The December 1941 hajj season was marked by the introduction of something new: the live radio broadcasting of letters to Palestinian and Transjordanian pilgrims, from the Palestine Broadcasting Service in Jerusalem to the pilgrims, who were then in Mina. The Arabic section director of this tightly-controlled, multi-language state radio station had persuaded the British Mandate Government both to negotiate with the young Saudi state for broadcast approval, and to air such unambiguously religious broadcasts. In the midst of war, the Mandate authorities delighted at what they considered an opportunity to present British governance in a positive light, to Muslim listeners around the region. Nor were Palestinians opposed: even the Christian-owned Falastin newspaper praised the broadcasts. While starting in Palestine, these broadcasts began a new practice of live, public, mass communications from the hajj that reached a much broader audience – first through radio, and later via television, film, and online media. This paper examines this early history of “outside broadcasting” to and from the hajj. Focusing on Levantine radio stations, it uses government archives to trace the rationale for supporting these broadcasts, along with the process by which permission to broadcast was granted by the Saudi government. It describes the early history of these broadcasts, and examines local and regional press coverage to assess how these broadcasts were perceived, politically and religiously, and how they were received by listeners. It sets radio broadcasts from the hajj in the broader context of other period depictions of the hajj and of Mecca – in the press, in popular culture, and in literature. Finally, it also situates these broadcasts in the broader context of 1930s and 1940s religious broadcasting, including the popular “Bells of Jerusalem” and Bethlehem broadcasts that aired in the United States and elsewhere at Christmas-time. This paper concludes by suggesting that the mid-1900s history of broadcasting from the hajj helps lay the foundation for the later intensification of radio, television, and Internet broadcasts from and of Mecca – whether of pilgrims making tawaf around the Kaaba, or of daily prayers at the Masjid al-Haram. The then-dominant medium of radio, like those that would follow, was put to work to make a critical religious event more visceral for believers, and echoing earlier forms (like paintings or mosaics of the Kaaba and Mecca) and push past them.