One of Locatelli’s photographs looks as if it were taken from the air, but it was actually shot from one of the highest points of the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, which houses a hulking hotel and shopping complex a few hundred meters from the gates of the Grand Mosque — 46 times taller than the Kaaba and crowned by a clock five times the size of Big Ben. Throughout the history of Islam, no other ruler built in such proximity to the Kaaba; certainly none built anything to dwarf it. In luxury hotels like the Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower and the Raffles Makkah Palace, views of the holiest site of Islam are marketed as the “Haram view” and “Kaaba view,” and a standard room can run anywhere from $1,500 to $2,700 a night during the hajj.

Locatelli, who is Italian and was raised Catholic, gained entry to Mecca through his marriage to an Indonesian Muslim, which included a ceremonial conversion and gave him a feeling of sympathy for his wife’s religion. In his striking images, you can see experiences shared by pilgrims everywhere as well as the mix of crass commercialism and genuine faith common among holy sites across religions (Lourdes, Fátima, Varanasi). A group of men in ihram — two pieces of white towel-like cloth that the pilgrims wear to convey a state of purity and human equality — get a bite to eat in a food court; a young man takes a selfie with the Kaaba in the background; hundreds pray inside a shopping mall. “I wanted to show my Western viewers that being a holy tourist in Mecca is not very different,” Locatelli says, “that we do similar things whether we go to a great temple, to St. Peter’s or to Mecca.”

When Locatelli first arrived in Mecca, he was anxious about his outsider status. But, he says, “Mecca was truly peaceful. My fear melted away within days.” BASHARAT PEER