The British Empire at its height governed more than half the world’s Muslims. It was a political imperative for the Empire to present itself to Muslims as a friend and protector, to take seriously what one scholar called its role as “the greatest Mohamedan power in the world.” Few tasks were more important than engagement with the pilgrimage to Mecca. Every year, tens of thousands of Muslims set out for Mecca from imperial territories throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, from the Atlantic Ocean to the South China Sea. Men and women representing all economic classes and scores of ethnic and linguistic groups made extraordinary journeys across waterways, deserts, and savannahs, creating huge challenges for officials charged with the administration of these pilgrims. They had to balance the religious obligation to travel against the desire to control the pilgrims’ movements, and they became responsible for the care of those who ran out of money. John Slight traces the Empire’s complex interactions with the Hajj from the 1860s, when an outbreak of cholera led Britain to engage reluctantly in medical regulation of pilgrims, to the Suez Crisis of 1956. The story draws on a varied cast of characters—Richard Burton, Thomas Cook, the Begums of Bhopal, Lawrence of Arabia, and frontline imperial officials, many of them Muslim—and gives voice throughout to the pilgrims themselves. The British Empire and the Hajj is a crucial resource for understanding how this episode in imperial history was experienced by rulers and ruled alike.

The hajj calls Muslims to journey to Mecca from wherever they are across the world. Of the far-flung communities one of the largest is that of the Muslims of Southeast Asia, and within that region in times past, one of the principal centres for hajj transit and transport was Singapore. If modern air travel bridges continents within hours, before the 1970s, pilgrim travel from Southeast Asia was by sea, and distance and difficulties were far more strongly felt. Hajj pilgrims then might take a lifetime to save for the journey, so a great many were old and frail, yet no real records remain and very few personal accounts exist of the experience, the tests, or fears along the way, of the time spent under sail or by 'steam.' This book sets out to describe the development of hajj shipping and the historical place of Singapore in this network. And, through anecdotes and comparisons, images and maps, to paint a picture of what this hajj journey by sea entailed and, in that sense, to offer a kind of 'human face' to the journey.Related Link(s)

Scholars from a range of fields tell the story of the Hajj and explain its significance as one of the key events in the Muslim religious calendar. This volume pays attention to the diverse aspects of the Hajj, as lived every year by hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide.

The Qu'ran admonishes Muslims that "the pilgrimage to the temple is an obligation due to God from those who are able to journey there." Today over one and a half million pilgrims annually fulfill this Fifth Pillar of Islam, the Hajj. Saudi Arabia conquered the Hijaz in part to protect Hajjis from abuses in the management of the Hajj. How does that country now administer the religious event that brings so many people, often poor and illiterate, into one small area to perform a variety of complex rituals? How does the government protect its visitors' health and safety, and ensure their proper guidance through the necessary rites? How does it move so many pilgrims in and out of what is essentially an out-of-the-way desert? David Long has set this thoughtful examination of the twentieth-century Hajj within its historical framework. He first provides a clear, concise description of the rituals either necessary or traditional to the proper performance of the Hajj; he then relates how the inhabitants of Mecca used to manage the pilgrimage and finally, relates how the new Saudi rulers gradually brought the Hajj service industry under government regulation. Today there is probably no agency of the Saudi government which is not at least tangentially concerned with the Hajj. Only in the area of health did there exist a history of public management. By the early nineteenth century it had become all too clear that the Hajj served to carry diseases endemic to the Orient to Europe, and by the end of that century health and quarantine procedures were under international control. Today the Saudi government has sole control of these matters. Oil revenue vastly exceeds Hajj revenues--once a major source of Saudi income--but the Hajj continues to play an enormous role in the religious, social, and political life of the country. And even in economics it structures the Saudi businessman's year and provides part- or full-time employment to more Saudi citizens than does the oil industry. This volume contains an extensive bibliography, appendixes containing statistical material on recent Hajjs, maps, and a glossary.

A highly original new history of Muslim political culture across the Indian Ocean from 1739 to 1857. Examining South Asian connections with the Middle East, Rishad Choudhury draws on research in multilingual sources and archives to reveal the imperial entanglements of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

THE HAJJ RITUALS MCQ (MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS) SERVES AS A VALUABLE RESOURCE FOR INDIVIDUALS AIMING TO DEEPEN THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF VARIOUS COMPETITIVE EXAMS, CLASS TESTS, QUIZ COMPETITIONS, AND SIMILAR ASSESSMENTS. WITH ITS EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF MCQS, THIS BOOK EMPOWERS YOU TO ASSESS YOUR GRASP OF THE SUBJECT MATTER AND YOUR PROFICIENCY LEVEL. BY ENGAGING WITH THESE MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS, YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT, IDENTIFY AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT, AND LAY A SOLID FOUNDATION. DIVE INTO THE HAJJ RITUALS MCQ TO EXPAND YOUR HAJJ RITUALS KNOWLEDGE AND EXCEL IN QUIZ COMPETITIONS, ACADEMIC STUDIES, OR PROFESSIONAL ENDEAVORS. THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS ARE PROVIDED AT THE END OF EACH PAGE, MAKING IT EASY FOR PARTICIPANTS TO VERIFY THEIR ANSWERS AND PREPARE EFFECTIVELY.

In this book, Raihan Ismail examines the attitudes of the Saudi "ulama" towards various Shia sects and communities by analyzing their sermons, lectures, publications and religious rulings. She explores what the motivating factors are behind the divisive sectarian rhetoric that the 'ulama' employ.

First published in 1989. This is the first translation of the Muwatta' in the English language. Imam Malik came from a family of learning and grew up in Madina al-Munawarra which was the capital of knowledge at that time, especially the knowledge of hadith. Known as one of the great reciter’, Malik's predisposition for retention and understanding of knowledge he took it upon himself to serve the shari'a and to preserve the Prophetic sunna. He did this by relaying it from those notable Tabi'un with whose knowledge he was satisfied and whose words he thought worthy of conveying and by his work he opened the way for all later writers and cleared a path for the compilation of Islamic law.