Empire and Pilgrimage: The Hajj in Britain’s Muslim Empire

I hadn’t realized till I encountered this book that at a certain period in the 19^th Century, Britain was in fact a Muslim Empire. As John Slight, currently a Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History at The Open University puts it in The Hajj and Britain’s Muslim Empire, “[a] huge swath of the Muslim world was under British control.” These Muslims were spread across disparate geographies, embodying a diversity of culture and language.

The book focuses on British interactions with the Hajj from 1865 to 1956 on four regions – India, Malaya, Sudan and Nigeria. The sheer number of Muslim subjects in their various colonies required Britain to engage with Islamic practices, including the famous “fifth pillar” – the Hajj or the pilgrimage to the Ka’ba in Mecca.

Slight’s own curiosity in the Hajj was stoked by the hustle-bustle at the Hajj Terminal of the Hyderabad Airport. He was struck firstly that there was a special terminal dedicated to the Hajj. And then by the fervor and mounting anticipation of thousands setting out on a journey that wasn’t just a business trip or touristy jaunt. Since I too have watched Muslim pilgrims set forth from Indian airports, I picked up this book to learn more about the Hajj itself.

Hajj: A Timeless Journey of Faith and Equality

Featuring among the larger religious gatherings in the world, the Hajj is also the oldest. It’s mandatory for all Muslims who have the means and the physical ability to travel. For many Muslims, it’s a central life purpose. As one pilgrim put it in 1928: “From life I need nothing more. I have been to Mecca, the cradle of my faith.”

Before setting out on the Hajj, male Muslims wear the Ihram, two white sheets of clothing that are meant to erase all distinctions of class, race, ethnicity and station. The first ritual is called the tawaf, wherein pilgrims circle the ka’ba – a black stone monument draped in silk and cotton – seven times. In the next ritual, they run back and forth, seven times, between two hills near the ka’ba. Other rituals follow, all of which are performed with the intention of drawing closer to God. Right through, they are to maintain an even temper, without giving way to anger.

Britain’s Complex Dance with the Hajj

Delving into multiple archives, this deeply-researched, compelling work brings to light Britain’s varying and complicated relationship with the Hajj. Slight’s is not the simplistic tale of a villainous Empire versus a subjugated colony. But of the way in which Britain’s administration of this mammoth event impacted its subjects as well as its own relationship with Islam. Slight observes: “Colonial India’s relationship with the Hajj highlights the variegated, complex and often chaotic nature of British imperialism.”

At first, the colonizers were forced to engage with the Hajj to control diseases. For instance, a cholera epidemic in 1865, spread from India to Arabia, and from there to other parts of the world. But later, it wasn’t just this Foucauldian control of safety and sanitation. The Hajj was also managed and exploited to buttress Britain’s power, by supporting what felt like an inevitable movement of millions.

The arrival of steamships drastically cut the length and cost of the oceanic journey, making the Hajj more feasible for poorer Muslims. However, after travelling all the way to the Hijaz (the region bordering the Red Sea), and even completing the Hajj, these “pauper pilgrims” couldn’t afford return fares. This would mean that large numbers were stuck in the Middle East, creating other problems for the colonial rulers. Who often sent these ticketless travelers back on their cost, inadvertently facilitating a one-way passage for many more, who banked on being repatriated by administrators.

Bolstering Prestige with Haphazard Policies

In paying for the return of impoverished pilgrims, Britain wasn’t just being charitable. Officials wished to enhance the prestige of the British Empire, versus other European powers and rulers, some of whom were supporting their own pilgrims. None of this support was orderly, or consistent. Slight writes: “British interactions with destitute pilgrims can be characterized as largely ad hoc, reactive, and haphazard.”

Besides, many Muslim employees of the Empire were involved in Hajj related decisions. This gave the British a different kind of Islamic slant, wherein their own subordinates shaped the imperialist’s attitudes and role in this practice.

This did not mean that the Empire viewed the Hajj in benign or even positive terms. There was the familiar Orientalist gaze directed at pilgrims: “Officials saw pilgrims as swayed by religious zealotry, a group of hapless, helpless people who launched themselves on a journey fraught with danger and the real possibility of death.”

Support by Other Powers

Early Islamic empires felt obliged to support the Hajj for all their subjects – especially for those who lacked the financial means, or needed physical support. Akbar decreed that the expenses for all Hajj pilgrims would be borne by the State. There were tensions too between the Ottomans and Mughals, on the sustenance of Hajj pilgrims, or their overstaying in the region – similar perhaps to the way in which powerful countries currently reject refugees or migrants.

Besides the British, other European powers also engaged with the Hajj, as they needed to both control and protect the interests of their own colonies. The Dutch in Indonesia largely distrusted the Hajjis, as a rebellion had been stoked by three returnee pilgrims. They even started discriminating against those who had made the journey, denying them offices and positions of power. Later, however, the Dutch gave in to mercenary instincts and started making money from the operation.

France, in Africa, tried to behave like a puissance musulmane or Muslim power. Like the British, they helped repatriate poorer pilgrims. And both controlled and facilitated the journey, to bolster their own power. In general, there was an underlying unease, “that going on Hajj could create a negative perception of colonial rule.”

Spy Scholars and Suspicion

Some British spy-scholars like Richard Burton, who dressed as an Afghani to enter Mecca (which is closed to non-Muslims), thought the Hajj was a corrupting influence on Muslims, who were radicalized by the ritual: “It sends forth a horde of malcontents that ripen into bigots; it teaches foreign nations to despise our rule.” Of course, Burton was also torn in his opinions. In one passage, he admits to having been deeply moved by the ka’ba himself. But he was emphatic that poor pilgrims should not be allowed, as their beggarly presence in Mecca diminished the Empire.

Britain had always been suspicious of Muslims after the 1857 rebellion. But they were also careful to cultivate positive relations with Muslim elites. Their view of Islam was to shift in the 1890s, when Christian evangelism fell out of favor, and Islam was considered more tolerant than persecuting Christians.

In 1875-76, Britain had to be increasingly involved with indigent pilgrims. The consul in London believed that rich Muslims were sponsoring the voyage of poorer faithfuls to get them out of the country. British officials in India disagreed. They knew how difficult and potentially incendiary it might be, if any policy struck down on the practice. They preferred not to interfere in that sense, but they needed to be engaged nonetheless. Muslim elites also warned against restricting the movement of the “masses.”

Tracing British-Muslim Relations Through Time

Tracking the evolution of this relationship through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, before and after the World Wars, till the Suez crisis in 1956,  Slight depicts how the Hajj was central to British governance of Muslim populations in Africa and Asia. The imperial oversight of religious practices elucidate Anglo-Muslim relations, offering an expanded concept of the “British World” to include an “Islamic inner empire,” and the interconnectedness of Britain’s Muslim empire beyond the Indian Ocean. In the context of the current crisis in the Middle East, this book feels like a critical and necessary glimpse into the past.

References

John Slight, The Hajj and Britain’s Muslim Empire, Speaking Tiger Books, 2024