revitalize society and afford the Muslims their rightful place in the modern world. These strategies were directed at a re-orientation towards Muslim cultural heritage, the adoption of useful examples from European societies and culture, and the mobilization of modern ideologies of political emancipation, which could support the struggle against European colonial hegemony. These trends became particularly visible towards the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century, when colonial domination was experienced as a threat to cultural authenticity and the very survival of Islam more generally.

The nineteenth century programs of reform in the Muslim world, which were partly initiated before European colonial domination and partly by the subsequent colonial governments, had far-reaching consequences for Muslim social and cultural life. The traditional system of education was replaced by new, secular curricula and institutions from which a new intellectual elite graduated well equipped to fill the new administrative positions. Printing presses were introduced all over the Muslim world, which produced new forms of communication through printed books and a wide array of periodicals, such as newspapers, popular-scientific journals, cultural and literary journals, translations, etc. These publications fostered intellectual exchanges between Europe and the Muslim world, but also between Muslim societies and contributed to the formation of what may be called a global public sphere in which social, cultural, and political matters were discussed (Jung 2011). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, these debates were dominated by a new class of intellectuals, who worked in the fields of culture and media or as officials and who developed a self-confident, modern outlook on life. They were nationalists and opposed European domination; they were deeply religious, but also modern and embraced a scientifically based, rational worldview (Ryzova 2014).

All these trends evidently affected the practice of the hajj, which, as an inherently transnational phenomenon in which religious, political, and cultural domains converged, was at the heart of the processes of globalization. Traces of these processes can be found in the corpus of hajj travelogues, not only in the practicalities of travel and the encounter with modern bureaucracies, but also in the perception of the hajj and the hajj narrative as a medium for expressing ideas, constructing identities, and stimulating debates. Moreover, whereas early modern accounts were usually compiled by religious scholars, the new facilities gave new social groups the opportunity to go on hajj and publish their experiences in books and journals. As a result, the impact of modernity is not only visible on the level of the journey, where mechanized transport replaced the camel caravans, but also in the style and structure of texts and authorial concerns. The formal aspects of the narrative were influenced by the rise of journalism, which required a simple style, a direct involvement of the reader in the events conveyed by the author, and a less fragmented structure. This new style preserved the conventional components by integrating them in a more coherent narrative, divided into thematic chapters.

As far as the perception of the hajj is concerned, the religious framework of the hajj, consisting of basic references to religious texts, the manāsik, and experiences of the physical and spiritual aspects of the rituals, remained mostly intact. Significantly, it became more common to philosophize about the hajj as compared to practices and rituals in other religions and to reflect upon the rituals from a modern, rational perspective. Sometimes, this resulted in thoughts about the cultural and political function of the hajj, as a symbol of Muslim unity, based on a shared past that was symbolized by the Holy Places, and as a potential framework for political debates and political activism. Many pilgrim accounts complain about the oppressive and humiliating nature of European domination, which they directly experienced during their journey, and they present the hajj as an occasion to reconfirm their Muslim identity and dignity and to discuss resistance strategies. The travelogues increasingly reveal a confident self-image and cultural militancy that are constructed around shared connotations of the hajj. In this sense, the hajj travelogue was fully integrated in the debates about reform, modernity, and emancipation that took place throughout the Muslim world from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, documenting the emergence of a modern Muslim worldview.

Perhaps the most paradigmatic hajj account of the nineteenth century is the monumental al-Riḥla al-Ḥjāziyya by the Tunisian writer, journalist, and politician Muḥammad al-Sanūsī (1851–1900). The text was written between 1883 and 1886 in three volumes, which contain his exile and journeys to Europe and Istanbul, his hajj in 1882, and his religious reflections, mainly focused on his adherence to various Sufi orders. A list of important contemporaries, with brief biographies, is added, most of whom al-Sanūsī met during his peregrinations. The account is structured according to the well-established conventions, combining a diary—covering the hajj and other journeys—, with all kinds of religious digressions and with poetry, indicating a clearly ‘traditional’ literary interest and taste. However, the text is permeated with reflections on modernity, politics, and transnational encounters, which are characteristic of the second half of the nineteenth century. The account shows the process of negotiation between conventional and modern elements and narrative strategies, which shows on the one hand the resilience of conventional forms, and on the other hand the capability of incorporating modern influences, in order to achieve the age-old aim of constructing an individual form of religiosity within a changing environment (al-Sanūsī 1396/1976).

