In reading about the requirements of the hajj, I was wondering how such a thing was done before the era of planes or automobiles that made getting from one faraway place to another relatively quick. This gave me a couple questions.

1. How did people that didn't live close to Mecca make their pilgrimage in any reasonable amount of time? Based on a quick google, travelling on foot from eastern Iran would take nearly 3 months which seems an absurd amount of time to put your life on pause and also would need to be timed well to arrive on time. Were people that lived that far out just not expected to make the journey or is there something I am missing?

2. How could kingdoms and nations with a majority Muslim population afford for so many people to cease laboring and take a trip all at once? I understand that the infirmed and poor were not expected to have to do it, but that would still leave a majority of the working population it seems. How did these economies withstand such a thing?