The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [136]
We have no good data on numbers of pilgrims from East Africa, nor from southeast Asia. But we do have evidence of quite extensive contact with Mecca in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and indeed with other centres of Islamic power. The sultanate of Banten maintained important links with Mecca. These were for religious guidance and patronage. In 1638 the Meccan authorities bestowed the title of sultan on the ruler of Banten, and his son twice made the hajj.30 In 1581 the Portuguese saw a ship, which apart from a very rich cargo had on board 150 women, these being among the most noble of the kingdom of Pegu, who were going with very rich presents to offer them to, as they put it, 'their false prophet and legislator Muhammad'.
The effects of a visit to Mecca could be various indeed. Regrettably, it sometimes led to an increase in intolerance. In the 1630s Lobo travelled by sea from Suakin, on the west coast of the Red Sea, to Diu:
The ship carried many people, most of them pilgrims to their accursed, detestable house, by which I mean that of Meca, where Mafoma [Muhammad] is buried [sic]. Once these people have visited it, they receive from the Xarifes there an indisputable pass to Heaven; and when they leave Meca in this sanctified state, nothing is more loathsome to them than to meet with Christians, for they believe themselves contaminated if they see or have any dealings with us, so pure in body and soul do they consider themselves when they leave that place. For this reason they very much begrudged our being on that ship, imagining that their purity would be spoiled by our presence there, for they avoided all communication or conversation with us, so that when they arose in the morning and their eyes were unavoidably struck by the sight of us . . . they would immediately spit in the other direction as if they had seen the vilest thing in the world....31
Those who returned home from the pilgrimage had acquired very considerable prestige. In part they were considered to be daring people indeed for having undertaken the long and dangerous sea voyage across the Arabian Sea. They also were now able to stand forth in their home communities as exemplars of Islam: here is how they do it in Mecca; people in Mecca say this and that, and do this. In the Maldive Islands in the early seventeenth century those who had been on hajj were allowed to wear their beards in a distinctive style.
Those who have been to Arabia, and have visited the sepulchre of Mahomet at Mecca [sic], are held in high respect by all the world, whatever be their rank, and whether they be poor or rich; and, indeed, a great number of the poor have been there. These have peculiar privileges: they are called Agy [hajji, one who has done the hajj]; and in order to be recognised and remarked among the others, they all wear very white cotton frocks, and on their heads little round bonnets, also white, and carry beads in their hands without crosses; and when they have not the means to maintain themselves in this attire, the king or the nobles supply them, and fail not to do so.32
These people were engaged, in a modest way, in trying to 'purify' the religion, to root out customs and behaviour which they claimed had no place in 'pure' Islam. In this they had a Christian parallel in the activities of the Inquisitors in Goa, and priests sent out from Rome to rid Indian Catholicism of its deviations and errors. The much-feared Holy Office of the Inquisition was the supreme example of intolerant Counter Reformation Catholicism. Xavier was scandalised by what he saw in Goa, considering many local converts