Chapter 2 examines the economic life of the South Asian hajj, which, drawing on contemporary conceptualizations, it describes as a “bazaar” economy. The chapter suggests that this seaborne economy, whose lynchpin was the seasonal market of the hajj, was an important arena for speculative ventures from the Subcontinent, particularly from the western seaboard of India. At the same time, the chapter underlines how major developments in Indian Ocean bazaar trade during the eighteenth century – the growth of the cash nexus, the deepening of credit networks, and the proliferation of new patterns of consumption and production – invigorated an array of South Asian gift-giving practices during hajj. By examining both merchant inventories and gift registers, the chapter argues that, far from being located outside the realms of commodity exchange, the gift was intricately interwoven into the hajj bazaar economy. From religiously inspired altruism to politically motivated exchange, hajj gifts thus also played a role in invigorating the prestige of emergent royal and other social groups in India as the Mughal empire decentralized. Like the previous chapter, Chapter 2 also explores matters over the long durée. It accordingly shows how colonial expansion ultimately recast the meanings of both the gift and the “bazaar.”

This chapter introduces the topic, theoretical approach, and sources used to write the present history of Jeddah. The local perception of Jeddah as ‘different’ in a Saudi Arabian context serves as the point of departure for this undertaking. Building on the local view of a city hospitable to Muslim pilgrims, a number of practices are discerned which allow the characterisation of Jeddah as a cosmopolitan city with a distinct set of convivial practices. These will be explored throughout the book using a broad range of Arabic, Ottoman, and foreign sources, produced both by governments and individuals. These also include travelogues and local histories as well as material dealing with local traditions.

The chapter situates Jeddah, the port of Mecca, within the new Islamic polity and the networks of regional and interoceanic trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. It traces the competition for control of the Red Sea ports from the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the early sixteenth century to the establishment of the present system of states, focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These were particularly marked by the introduction of steam shipping and the opening of the Suez Canal, leading to an increased interest of the British and French empires in the region. Ottoman governors further faced powerful merchants in Jeddah as well as the Sharifs of Mecca, who often contested their authority and hampered attempts at provincial and urban reform. After a brief interlude of Sharifian rule (1916–25), ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd established his rule over the Hijaz.