Vue de la mosquée de la Mecque au moment des dévotions autour de la Kaaba (View of the Mosque in Mecca during Devotions around the Ka’ba)

Muhammad Sadiq Bey was born in Cairo and educated there and at the École Polytechnique in Paris. He trained as an engineer before joining the Egyptian army.

Sadiq has the distinction of being the first person known to have photographed in Mecca and Medina. He first journeyed to the Hijaz in 1861, accompanying a delegation of Egyptian pilgrims, but none of his work from this trip is known to have survived. The present photograph dates from a subsequent visit, from September 1880 to January 1881.

In 1880, in Makkah, he photographed the Sacred Mosque, the Ka'ba as a multitude of pilgrims circled it, the al-Safa Gate, and pilgrims camped at Mina and on the Plain of Arafat. His photographs of Makkah and Madinah, which combined his professional technical skills with a fine visual sense, were not only the first recorded of the holy cities themselves, but also the first pictures ever taken inside what is now Saudi Arabia.