Today, when a person who has never set foot outside a tiny village in a remote area of his country takes a flight to go on Haj, the comfort in which he flies to Jeddah or Madinah and back, and the little time that he spends doing so hardly gives him an idea of how it was when the facilities that we take for granted today were undreamt of.
The hardships and travails that form part of the account of Ibn Jubayr’s travels some 900 years ago could serve as a stark and fascinating contrast to today’s journey.
Abu Al-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr, born in 1145 in Valencia, Spain, began his journey to Makkah on Feb. 3, 1183 accompanied by Abu Jaafar Ahmad ibn Hassan, a physician of Granada. He returned to Granada more than two years later on April 25, 1185.
Ibn Jubayr arrived in Aydhab in Nubia, an ancient kingdom in Africa west of the Red Sea, the present northern Sudan, on June 25, 1183. It was one of the most frequented ports of the world, because the ships from India and the Yemen sailed to and from it. It was located in the desert, “with no vegetation and nothing to eat save what is brought to it,” according to the account.
Here the pilgrims hired a jilabah for the journey to and from Jeddah. These were ships sewn together with cord made of coconut fiber without the use of nails. Once they were finished they were smeared with grease, castor oil or shark oil to make it supple against the many reefs in the sea.
The journey from Jeddah to Aydhab, as Ibn Jubayr says, was “most calamitous for pilgrims.” They faced a high risk of being taken by wind to anchorages on the desert far to the south of Aydhab, where many pilgrims had died. The inhospitable desert claimed the lives of many, and the mountain tribe who lent them their camels seized their money and belongings. Many got lost and died of thirst. So difficult was the journey that those who survived and reached Aydhab were “like men quickened from the shroud.” While Ibn Jubayr was there he saw some that had come in this manner, “but they were few.”
He says the people of Aydhab used the pilgrims “most wrongfully.” Their common saying was: “Ours to produce the ships: The pilgrims’ to protect their lives.” Prompted by avarice, they loaded them on to the jilabah like chickens in a coop, one on top of the other, charging two pilgrims for one space, “caring not what the sea may do with it after that.” Punishment for such treatment should be the sword, he says.
He recommends going via Syria to Iraq — the route he took on his return journey — and joining the emir of the Baghdad pilgrimage, or going with the emir Al-Haj to Baghdad and then to Acre. “From there, (a traveler) may go to Alexandria, or Sicily, or elsewhere. He may even find a Rumi ship sailing to Ceuta or another Muslim land. And should he find this circling road to be too long, it will be easy in comparison with what he would meet with at Aydhab and places like it,” he says.
But a stay in Aydhab, a town where everything was imported — even water, which because of its bitterness was worse than thirst — was the greatest hardship on the road to Makkah. “We had lived between air that melts the body and water that turns the stomach from an appetite for food,” he writes, adding that the bard who sang “brackish of water and flaming of air” did no injustice to this town.
On July 18, Ibn Jubayr boarded a jilabah to cross to Jeddah. But he had to wait at anchor because there were neither wind nor sailors. He sailed the next day.
By the end of July 21, when the group were rejoicing at the sight of the birds from the Hejaz, lightning flashed from the east, followed by a storm which darkened the skies. The tempest drove the ship off course, and they passed that night in a storm. With the coming of the morning, the wind fell, the clouds dispersed, and the skies cleared revealing a welcome site — the land of the Hejaz in the distance, but still two days’ travel away.
On July 23, they sailed into the island called “Ayqat Al-Sufun‚” the obstacle of ships. The following day they “anchored at Ubhur, a day’s distance from Jeddah.” From there they sailed at dawn on July 25 and anchored at Jeddah by nightfall. As wind was high the following morning they could not enter the port and did not arrive at Jeddah until midday on July 26.
There were other problems for the pilgrims. Ibn Jubayr mentions a string of taxes exacted from pilgrims by all except Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, the great Saladin. “The pilgrim does not cease to pay dues and provide food until God helps him to return to his native land,” writes Ibn Jubayr, and emphasizes that if it were not for the just Sultan Salahuddin “they would suffer the most grievous oppression, with no emission of its rigors.” Salahuddin had not only lifted the customs duty imposed on pilgrims, but had provided money and food with orders that these should be sent to Mukhtir ibn Issa, the emir of Makkah, who was “of those who act unrighteously.”
But the consignment allotted for them was delayed as Salahuddin was away at wars against the Franks in Syria. The emir began intimidating the pilgrims, and while they were negotiating he had them all arrested. He ordered that if the pilgrims stood as guarantors for each other for payment, they might enter the Holy Mosque. If the money from Salahuddin arrived, well and good; otherwise the pilgrims would have to pay.
“There had been the sudden crises of the sea, the perversity of the wind, the many reefs encountered, and the emergencies that arose from the imperfections of the sailing gear, which time and again became entangled and broke when sails were raised or lowered or an anchor raised. At times the bottom of the jilabah would run against a reef when passing through them, and we would listen to a rumbling that called us to abandon hope. Many times we died and lived again — praise be to God who, in His power and glory, bestowed on us His care, ensuring our protection and sufficiency; praise fitting His kindness, and in solicitation of His continuing favor. There is no God but He,” Ibn Jubayr concludes.
