Michael Christopher Low, Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj

Abstract

Reviewed by: Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj by Michael Christopher Low John Slight Michael Christopher Low. Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. xx + 392 pp. Paper, $35.00. ISBN: 9780231190770. This excellent work is an important landmark publication in both Ottoman and Indian Ocean studies. Low has painstakingly mined the Ottoman archives, alongside extensive investigations into British archives, to provide us with not just a missing piece of the puzzle in the study of the Hajj, but something akin to the riches of the Ottoman surre sent to the Hijaz every pilgrimage season. This is a book that significantly enhances our understandings of Ottoman, Indian Ocean, imperial and global histories. While Ottoman and Turkish historians are notably omnivorous in their intellectual grazings, they are encouraged to recommend this book to their colleagues as a model of scholarship and research. One of the book's major achievements is to provide historians with the Ottoman side of the story to the Hajj, as it was administered and experienced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Hijaz. This was a period of considerable turbulence in the global history of empires, one that the Ottomans responded and adapted to, as is superbly set out in the book. In the case of the Hajj, the Ottomans rightly emerge as not merely reactive actors in a narrative driven by European imperial activities, but as proactive administrators operating in a challenging environment. In terms of the historiography, there has been an efflorescence of works related to nineteenth and twentieth century empires and the Hajj over the last ten years. While the book under review may seem a late entry, Low is one of the pioneers in the field, evidenced by his excellent journal articles on the topic from 2007 onwards. Reading the book, Low has ably rode the wave of these [End Page 334] subsequent publications, bringing in insights from them while not detracting from his own excellent research into, especially, the Ottoman archives. While this reviewer is not an Ottoman or Turkish studies historian, this book strikes me as a major accomplishment in bringing together a deep knowledge of the Ottoman Turkish archival materials into dialogue with British imperial sources in a highly productive manner. It hopefully paves the way for further studies that encompass both Ottoman and British imperial histories that bring to light inter-imperial entanglements, which, in turn, might suggest to us new ways of writing imperial histories. The book focuses on a justifiably broad variety of areas in relation to the Hajj. Part One of the book on "extraterritorial frontiers" examines colonial imaginations about the Hijaz and the exercise of the "unequal treaties" in this space, with particular focus on the operations of European colonial powers' consular officials in the Hijaz. The book's excellent treatment of this issue is of particular value not just to Ottoman historians who have studied locations such as Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia, but also to imperial and global historians interested in the exercise of global legal inequalities that encompass sites from Qing China to Central America. Legal history is a thorny field which Low navigates exceptionally well, with very few scratches. Part Two on "ecologies of empire" moves the older debate on cholera and the Hajj significantly forward by engaging with newer works on environmental history, utilizing Ottoman archival sources. This is possibly the best part of a book that is a feast for any historian, regardless of period or place specialisation. Moving on from the preoccupation with cholera, Low's examination of the provision of water to Mecca for the Hajj and its attendant pilgrims is highly significant for the past, present and our uncertain human future. The book's final part engages with issues of pilgrim mobility and its attendant bureaucratic infrastructure, alongside the issue of how pilgrims moved to and from the Holy Cities. As with the rest of the book, this is equally well-researched and presented cogently. This deservedly prize-winning book can be recommended to everyone. The fact it is exceptionally well-written and reads like a charm should ensure its inclusion on any undergraduate...