The pilgrimage to Mecca - the hajj - is a major aspect of the Islamic religion, yet little has been written about its history or of the conditions under which thousands of pilgrims from far-flung regions of the Islamic world were able to travel to the heart of the Arabian peninsula. This pioneering book concentrates on the pilgrimage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Mecca was ruled by the Ottoman sultans.

At a time when, for the majority of the faithful, the journey was long, arduous and fraught with danger, the provision of food, water, shelter and protection for pilgrims presented a major challenge to the provincial governors of the vast Ottoman Empire. Drawing on rich documentation left by Ottoman administrators, and on the accounts of contemporary pilgrims, Suraiya Faroqhi deals with such major issues as the financing of the pilgrimage and the political problems it posed

1. Above all, this book focuses on the experience of everyday life for those involved in the hajj. Into her account Faroqhi weaves stories of merchants lending to caravan commanders and then struggling to get their money back, of officials confronting the complaints of irate pilgrims robbed in the desert, and of provincial governors coping with recalcitrant Bedouin tribes and even more intractable subordinates.

Pilgrims and Sultans makes a unique contribution to the social and political history of the Middle East.