IOR/R/15/1/575

The volume consists of letters, telegrams, memoranda, and reports relating to the Hajj pilgrimage to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. The majority of the correspondence is between the British Agency (later British Legation) in Jeddah, the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, and Indian Office in London, the British Residencies in Bushire and Aden, the High Commissioners in Cairo and Baghdad, the Political Agencies in Bahrain and Kuwait, and Ibn Sa'ud.

Contained in the volume are the annual reports on the pilgrimage composed by the Agent in Jeddah for the years 1929-1935 inclusive. Each report consists of some or all of the following:

• a general introduction;
• information on quarantine;
• statistics;
• information on health, transport, customs, 'mutawwifs' (pilgrim guides), religious policy, tariffs and the cost of pilgrimage, and pilgrims from other Muslim regions of the British Empire (India, Afghan, Malay, West Africa, Sudan, Iraq, Palestine, Transjordan, Sarawak, Somalia, Zanzibar and East Africa, South Africa, Aden, Hadhramaut, Muscat, Bahrain, and Kuwait).

Other documents cover the following subjects:

• the Hajj under King Hussein and the implications of a Wahhabi conquest of the Holy Cities;
• an attack on Yemeni pilgrims by the Ikhwan in August 1923 and the subsequent fighting;
• an Egyptian Medical Mission to Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina to assist with the pilgrimage;
• Jeddah's water supply;
• a new motor road between Medina and Najaf;
• Japanese interest in the pilgrim trade;
• the formation and progress of a National First-Aid Society in the Hejaz and Nejd;
• the religious tolerance of the Wahhabis, specifically the kissing of the Black Stone in Mecca.

At the back of the volume (folios 205-206) are internal office notes.