162 Chapter Five
to approach Khakimov to ask for the diplomatic protection “they had enjoyed
in the past.”^15 Khakimov saw strategic and economic opportunities in these
petitions. In 1925 he proposed to Chicherin that the Soviet government facili-
tate the hajj for Muslims from China, Afghanistan, and Persia. By simplifying
the visa procedure through Soviet lands for hajj pilgrims, he argued, they could
attract more Chinese, Persian, and Afghan Muslims to use Soviet railroads and
steamships out of the Black Sea to get to Mecca. And the Soviet consulate could
provide protection to them, given that they had no diplomatic representatives
to help them in the Hejaz.^16
Chicherin received Khakimov’s proposal when the Soviet government was
under growing pressure to reopen routes to Mecca through the USSR. In early
1926 the NKID received petitions from Persian Muslims who demanded access
to their old routes by way of the Black Sea and Constantinople. They asked to be
allowed to cross the border and take Soviet railroads and steamships to Mecca.^17
At the same time, Soviet consulates in Sinkiang reported similar requests from
Chinese Muslims, who petitioned for permission to make the hajj through the
USSR, instead of their usual way through India. The Soviet route appealed to
Chinese Muslims because it allowed them to visit Constantinople, a site of
important Muslim shrines and holy sites and a popular stop along pre–World
War I hajj itineraries, as we have seen. The route through the USSR also offered
Chinese hajj pilgrims a more comfortable climate for travel: in the late 1920s
the hajj fell during the summer months, and many complained about the trop-
ical heat in India.^18
These demands from Persian and Chinese Muslims were not coincidental or
isolated cases. They attest to the global revival of hajj traffic, largely due to polit-
ical changes in Arabia. The war in Arabia had just ended, and the Saudis had
declared their new state (in 1932 they would rename it the Saudi Kingdom).^19
This brought stability to Arabia and a revival of the pilgrimage. In 1926 the
Saudi government organized and oversaw the hajj, bringing order to it for the
first time in nearly a decade. The effects were immediate: the year 1927 saw
the greatest hajj traffic since World War I, and Europe’s imperial powers
resumed responsibility for facilitating the traffic between their colonies and
Arabia, built new facilities for pilgrims in and around Jeddah, and competed
with one another for influence in Arabia and control over the hajj.^20
Eager to bring the USSR into this imperial competition, Chicherin supported
Khakimov’s idea. In February 1926, he submitted an expanded proposal for
Soviet involvement in the hajj to the Politburo (the highest policy-making body
in the Communist Party), to ask for its approval. The proposal he submitted