8 Introduction
routes that were largely beyond the view or comprehension of colonial officials
in any given setting. Also, colonial officials worried about the hajj as a source
of infectious disease and subversive political ideas. Many would have liked to
abolish it. They feared Mecca, which was (and is today) closed to non-Muslims,
as a center of anticolonial political agitation, where Muslims from around the
world converged to plot the overthrow of European empires. However, because
the hajj was a duty for Muslims (the Qurʿan stipulates that all adult Muslims
who can afford it must perform the pilgrimage once in their lifetime), it was
not possible to ban it. At the same time, colonialism, with its railroads and
steamships, opened up access to Mecca and intensified Muslims’ attachment
to the Holy City and desire to make the pilgrimage. In the colonial era, Islam
worldwide became more Mecca-centric than ever before in history.
Figure I.3. Shamail print produced in Kazan, reflecting growing interest in Mecca and the
hajj among Russia’s Muslims. It depicts Mt. Arafat, outside of Mecca. Notes in Old Tatar in
the Arabic script describe the religious significance of the site. Early 1900s. (Tatarskii sha-
mail: slovo i obraz [Moscow: Mardzhani, 2009])