What a wonderful document you have produced ! full of the colors and shapes of the impromtu but yearly bazar that you have so well documented.

I think that this is an important contribution to our understanding of the profiligation of designs through the Islamic world. This Haji market must have been going on for many hundreds of years [a thousand or more?] not only in Amman but I would guess in other centers on the way to Mekka and perhaps at the holy sites themselves. I mentioned this in conjuntion with the Kurdish rug I posted and which was dated by the Kurdish experts on the site as probobly 19th century . .. the story being that it was purchased from pilgrams . . . who used its sale to cover expenses [the same story that mr. Boncompagni so well relates]
Could well have been that the well to do Arab family from near Nablus bought the carpet in Amman at the very same market . . . .?

Thank you again

regards

Richard

Yes, I remember your posting and your rug.
You are probably right, the trading related to the Hajj could be one of the reasons of the diffusion of design through the Arab world.
I doubt that your rug was bought in this city in the 19th century, though.
Amman (the ancient Rabbath-Ammon, then Philadelphia) was an important stop on the caravan routes for centuries, but it declined when the trade patterns shifted and become a tiny village. The city started to grow rapidly after it was declared capital at the birth of the State of Transjordan in 1921. Before that the most important center here was Salt. Salt looks quite a tiny village itself, today.
Anyway, the routes to Mecca from Nablus and the North pass from Jordan, through the immemorial "King’s Highway". They say it’s one of the world’s oldest continuously used communication routes.
It is also possible that your rug was bought in what is now Saudi Arabia.
Regards,
Filiberto

Thanks for such a delightful look at your flea market. I suspect that it made us all want to be there!

I’ve come across Hajj goods in both Morocco and Egypt. How does a lone South Caucasian rug end up high on the wall in a Marrakech shop? Well, that Moroccan shop owner of course took along some rugs when he went to Mecca--and traded for something exotic. (Can you imagine any rug dealer traveling without a piece or two in his suitcase? Or returning home empty-handed?) Many years later this memento was still on the shop wall, and still Not For Sale. I’ve seen Berber women from the countryside give it long, hard looks. It shouldn’t be surprising that some of those exotic motifs then appeared in their own weavings.

Best,

Marla

About one-fourth of the so-called Kaitag embroideries have designs that are unmistakably derived from Ottoman court textiles. This puzzles a lot of people, since they were made in two small villages, Kaitag and Dargin, in the remote reaches of Daghestan. The Hajj may well have been the route through which these people were exposed to the Ottoman designs.

Appropriate, somehow, that your Salon opens with a bus named Daghestan!

Steve Price

http://www.islamicity.org/Mosque/jlthajj/hajj.htm

"Till the 19th century, traveling the long distance to Makkah usually meant being part of a caravan. There were three main caravans: the Egyptian one, which formed in Cairo; the Iraqi one, which set out from Baghdad; and the Syrian, which, after 1453, started at Istanbul, gathered pilgrims along the way, and proceeded to Makkah from Damascus (Note - and through Jordan).
As the hajj journey took months if all went well, pilgrims carried with them the provisions they needed to sustain them on their trip. The caravans were elaborately supplied with amenities and security if the persons traveling were rich, but the poor often ran out of provisions and had to interrupt their journey in order to work, save up their earnings, and then go on their way. This resulted in long journeys which, in some cases, spanned ten years or more. Travel in earlier days was filled with adventure. The roads were often unsafe due to bandit raids. The terrain the pilgrims passed through was also dangerous, and natural hazards and diseases often claimed many lives along the way."

Today it must not be an easy journey too, even if the only bandits they meet are the ones at the Customs!
I found also that Islam encourages pilgrims to provide to their sustainment: i.e. NOT to depend on charity. So, trading goods was a logical choice. I always wondered about the Caucasian rugs clearly discernible in Orientalist paintings - see the last page of the article "From Cradle to Grave" on cloudband.com

Regards,
Filiberto

Obviously, trade during the hajj brought things from the homeland of the pilgrim to the points en route, along with what we might call diffusion beyond those places. Was it also customary for the pilgrim to bring gifts back to his family and friends? This could be another leg of the journey designs and motifs make as they migrate.

Regards,

Steve Price

The language barrier doesn’t allow much communication with the pilgrims, but I think it’s logical to assume that people going to Hajj bring back at home some gifts or souvenirs acquired during the trip.

What I can tell for sure is that they buy - for reselling - modern baluchis, kilims and sumaks in Iran.

I bought 3 days ago one of these old teapots:

On the bottom it has two inscriptions. One is in Arabic. The other one says: GHIAOUANE-FEZ.

Marla, perhaps it was traded with the Caucasian rug you saw in that Marrakech shop…

Who knows?

But I’d like very much to know the story of this baluchi prayer rug…

Just took this picture three hours ago. I’m having fun, you know!

Regards,

Filiberto