Imperial Mecca

Buttressed by monumental archival research and charging with lively prose, this profoundly significant book steers us through intractable historiographical swells to arrive at a wholly new history of the late Ottoman Empire, one in which the Hijaz, Indian Muslims and Jawis, modern govermentality, debates over extraterritoriality, and science and technology are the main protagonists. A major achievement. -- Alan Mikhail, author of <i>God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World</i> Imperial Mecca illuminates the making of the modern Hajj and technocratic regimes in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Arabia. Dislodging conventional emphases such as European fears of the Ottoman caliphate, 'Pan-Islamism', or other forms of Muslim exceptionalism, Low vividly depicts how new travel, communication, and surveillance technologies, interlaced with related environmental and epidemiological factors, shaped the opportunities and limits of Ottoman and British imperial power. A tour de force on the Indian Ocean Hajj. -- Faiz Ahmed, author of <i>Afghanistan Rising: Islamic Law and Statecraft between the Ottoman and British Empires</i> Imperial Mecca is an exciting contribution to the literature on the international history of the Hajj. Far beyond its religious significance, Low demonstrates on the basis of meticulous archival work that Hajj management provided the entry point for the development of a modern Ottoman governmental rationality that operated through the management of mobility, disease, environment, and the law. -- John M. Willis, author of <i>Unmaking North and South: Cartographies of the Yemeni Past</i> Provides an innovative analysis of how Istanbul maintained the Hajj during the 19th century...Recommended. * Choice * A highly engaging and readable account, this is the sort of book that could be assigned to undergraduates to give them a glimpse into the late Ottoman Empire. * Journal of Arabic Literature *