The town of Mecca, in the Hijaz of western Arabia, inaddition to its importance as the goal of the ḥajj,or annual Muslim pilgrimage, was a commercialemporium of great importance during the Mamlūk era(A.H. 648/1250–A.H. 923/1517). Approximately eightykilometres to the west of the Holy City lies theport ofjedda, which had been under the directcontrol of the Ḥasanid sharīfs of Mecca since atleast the fifth/eleventh century. During Mamlūktimes, Jedda was a way station of graduallyincreasing importance on the maritime trade routeconnecting the ports of the western coast of Indiawith the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Themerchandise around which this trade revolvedconsisted almost exclusively of luxury goods andsmall-sized but high-priced commodities, destinedfor the markets of Egypt, the Levant and westernEurope, and included – among other goods – bothcotton and silken cloth, all manners of spices, butprimarily pepper from the Malabar coast ofsouthwestern India, camphor, musk, amber,sandalwood, Indian Ocean pearls, precious andsemi-precious stones, such as agates, andmateria medica from the Indiansubcontinent, as well as goods trans-shipped fromEast Asia.