For #Hajj prep it's always good to consult accounts of people who did this before you. And some of these accounts come in the most delightful packages!

The online game "The Hajj Trail" features several characters and itineraries from #Ottoman times as factual bases for the game characters' journeys. Playing any of the characters, you can buy food and water along the way, risk water from wells and rivers, stop at religious sites, or hear the ney players at the local coffeehouse. BTW the bathhouses were the best rest stop by far.

I chose the Impoverished Widow as my avatar, and I'm trying to be as no-nonsense in my journey as I can. We'll see where that gets me. A lot of people died en route or didn't make it to #Mecca on time for Hajj.

The game was created by a couple of historians who wanted their students to understand the Ottoman and medieval #Muslim world better. So they learned to be part-time game developers on the side!

@histodons @islam

https://hajjtrail.com/game

Happy to share my new article, "Letters from the Ottoman Empire: Migration from the Caucasus and Russia's Pan-Islamic Panic," published by Slavic Review. https://doi.org/10.1017/slr.2023.164

For years, I have been searching for Muslim refugees' letters exchanged between the #Ottoman and Russian empires in the 1850s–1914. I was lucky to find quite a few: in archives in Tbilisi, Baku, Moscow, Vladikavkaz, and Makhachkala and private collections in #Jordan and Dagestan. The article explores the secret transborder #letter exchange of Caucasus Muslims and reactions by #Russia.

I argue that Muslims' letters from the Ottoman Empire fueled the Russian government's paranoia about Pan-Islamism that purportedly threatened Russia's colonial project in the #Caucasus. The Pan-Islamic panic shaped Russia's migration policies and colonial governance, including bans on Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, emigration, and return migration.

#histodon #histodons #history #MiddleEast #Turkey