In 1903, he left to perform the Hajj, while also traveled through the Mashriq, where he came into contact with calls for reform popular in the Ottoman Empire at the time. He met a wide circle of scholars and rulers of the East, such as the Khedive Abbas Pasha I in Cairo and the Sharif Awn ar-Rafiq in Mecca. He also visited the Hijaz and the Levant and met important leaders and scholars there as well.