The combination of religion and political activism cannot be separated from the growing influence of Wahhābism on reformist thought. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the coalition between the Saʿūd family and the Wahhābī scholars, dating back to the eighteenth century but defeated in the 1820s, was restored. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Saʿūd embarked upon a renewed struggle against the Ottoman administrative structure of the Hijaz, represented by the age-old dynasty of Meccan Sharīfs and the Ottoman governors. During the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Sharīf Ḥusayn declared his independence, initially with British support, but he was defeated and expelled by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who founded a new political entity that eventually became the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz claimed to have founded an independent kingdom based on the sharia and Islamic values, and presented himself as the guardian of the Holy Places in service of the Muslim community as a whole. This alleged universalism was contradicted both by the rather authoritarian regime that he installed and which consolidated his position as a local potentate (rather than an Islamic leader) and by the strict regulations introduced by the Wahhābī scholars who provided the regime with its ideological legitimacy (Mouline 2011; al-Rasheed 2002; Ochsenwald 1984).

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Figure 1.1

Picture of the Mausoleum of Amir Hamza (c. 1907)

Photographer: H.A. Mirza & Sons [10r] (1/1), British Library: Visual Arts, Photo 174/10, in Qatar Digital Library (date c. 1907) https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023483748.0x00001f [accessed 18 April 2022].

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The victory of Wahhābī reformism in the Hijaz had important consequences for the proceedings and the experience of the hajj. The strict regime succeeded in establishing more security for the pilgrims, who also profited from the abolition of certain taxes, the importation of automobiles, and the gradual improvement of health care and sanitary facilities. However, the Wahhābīs also demanded the destruction of several important historical sites in Mecca and Medina, such as the birth-house of the Prophet, the house of his wife Khadīja, several monumental graves of the Prophet’s family and companions in the cemeteries of Mecca and Medina, and the mausoleum of Ḥamza, the hero of the battle of Uḥud in early Islamic history. According to the Wahhābī doctrines, referring to Ibn Taymiyya, the monuments were potential sites where humans were worshipped instead of God, and therefore were a source of shirk (polytheism). Moreover, the graves were places where the intercession of the deceased were sought and where prayers and ritual acts were common practice, which, according to the sharia, were prohibited as unlawful innovations (bidʿa). Guards were positioned at the sites to prevent pilgrims from entering or performing any kind of ritual act or displaying other kinds of devotion or veneration (Willis 2017).

In most hajj accounts after 1924, when the Saudi conquest of the Hijaz was completed, the victory of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz is hailed as a felicitous event. The new state was the only significant independent Muslim polity, which combined religious conservatism and fundamentalism with a modern and optimistic view of the future, providing Muslims all over the world with a model of political emancipation. Still, the rigorous religious policy was criticized by most, not only because it clearly contradicted the beliefs and practices of mainstream Muslims, but also because it caused the destruction of an important part of the Muslims’ historical legacy. In modern cultural and intellectual debates, historical awareness was one of the pillars of a modern self-image and cultural identity, which restored the place of Islam on the global scene. The monuments were seen as symbols commemorating the past glory of Islam and the unity of Muslims under the banner of the faith. The extremism of the Wahhābīs was mostly appreciated for its morality, gender segregation, prayer obligations, and use of corporeal punishment, but rejected as obscurantist in its intolerance towards divergent practices and opinions.

