Zeca: excellent find in Sijpesteijn. The explicit word "Mecca" is not in the papyrus, but since the text clearly alludes to sura 22 it's unlikely to be any other pilgrimage. (Nitpick, I object to her assumption p. 188 that Q. 9:3 is Muhammadan; the papyrus anyway doesn't allude to that but only to sura 22.)
Personally I think pilgrims went to Mecca before that. The "day of reckoning" (yawm al-hisâbi) is mentioned
in a graffito inscribed on the Meccan route datable to 80 AH. The basis for the "day of reckoning" is Q. 14:44-51, which mentions the Day (...blah blah blah...) concluding "God be swift in reckoning"; sura 14 elsewhere refers to a Divine House far from civilisation. Sura 14 doesn't emphasise the pilgrimage - it just talks of taking refuge AFAIK - but clearly some Muslims had got it into their heads by 700 CE that pilgrimage was worth the trip.
interesting post from Zimriel on Mecca and pilgrims but my problem is I didn't get the gist of his post on that
Early History of Islam reference .. Zimriel I am curious here ., would you take that Islamic-awareness.org story as authentic early history of Islam? I think this so-called Mecca and pilgrims is nothing to do with Muhammad and Islam but it is pre-islamic pagan ritual ..
Anyway let me add pdf of this wonderful book
Pilgrimage: From the Ganges to Graceland : an Encyclopedia it is great book on All FAITHS and their stupid rituals and the origin of these irrational repetitive ritual nonsense from faith heads in the name of some god/goddess/allah/voodoo dolls/ and on the stories such as Stoning of the Devil .... annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage .....holy doll city Mecca ..
Please DOWNLOAD THE BOOK PDF file ASAP before the link disappears .,
Anyway on that stoning., news says
Haj stoning period to be shortened stupid people get killed in these stupid ritual across the globe and in modern days with a very large population,
these governments and the cronies around these crooks are happy to make tons of money on these stupid rituals
Some notable incidents of Hajj
July 2, 1990: A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel (Al-Ma'aisim tunnel) leading out from Mecca towards Mina and the Plains of Arafat led to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims, many of them of Malaysian, Indonesian and Pakistani origin.
May 23, 1994: A stampede killed at least 270 pilgrims at the stoning of the Devil ritual.
April 9, 1998: at least 118 pilgrims were trampled to death and 180 injured in an incident on Jamaraat Bridge.
March 5, 2001: 35 pilgrims were trampled to death in a stampede during the stoning of the Devil ritual.
February 11, 2003: The stoning of the Devil ritual claimed 14 pilgrims' lives.
February 1, 2004: 251 pilgrims were killed and another 244 injured in a stampede during the stoning ritual in Mina.
January 12, 2006: A stampede during the stoning of the Devil on the last day of the Hajj in Mina killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. The incident occurred shortly after 13:00 local time, when a busload of travelers arrived together at the eastern access ramps to the Jamaraat Bridge. This caused pilgrims to trip, rapidly resulting in a lethal stampede. An estimated two million people were performing the ritual at the time.
September 24, 2015: At least 2,236 pilgrims were killed during a stampede. The Saudi government is yet to release an official report. A few weeks after the incident, the Saudi Vice Minister of Health officially announced 4,173 people dead in this incident in a press release, however, this page was removed from the website within three hours and requesting it would redirect the visitor to the home page. The Saudi Health Minister claimed that the published death toll was false in a Twitter post. Fars News, a semi-official news agency of Iran, provided a walkthrough video to accessing the page assuming it was out of reach due to high page requests. An AP report compiled from official reports and statements totaled the deaths at at least 1,470, over 700 more than the figures from Saudi authorities, and the worst toll so far in Mecca. The AP later updated its estimate to 2,411 pilgrims killed
stupid people silly rituals... anyways that is a great book., thanks to Linda Kay Davidson, David Martin Gitlitz for collecting the info and printing that book., it is indeed an encyclopedia of so-called pilgrimage., WHICH I CALL IT AS "STUPID RITUALS" across the globe that born out of the brains of smart faith heads..