Bell’s note on Mughilān, the thorny Arabian shrub that signals the pilgrim is nearing Mecca, is the kind of detail that opens up a whole devotional structure. The Hajj is full of these threshold-markers — the miqāt where iḥrām is donned, the boundary stones around the haram, Mughilān before the city. Sufi reading takes each marker as a station (maqām) on the inner journey. The thorn-shrub that says ‘almost there’ is the spiritual exhaustion just before fanāʾ. John Bunyan’s pilgrim, climbing the Hill Difficulty, sees the same thing — the worst stretch of the road is the one closest to the Celestial City. Both poets know the road tells you where you are.