Aziz Ali Naeem first came to Mecca in 1948 to perform Hajj, a pilgrimage that is compulsory for all able Muslims once in their lives.

Within days of his arrival, he decided he was not going back home to Hyderabad in newly independent India. Although Naeem, who died in the early 1980s, wasn’t fluent in Arabic, he managed to find work at a small company that catered to pilgrims journeying by sea from South Asia. Three years later, his two older brothers and their wives joined him — also using pilgrimage visas.

Although oil had been discovered in the Kingdom, Saudi Arabia was far from the regional economic and political power it became after revenue from hydrocarbons began to increase in the early 1950s. Immigration laws were also significantly less strict than they are now.

“Citizenship status was not relevant when my grandfather moved here,” said Naeem’s granddaughter, Sundus.