Chapter 19 Before Mecca. The Jeddah ‘Diary’ of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, 1884–1885 Translated and annotated by Jan Just Witkam Contents: Introduction – The ‘diary’ that is not a diary – The content of the ‘diary’ – Shipping news – Huber’s murder – Important personal meetings – Translating Snouck Hurgronje’s Jeddah ‘diary’ – Physical description of the Jeddah ‘diary’ – The Jeddah ‘diary’ of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1884–1885) – Glossary – Index – Appendixes (1–7) – The Jeddah portfolio – Manuscript sources and archival materials – Bibliogra- phy – Acknowledgements. 1 Introduction The Jeddah where Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936)1 arrived on 29 Au- gust 1884, was in turmoil. Of course: the pilgrimage was imminent and large numbers of pilgrims, mostly from India and Southeast Asia, were arriving by ship. For the next two months or so their coming and going was on the mind of all those involved in the pilgrimage industry in Jeddah and Mecca. This was the season when an entire year’s income had to be generated. Since 1883, however, there had been another source of turmoil, less visible but certainly as violent and pervasive as the throng of thousands of pilgrims who had to be accommo- dated from the moment they set foot on the holy grounds of the Ḥiǧāz till they re-embarked and headed home. At that moment, they would have fulfilled their religious duty ‘if they can afford it’.2 Indeed, what few of these pilgrims were aware of was the extent to which they were corralled by an invisible fence constructed from a racket of disadvantageous financial agreements. Even some of the consuls, the very persons officially responsible for protecting them 1 See on Snouck Hurgronje’s life Wim van den Doel, Snouck. Het volkomen geleerdenleven van Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2021. See also my summary biogra- phy ‘Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje’, in: Coeli Fitzpatrick & Dwayne A. Tunstall (eds), Oriental- ist Writers (= Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 366), Detroit, MI, etc.: Gale, 2012, pp. 148– 154. See now also my ‘Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje. Lives and afterlives’, in the present volume, pp. 73-113. See my acknowledgments at the end of the present chapter.. 2 Qurʾān 3:97: man istaṭāʿa ilayhi Sabīlan.