Imperialism through Islamic Networks 27Syria in the nineteenth century was central to global hajj routes because of
the Damascus caravan. It was one of two imperial hajj caravans sponsored by
the Ottoman sultan in his empire—the other left from Cairo—and both were
ancient institutions. First organized by the Mamluks in the thirteenth century,
the two caravans had been taken over by the Ottomans with their sixteenth-
century conquests of Arab lands, and as part of the Ottoman sultan’s assump-
tion of the role of “protector” of the hajj and the Holy Cities of Mecca and
Medina.^30 The Ottomans sponsored the two imperial hajj caravans at enormous
cost and effort because it was expected of them as Muslim rulers who now con-
trolled the Muslim holy cities. At the same time, they had strategic motivations.
In her study of the hajj under the Ottomans, Suraiya Faroqhi argues that the
Ottomans embraced hajj patronage also as a mechanism for integrating the
empire’s dispersed and internally diverse Muslim populations, and maintain-
ing a military presence in their far-flung Arab provinces.^31
Figure 1.1. The hajj caravan commander with the mahmal (the ceremonial palanquin, rep-
resenting the authority of the Ottoman sultan) and Ottoman officials. Damascus, ca. 1908.
(Courtesy of the Kunstkamera Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia)