Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-14T19:33:04.727Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Hajj Bazaar Economy

from Part I - Departures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Rishad Choudhury
Affiliation:
Oberlin College, Ohio
Get access

Summary

Chapter 2 examines the economic life of the South Asian hajj, which, drawing on contemporary conceptualizations, it describes as a “bazaar” economy. The chapter suggests that this seaborne economy, whose lynchpin was the seasonal market of the hajj, was an important arena for speculative ventures from the Subcontinent, particularly from the western seaboard of India. At the same time, the chapter underlines how major developments in Indian Ocean bazaar trade during the eighteenth century – the growth of the cash nexus, the deepening of credit networks, and the proliferation of new patterns of consumption and production – invigorated an array of South Asian gift-giving practices during hajj. By examining both merchant inventories and gift registers, the chapter argues that, far from being located outside the realms of commodity exchange, the gift was intricately interwoven into the hajj bazaar economy. From religiously inspired altruism to politically motivated exchange, hajj gifts thus also played a role in invigorating the prestige of emergent royal and other social groups in India as the Mughal empire decentralized. Like the previous chapter, Chapter 2 also explores matters over the long durée. It accordingly shows how colonial expansion ultimately recast the meanings of both the gift and the “bazaar.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Hajj across Empires
Pilgrimage and Political Culture after the Mughals, 1739–1857
, pp. 68 - 108
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×