Page 165 - Arabian Studies (I)

The Pilgrimage to Mecca in Mamluk Times 149

the ‘Iraqi pilgrimage. Baghdad, which under the ‘Abbasids had been
the main centre for pilgrims from all over ‘Iraq, Persia and Khurasan
to join the official caravan (which then set out on a direct journey to
the Holy Cities), now lost its past eminence. From now on
throughout the Mamluk period, though official pilgrim caravans were
organised from time to time in Baghdad, the ‘Iraqi, Persian and
Khurasan! pilgrims were often compelled to journey to Damascus in
order to travel under the protection of the Syrian caravan. 2 2
During the reign of the BahrT Mamluks the departure of the Syrian
caravan from Damascus had been fixed at around the 10th of
Shawwal23 and the arrival of pilgrims at the city from outside
Damascus seems to have been towards the end of Ramadan and
beginning of Shawwal. But as this departure date was postponed
during the reign of the Burjl Mamluks to the 18th and 20th of
Shawwal, the arrival of pilgrims from outside Damascus took place
around the 10th of the same month.24
According to the estimate of a modern author the journey from
Damascus to Mecca occupied 490 hours of actual travelling time. 2 5
But since the Syrian pilgrims paused at the halting-places along their
route, and since they visited Medina on the way, it took them from
forty-five to Fifty days to reach Mecca. This fact seems to have
influenced the departure of the Syrian pilgrimage from Damascus
during the first century of the Mamluks. During this time the Syrian
leader, the Amir al-Ilajj, left Damascus for al-Kiswah, the First station
along the route, on about the 10th of Shawwal.26 There, as in the
case of the Egyptian Amir al-Hajj, he waited for the pilgrims to join
him by degrees. From the end of the eighth/fourteenth century
onward it seems that the time for rest along the route was cut down,
since the departure from Damascus for the station of al-Kiswah took
place on around the 18th and 20th of Shawwal.27
This unique position of Cairo and Damascus as links between the
greater part of the Muslim world and the Holy Cities, a position
established long before the rise of the Mamluks and consolidated
under their reign, contributed to the shaping of a special type of
caravan as distinctive in its organisation as in its objective. Moreover,
the economic and political consequences of this situation must not
be overlooked. Apart from the extraordinary commercial activities
which the two cities witnessed with the advent of every pilgrimage
season, the treasury of the Mamluks profited as a result of the
taxation of goods conveyed with the foreign caravans upon their
entering Cairo and Damascus.28 When the Syrian pilgrimagewas
organised in 916/1510— 11 after four years of interruption, Ibn Tulun

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