[4][5] Alongside the Topkapı Palace museum, it has been described as "the largest and most significant group of objects relating to the cultural history of the Hajj".

[8][9][10] Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, alongside Shahadah (confession of faith), Salat (prayer), Zakat (charity), and Sawm (fasting).

[14] A Hajj consists of several distinct rituals including the tawaf (procession seven times counterclockwise round the Kaaba), wuquf (a vigil at Mount Arafat where Mohammed is said to have preached his last sermon), and ramy al-jamarāt (stoning of the Devil).

[16][3] Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, has described Khalili's collection as, alongside the Topkapı Palace museum in Istanbul, "the largest and most significant group of objects relating to the cultural history of the Hajj".

[17] Baroness Amos, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has described it as "the greatest collection of objects related to Makkah [Mecca] and the Hajj.

[23] The collection has seven mahmal coverings from caravans that would have set out from Egypt or Syria; the earliest was made in 17th century Istanbul at the request of Mehmed IV.

[33][34] A section of curtain for the tomb, made in Istanbul in the 18th century, has calligraphed inscriptions in silver-wrapped silk thread on a deep red background.

[39] Talismanic cotton shirts are inked with prayers, quotes from the Quran, and schematic illustrations of the holy sanctuaries at Mecca and Medina, similar to what would appear on a pilgrimage certificate or illuminated manuscript.

[42][43] The collection includes a folio from a 16th-century manuscript of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings), depicting Alexander the Great kneeling in prayer at the Kaaba among other pilgrims.

[44][45] Anis Al-Hujjaj (Pilgrim's Companion) is a seventeenth century account of a Hajj undertaken in 1677 by Safi ibn Vali, an official of the Mughal court.

[53][54][55][56][57] A late 18th or early 19th century exemplar is presumably the source of a pair of detached pages depicting the holy sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina.

[58][59] Another illuminated manuscript, consisting of 35 folios, sets out the family tree of the Prophet Mohammed with additional text about his life and companions.

[60] A 16th century pilgrimage scroll from the Hejaz region records the rites an unnamed pilgrim conducted, combined with diagrams of the Prophet's tomb and other locations visited.

[62] The painter, Muhammad ‘Abdallah of Delhi, was the grandson of Mazar ‘Ali Khan, court artist for Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal Emperor.

[6][62] An earlier, largely inaccurate, representation of Mecca and Medina is given in a 1727 album of architectural drawings by the Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach.

[63] A detached plate, carefully hand-coloured, from an 1825 edition of George Sale's English translation of the Quran, gives a plan and view of the Holy Sanctuary in Mecca.

In 1880 and 1881, Muhammad Sadiq used glass plate photography to capture the Kaaba and other holy sites in Mecca, Medina, Mount Arafat, and Mina.

Using iron filings and magnets, Mater created a scene centered on a black cube which visually evokes the pilgrims walking around the Kaaba.