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In recent weeks the novel coronavirus, #COVID19, has led authorities in Saudi Arabia to restrict #umrah travel and has led to much speculation about cancellation of this year's #hajj to #Mecca. In this thread, I will curate and dissect some of the reporting.
February 27: As coronavirus fears mounted, Saudi authorities suspended entry to foreigners seeking entry for #Umrah and tourism. By March 4, the ban on Umrah pilgrimages also included Saudi nationals and residents. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-saudi-arabia-bans-umrah-pilgrimage-residents-and-citizens
March 4: Closure of the Haramayn in Mecca and Medina for disinfection: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-saudi-mosque/saudi-arabia-reopens-mecca-medina-holy-sites-after-coronavirus-closure-state-tv-idUSKBN20T0A8
March 7: Masjid al-Haram reopened for Tawaf, but barricades were installed to prevent access to the Kaaba. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-partially-reopens-meccas-grand-mosque-amid-coronavirus-measures
“The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is prepared to secure the safety of all Muslims and nationals...” That’s why we have requested from all Muslims around the world to hold onto signing any agreements until we have a clear vision.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/hajj-pilgrimage-could-be-cancelled-because-of-coronavirus-islamic
“Saudi authorities appear to be psychologically preparing people for the possibility that the hajj might have to be cancelled,” said Shiraz Maher, a lecturer in war studies at King’s College London. “
"They’ve started pointing out historical instances from the past where the hajj had to be suspended for various reasons, including calamity and war. I think this is part of a broader attempt to reassure people that if it happens, it’s not entirely unprecedented."
Ok, this is where things get interesting for historians and journalists. Saudi authorities begin circulating a list of previous cancellations or disruptions to the hajj from the advent of Islam through the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798.
For a graphic (in Arabic) detailing a somewhat idiosyncratic list of hajj disruptions/cancellations, see @makkahnp as reported by @SarahDadouch https://twitter.com/SarahDadouch/status/1245263994098769921?s=20
Since then, numerous news outlets have commented on the likelihood that this year's hajj will be cancelled and uncritically repeated this talking point of 40 historical examples of hajj closures, citing 1798 (1213 hijri) and Napoleonic campaigns as the "last" hajj cancellation.
In Arabic, see https://elmeezan.com/ توقف-الطواف-حول-الكعبة/
In Foreign Affairs, see @krithikavaragur https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/saudi-arabia/2020-04-15/coronavirus-threatens-saudi-arabias-global-ambitions
Today in the @WSJ, see @RajaAbdulrahim https://www.wsj.com/articles/muslims-worry-coronavirus-will-prompt-saudi-arabia-to-cancel-this-years-hajj-11587637197?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
I would be interested to know from other Ottomanists or Egyptian specialists, how much did Napoleon's invasion of Egypt disrupt the hajj and for whom? This period is a bit earlier than my own work.
In @RajaAbdulrahim's @WSJ piece, we read that the last cancellation of the hajj was in 1831 due to an epidemic. Indeed, the opposite is true. 1831 is believed to be the first major outbreak of cholera during hajj season.
In other stories, we find Mecca's 1831 experience mistakenly reported as plague. See: https://theconversation.com/hajj-cancellation-wouldnt-be-the-first-plague-war-and-politics-disrupted-pilgrimages-long-before-coronavirus-135900
This conversation story ultimately cites this story:
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2020/3/9/could-the-hajj-be-cancelled-because-of-the-coronavirus
"In 1831, a plague from India killed nearly three quarters of the pilgrims performing Hajj, while between 1837 and 1892, infection killed hundreds of pilgrims on a daily basis..."
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2020/3/9/could-the-hajj-be-cancelled-because-of-the-coronavirus
"In 1831, a plague from India killed nearly three quarters of the pilgrims performing Hajj, while between 1837 and 1892, infection killed hundreds of pilgrims on a daily basis..."
Here, we see plague and cholera being sloppily conflated. Whether this is a case of lost in translation confusion between conceptions of Ta'un and Waba', this is misleading. On this question, see:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632188?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632188?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
This brings me to the bigger problem with this reporting. Mostly these journalists have quickly read news stories and Saudi official communications and taken them at face value. The official Saudi communications that mark 1798 as the last cancellation or disruption of...
the hajj fail to mention that 1831 to 1957 marked more than a century of pandemic cholera. This era brought international attention to the hajj and ultimately Ottoman and colonial interventions in the public health and regulation of the hajj and the Hijaz.
