Hajj Trail



Suggested Assignments

Suggestions for Classroom- and Homework

Suggested Readings:

Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans, 1517-1683. (London: Tauris, 1994), Introduction.

Evliya Celebi, An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Celebi, tr. Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim, (London: Eland, 2011), 303-305, 340-362.

Ibn al-Tayyib, The Travels of Ibn Al-Tayyib: The Forgotten Journey of an Eighteenth-Century Traveller to the Hijaz, trans. El Mustapha Lahlali, Salah Al-Dihan, Wafa Abu Hatab, (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2010), 10-23, 57-59, 64-86.

 

Early Modern Travel Essay:

Students should write an essay on travel in the Ottoman world reflecting on their own experience playing the Hajj Trail Historical Simulation. The essay should narrate your own journey and experience while traveling the hajj road, talking about what you encountered, where you went, what difficulties your character had on the hajj road, and finally reflecting on what you learned about traveling in the Ottoman 17th century world. Students should include at least three references contextualizing their own experience in the simulation with quotes from either the two primary sources assigned with this unit (Evliya Celebi or Ibn al-Tayyib) or citing primary source quotes (in the historical account section) from the Hajj Trail itself.

When you play the simulation, take notes (or screenshots) of different parts of your journey to help you as you write your essay about travel in the Early Modern Ottoman World. Think about the following while playing.

 

The Hajj- Then and Now Assignment:

Before you play the game; watch and explore the following:

Take notes on what these tell you about the modern/future hajj experience. Then play The Hajj Trail and write a short essay on what might be different and similar for pilgrims of the seventeenth-century Muslim World compared to the modern experience of the hajj. How might religious traditions, distance, time, danger, climate, disease, and state power look different when one compares the early modern hajj to the modern hajj experience.

 

Extra Credit Incentives:

Screenshot of the student’s game summary page showing they accomplished any one of the following: