The Semantic Analysis of Pilgrimage form the Viewpoint of Symbolic Anthropology: the Case of the Pilgrims of Imam Reza (pbuh)

The concept of pilgrimage is highly referred to in religious literature and reflects on a form of relationship between man and the divinity. In the religious literature throughout the world, pilgrimage has a history long as man’s existence. In the past, pilgrimage has been a balanced, homogeneous experience, while it has evolved into a heterogeneous, unbalanced one in the world of today.
In this article, we are going to understand and elucidate the heterogeneous elements in the experience of pilgrimage, highlighting the diversity that has emerged in the types of pilgrims. In other words, “could the changes in a traditional action like pilgrimage be understood in a society with modern properties?”.
We analyze and categorize various types of Imam Reza (pbuh) pilgrims through the study of the relativity of the action of Imam Reza (pbuh) pilgrimage with modernity, and the evaluation of the related factors such as secularization in contemporary Iran. The characteristics of three traditional, modern, and pilgrim-tourist types are then introduced. The method applied in this study is qualitative and it is done through ethnographic approaches. The data used in it are also taken from various sources such as pilgrims’ diaries, travelogues, petitions, interviews, observations, autoethnography, etc.