Moreover, the movement of people, ideas and things between Sudan and Saudi Arabia touched the lives of all villagers, whether they traveled or not. Salaries are much higher abroad, so mughteribiin are associated with wealth and luxury consumption. A returning mughterib is greeted like a king. The ritual of karama invests the occasion with religious as well as social meaning. The whole village is alerted to an important event as men shoot off rifles and women ululate.
Migrants bring back suitcases loaded with gifts to distribute among relatives and neighbors.
Through the accounts of mughteribiin and the wealth and goods they brought back, Saudi Arabia came to occupy an important place in villagers' imaginations. They arrived in the village with savings amassed from their wages, consumer goods purchased abroad and a new sense of the world and their place in it. New sources of wealth, changed consumption patterns and altered understandings of what it means to be a Muslim were all intertwined. When they returned home, villagers reported what they saw in other places, and sometimes altered their own standards of behavior. The hajjis and the more numerous labor migrants to Saudi Arabia returned with new understandings of Islamic culture and Arab identity along with new material goods and desires.