_The Ceremonies and the Pilgrimage._--Before Islam the Ka'ba was the local sanctuary of the Meccans, where they prayed and did sacrifice, where oaths were administered and hard cases submitted to divine sentence according to the immemorial custom of Semitic shrines. But, besides this, Mecca was already a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage with the ancient Arabs was the fulfilment of a vow, which appears to have generally terminated--at least on the part of the well-to-do--in a sacrificial feast. A vow of pilgrimage might be directed to other sanctuaries than Mecca--the technical word for it (_ihlal_) is applied, for example, to the pilgrimage to Manat (_Bakri_, p. 519). He who was under such a vow was bound by ceremonial observances of abstinence from certain acts (e.g. hunting) and sensual pleasures, and in particular was forbidden to shear or comb his hair till the fulfilment of the vow. This old Semitic usage has its close parallel in the vow of the Nazarite. It was not peculiarly connected with Mecca; at Taif, for example, it was customary on return to the city after an absence to present oneself at the sanctuary, and there shear the hair (_Muh. in Med._, p. 381). Pilgrimages to Mecca were not tied to a single time, but they were naturally associated with festive occasions, and especially with the great annual feast and market. The pilgrimage was so intimately connected with the well-being of Mecca, and had already such a hold on the Arabs round about, that Mahomet could not afford to sacrifice it to an abstract purity of religion, and thus the old usages were transplanted into Islam in the double form of the omra or vow of pilgrimage to Mecca, which can be discharged at any time, and the hajj or pilgrimage at the great annual feast. The latter closes with a visit to the Ka'ba, but its essential ceremonies lie outside Mecca, at the neighbouring shrines where the old Arabs gathered before the Meccan fair.