Abstract Each year, more than two million pilgrims from over 100 countries converge on the holy city of Mecca to reenact the ritual dramas that Muslims have been performing for centuries. While it is first and foremost a religious festival, the hajj is also a major political event. The Muslim world's leading multinational organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has established the first international regime explicitly devoted to pilgrimage. Every large Muslim nation has developed a comprehensive hajj policy and a powerful bureaucracy to enforce it. Yet no authority–secular or religious, national or international–can really control the hajj. Pilgrims believe that they are entitled to travel freely to Mecca as "Guests of God"–not as guests of any nation or organization that might wish to restrict or profit from their efforts to fulfill a fundamental religious obligation. Blending social science with the humanities and international law,Guests of God tells the stories of hajjis and hajj managers from Nigeria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia exploring one of the greatest human experiences of our time.
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