The modern corpus of hajj travelogues retains the basic structure of the conventional accounts, which were shaped by the interaction between a religious framework, referring to the discursive tradition of the hajj, and the framework of the journey as a physical undertaking. Still, the modern corpus emanates an increased globalized awareness, which links it to the historical transformations that occurred at the time and shows how authors were able to absorb new trends and influences. In the field of religion, the most important adaptations were the increasing influence of reformist thought, which, from the 1920s onwards, was dominated by the Wahhābī perspective, which, supported by the Saudis, succeeded in imposing a normative framework on the practice and concept of the hajj, and eventually, partly through the hajj, on Muslim thought and practice as a whole. A further change was the connection made between religion and politics as a counter-strategy against European dominance, which resulted in an emphasis on the secular function of the hajj and the Holy Places as a meeting place for Muslims and a potential occasion for mobilization. The function of the hajj as a mechanism for exchange and the preservation of networks changed as well: the new intellectuals were less interested in scholarship in the traditional sense, and instead preferred to visit fellow journalists and writers and the editorial offices of journals wherever they could. Political activists utilized the hajj to recruit members for their organizations and distribute pamphlets, exemplified by the Indian Salafist scholar al-Nadwī, who was a follower of al-Mawdūdī (al-Nadwī 1419/1999).

On the level of the journey, the basic form of the diary referring to a spatio-temporal setting remained, although obviously the temporal schemas changed as a result of new transport facilities, quarantine, political restrictions, etc. The practicalities of the journey were also adapted to the new circumstances: encounters with fellow pilgrims from other societies occurred on ships, in trains, and in the colonial, westernized capitals. Many pilgrims spent some time in European port towns, either voluntarily or as an inevitable stop over on their way to Mecca, and integrated their experiences into their account. Some expressed their disgust at the encroachments of non-believers into the religious prerogatives of Muslims, such as the hajj, but there were also pilgrims who praised the innovations introduced by modern technology. All these elements do not essentially differ from the conventions of the early modern hajj account, although references to history, geography, and politics become more prominent and acquired a new significance. They are not included to add information, but to incorporate a political vision into the construction of the author’s self-image.

The possibilities offered by modern printing techniques strengthened specific aspects hajj account conventions. First, although providing instructions to future pilgrims had always been part of the conventions, the rise of printing technology enabled authors to develop new forms of guidebooks for pilgrims, in cheap, compact formats. During his hajj in 1916, the Egyptian reformist thinker and journalist Rashīd Riḍā distributed his brochure Manāsik al-ḥajj to fellow pilgrims on the boat to Jedda, while in the 1920s the Egyptian and Saudi governments together began publishing ‘hajj guides’, which contained not only instructions for the various rites, but also practical information about travel facilities, valuta, lodging, codes of conduct, formalities, etc. The booklets, which had the format of a tourist guide, also contained advertisements and photographs (Muẓhir 1348/1929).

A second development was the systematic insertion of photographs in hajj accounts, showing holy sites and the author in various outfits, before and after iḥrām. As we have seen, the tradition of adding illustrations to pilgrimage books goes back at least to the Persian example of al-Lārī in the first half of the sixteenth century. Another early example is a series of colour drawings dating from 1559 (Milstein 2001). It was particularly in the Persian tradition that illustrations of this kind, ranging from primitive images and plans of the holy sites to elaborate miniatures, were developed, mainly as a form of tashwīq (Marzolph 2014). In the Arabic tradition, the devotional work Dalāʾil al-khayrāt is famous for its images of the Holy Places, while sometimes rather primitive drawings and plans are found in nineteenth century travelogues, at times including images of steamships and trains. In the beginning of the twentieth century, it became common to add photographs to the text, which contributed to the construction of an author’s modern self-image. It also became fashionable to send photographs as postcards during the hajj, which were for sale in Mecca (Murat Kargili 2014). Also during this time, an album with photographs of the Holy Places was printed in India as a modern form of tashwīq, that is, stimulating desire (Asani and Gavin 1998).

A remarkable development from the beginning of the twentieth century was the rapid emergence of an Egyptian corpus of travelogues, which had previously been conspicuously absent within the tradition. The sudden upsurge can be explained by noting that Egypt was, at that time, the core of political and cultural debates and that a group of intellectuals emerged who were inclined to adopt a modern lifestyle where religion played a prominent role. Moreover, after a period of conflicts, the Egyptian and Saudi governments took measures to stimulate the pilgrimage to Mecca by offering facilities, reducing prices, and issuing advertising campaigns. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Saudi king ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz invited Egyptian journalists and writers to come to the Hijaz and write about their experiences. This resulted in a diverse series of hajj accounts, ranging from ironic literary impressions and journalistic diaries to ideologically committed confessional texts. The apogee of this group of texts is Fī manzil al-waḥy (‘In the house of revelation’, 1939) by the writer, journalist, and politician Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (1888–1956), who had some years before written an innovative biography of the Prophet. His text is a monumental achievement, which incorporates the tradition of the hajj account and moulds it into a modern narrative form (Gershoni 1994; Haykal 1952).

