Mapping the Hajj, Integrating Muslims 53as well as Jerusalem (the third most holy site in Islam), Damascus, and finally
Constantinople. His account also reveals a number of problems and contingen-
cies that other hajj pilgrims from Russian lands would surely have contended
with before the modern era—pirate attacks; wrong turns; long waits in cities
abroad for caravans or ships headed in their direction; unpredictable winds at
sea; corrupt Ottoman officials; a lack of Russian diplomatic presence to turn to
for protection or help; and unanticipated expenses.^17
Ismail’s account usefully describes the hajj experience for Russian subjects
prior to the late nineteenth century, before modern transport and Russian state
intervention in the late 1800s transformed it. His account also captures the
beginnings of European interactions and involvement with hajj pilgrims in
Asia. More than once he describes turning to Europeans for help along the way.
Under attack by pirates in the Arabian Sea, he and his companions are saved
when a “European war ship” shows up, and they pay its captain to tow their
ship to safety. And later, in Calcutta, they encounter another European ship
and hire a soldier from it to help them set sail across the Indian Ocean.^18
His account illuminates the informal Turkic networks that he and surely
other Russian subjects relied on to make the hajj in the eighteenth century. Sev-
eral times in the text Ismail relies on fellow Turkic-speakers from Russian
lands, now living or traveling in Arab lands, to help him negotiate with the
authorities, and navigate foreign cultures and long-distance travel. In addition
to the “Uzbek” he meets in Afghan lands, who explains the strange behavior of
the local women, a group of twenty Crimean Tatars escort him from Arabia to
Constantinople, and the “Uzbek envoy” of the emir of Bukhara tracks him
down in Constantinople to inquire about the estate case of one of his compan-
ions.^19 These informal networks are worth keeping in mind, as are the geo-
graphic visions of the hajj represented in the Muslim sources considered above,
as we explore Russia’s efforts to trace, uncover, and replace the networks and
infrastructures of Muslims’ hajj itineraries.
It would be hard to exaggerate the extent to which modern transport trans-
formed the hajj experience for Muslims in Russia and other parts of the world.
The changes were multiple and diverse, but three in particular deserve men-
tion. The first was speed. For Muslims from Russian imperial lands, the hajj
was a journey of thousands of miles. Railroads and steamships drastically
shrank the time and distance involved in traveling between the empire and