It is interesting that this more proximate history of pandemic disruptions to the hajj was not the focal point of Saudi communications. Undoubtedly, colonial intervention by the British, French, Dutch, and Russian empires is not a history that is particularly pleasant.
The failure to cancel or restrict access to the hajj during cholera outbreaks due to the illegitimacy of colonial regimes in Muslim lands led to hajj seasons like 1865 or 1893 where as many as 30,000 pilgrims died. Cholera is the obvious parallel to COVID19 when we discuss hajj.
While most of the reporting on the potential of hajj cancellation has discussed the disruption to pilgrimage bookings, Saudi foreign policy, potential dissent by conservative Muslim groups, and/or the disruption of Saudi plans to open tourism or reshape its image...
Few of the stories about the potential for the disruption of the hajj due to COVID19 have gotten the hajj's deep public health history, particularly the 19th century experience with cholera and plague, right. Indeed, few have given it much thought to it all.
If we were to correct the record on the last major cancellation of restriction of the hajj due to a pandemic, we should focus on the 1896-1897 hajj seasons. Here, plague spread from Hong Kong to Bombay and ultimately resulted in British India bowing to international pressure...
and following the example of France and Russia in announcing the suspension of hajj on February 20, 1897.
However, this concession by British Indian authorities came after nearly 3 decades of denying India's role in the transmission of cholera. This denial of the accumulation of scientific facts was partly due to British fears of Muslim resistance to hajj restrictions, but also...
due to their desire to protect the flow of free trade from India and Europe from quarantine and other steamship and travel regulations.
In many ways, the power of British capital and its denialist approach to cholera was not unlike the US government's current downplaying of COVID19 in an attempt to protect economic interests over the safety and welfare of its citizens.
For those who would like to know more about the long history of public health and hajj-related pandemics, here are some suggested readings. Hopefully our journalist friends will benefit from some of these suggestions too.
My own book, Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj, which covers the long saga of cholera and quarantine in Mecca and the Hijaz, will be out by September. http://cup.columbia.edu/book/imperial-mecca/9780231190770
For the British side of this story, see especially @SlightJP's magisterial work, The British Empire and the Hajj https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674504783
Türkçe okuyucular için:
Dr. Gülden SARIYILDIZ https://www.nadirkitap.com/hicaz-karantina-teskilati-1865-1914-gulden-sariyildiz-kitap9240426.html
Dr. Gülden SARIYILDIZ https://www.nadirkitap.com/hicaz-karantina-teskilati-1865-1914-gulden-sariyildiz-kitap9240426.html
On India and public health issues, see also Saurabh Mishra's Pilgrimage, Politics, and Pestilence: https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198070603.001.0001/acprof-9780198070603
See also Valeska Huber's
The Unification of the Globe by Disease? The International Sanitary Conferences on Cholera, 1851-1894
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4091623?seq=1
The Unification of the Globe by Disease? The International Sanitary Conferences on Cholera, 1851-1894
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4091623?seq=1
On the hajj and public health from Southeast Asia, see Eric Tagliacozzo's sweeping work: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-longest-journey-9780195308273?cc=us&lang=en&
On the hajj from Central Asia, see @laleh_joon's beautifully written Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire https://www.sup.org/books/cite/?id=26509
On the Russian Hajj experience during the reign of cholera, see Eileen Kane's Russian Hajj https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748509/russian-hajj/#bookTabs=1
On the local history of Jeddah, see Ulrike Freitag's new book: A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-jeddah/577F4CE424113E4B8AD983A46AF7C419
On cholera, quarantine, and imperial surveillance, see my 2008 IJMES piece, Empire and the Hajj https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/empire-and-the-hajj-pilgrims-plagues-and-panislam-under-british-surveillance-18651908/3A7576452731333F993E3DDD96CAA4AF
On Ottoman and Saudi management of cholera and water see my Ottoman Infrastructures of the Saudi Hydro-State from @CSSHJournal https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/ottoman-infrastructures-of-the-saudi-hydrostate-the-technopolitics-of-pilgrimage-and-potable-water-in-the-hijaz/1C880B42CB9E57811F666F11A7F31E67
And from @jadaliyya, see my 2012 take on the then emerging threat of the then novel coronavirus that came to be known as MERS https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/27263
Finally, a shoutout to @monicaMedHist who has been the head umpire calling balls and strikes on the uneven journalism surrounding #COVID19. The hajj and public health is another example of the need for journalists and to look to well-established literature on these topics.