Another development which occurred in the first half of the 20th century, was the increase of hajj travelogues written by Muslims from Europe, both migrants who had settled in the European capitals and port towns, and converts for whom the pilgrimage was an essential stage in their trajectory of conversion. In the 19th century several European travellers visited Mecca and Medina during the hajj season, either disguised as a Muslim, or as converts to Islam. The most prominent example is John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817), the Swiss-British traveller, who participated in the hajj of 1814–1815, presumably as a converted Muslim, and who wrote a monumental anthropological work about his experiences (Burckhardt 1829/ 1993). Another interesting example is the account by the Hungarian orientalist and convert Gyula Germanus (1884–1979), who stayed in India and Egypt for some time to improve his knowledge of Islam, before proceeding to the Hijaz in 1935 to perform the hajj. His detailed travelogue is one of the landmarks of the tradition of hajj literature (Germanus s.d. [1938]). In some cases, the European pilgrims were converted in the colonies, for instance the artist Étienne Dinet (1861–1929), who lived in Algeria and travelled to Mecca in 1929, or Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867–1963), who grew up in Muslim countries and performed the hajj in 1933 as a guest of the king, and as the first European woman (Dinet 1930; Cobbold 2009). The appearance of these travelogues marked the growing influence of globalization on the hajj, and represented a new strand in the tradition of hajj accounts, which, together with the accounts of modern European Muslims writing in European languages, straddled the traditions of European and Muslim travel literature. In the case of converts, the hajj accounts are often part of a biographical account in which the hajj was the component completing a trajectory of transition.⁷

One remark remains to be made before I proceed to the conclusion: The contribution of women to the tradition of hajj accounts is embarrassingly slight. Although we have evidence that women took part in the hajj from an early stage, accounts by women are hard to find (Fewkes 2021). In the corpus until 1950, it is only in the Persian tradition that we find travelogues written by women from the ruling elite, which provide interesting insights into the conditions of the hajj based on their personal experiences. The first of these accounts dates back to the late seventeenth century; other examples are from the late nineteenth century (Mahallati 2011; Alam and Subrahmanyam 2009, 24–44). Two well-known accounts were written by two Nawab Begums of Bhopal, in 1870 and 1913 (Jahan 2013; Sikandar 2007). In Arabic, no substantial hajj accounts by women seem to have survived in spite of the increased access for women to education and printed media from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.

4 Conclusion

This chapter is not intended as a kind of pre-history of the modern hajj, nor as a historical framework for contemporary practices and perceptions of the hajj. My argument is, rather, that contemporary narratives of the hajj, both oral and written, are part of a dynamic tradition whose conventions date back to its emergence and which retain its basic patterns while at the same time incorporate new trends, both in form and in content. These patterns are embedded in a long and consistent discursive tradition. Evidently, contexts have changed and have affected hajj accounts in many ways, but since the genre was flexible and varied from the beginning, these influences could be absorbed without disrupting the basic patterns.

The references and concepts used by historical authors to construct their texts and convey their experiences, both as a form of self-representation and as a means to construct and display their religiosity, are to a large extent the same as those found in contemporary accounts by pilgrims, both written and oral. These narrators refer to basic conceptualizations and symbols of the hajj, shaped by the sharia, by longing (shawq), and by interpretations (ḥikma); they relate physical experiences (illness, crowds, etc.) and emotional responses (euphoria, annoyance, etc.); they see the hajj as a mechanism of encounter in various ways, reaffirming social and cultural connections; they allow social and political circumstances to co-create their experiences and their narratives; and, they have to deal with bureaucracies, authorities, organizers, and instructors who contribute to the hajj experience, either in a positive or in a negative manner. Conventional concepts, doctrines, and historical sensations provided by the hajj are used to renegotiate religious attitudes and accommodate them to new social contexts and sensitivities. The ultimate aim of these hajj narratives is to communicate a form of religiosity that is structured by the discursive connotations of the hajj through the authors personal experience of an extraordinary journey.