In the 1860s, the female Indian Muslim ruler of Bhopal, Sikandar Begum, wrote a warts-and-all account of Mecca as a “wild and melancholy-looking” city whose “dirty and ill-drained” streets were filled with disease and disorder. A half-century later, the Central Asian pilgrim ‘Abd al-Rashid Ibrahim described the holy city’s filth and squalor, recounting stories of pilgrims walking through streets ankle deep in excrement.
多数时候，朝圣的宗教性质抑制了人们批评其处理方式。但现代评论显示并非所有人都满意麦加的管理方式。19世纪60年代，女性印度博帕尔穆斯林统治者Sikandar Begum写了一篇毫不掩饰的评价，说麦加是一座“野蛮忧郁的”城市，“肮脏且排水不良”的街道充斥着疾病和混乱。半个世纪后，中亚朝圣者‘阿卜杜勒·拉希德·易卜拉欣描述了圣城的污秽和肮脏，讲述了朝圣者在街上齐踝深的粪水中行走的故事。