فصلنامه تحقیقات فرهنگی ایران
سال سیزدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 50، تابستان 1399)

In recent years Arbaeen pilgrimage in Iran has many practitioners and visitors, so it becomes one of the main aspects of Shiite identity and Iranian religiosity actions. Relying on a case study of discourses and representations of Arbaeen pilgrimage, we try to understand Arbaeen pilgrimage as a social phenomenon and explore diversity and differences of Iran's society today. Concentrating on representations and discourses of Arbaeen pilgrimage that signifying this Practice, by addressing written texts published on paper or digital mass media (Newspapers, News Agencies and News Sites) in a 5 years period since 1392 to 1396 in Iran, diversity of representations have shown. Applying theoretical and methodological approach of Laclau and Mouffe's discourse analysis in the process of investigating 1800 day-record published on that 5 years period, 6 different discourses have found that representing power constellation of Arbaeen pilgrimage phenomenon. Findings of this exploratory research helps focus on cultural changes of post-revolutionary Iran's society and determine its diversity contexts.

National-religious events attract media attention but different media views events differently in ideological frameworks which facilitate the failure or success of public diplomacy efforts all around the world. In this regard, Persian-language foreign media, including the BBC Persian, is among the sources of meaning and conceptualization of national-religious events such as Chaharshanbehsuri for audiences inside Iran. In recent years, one of the most important events happening yearly with a large crowd of people is the Arbaeen Hosseini procession. According to Rodenbühler's approach to the concept of ritual, Arbaeen ritual is performed voluntarily, non-instrumental and seriously. This paper, considering the history and the extent of the BBC in professional news activity, analyzes the way of Arbaeen event representation on the BBC website using thematic analysis method. The findings indicate that the Arbaeen pilgrims' walking ritual has been strongly represented as a political and ideological movement under the seven main themes (documentary narration, separatism and Shia, crisis of disorder and inability of Iran and Iraq’s governments, Arbaeen downsizing, analysis of the eight-year Iraq-Iran war, allegedly imposed insecurity by Isil and the political Maneuver of the Iranian government). The representation of the relations between the actors in this ritual ceremony not only has nothing to do with Rothenbuhler’s view but also shows the negative image making of this religious event as a continuation of the Shia phobia in the western media and especially as a new manifestation of Iranophobia.

Religious systems spread across geographical contexts and thus form their own historical and geographical formations. The existing understanding and analysis of Shiite formulation is mainly concentrated on its time and historical developments. In this article, I have tried to deal with geographical aspect of Shiite identity formation by emphasizing the recent developments, especially the fall of Saddam and the liberation of pilgrimage of Karbala and other Shiite holy cities in Iraq for believers, in relation to the geography of the Holy Land in Shiite culture. Historical data show that Shiism has always regretted for the pilgrimage to its holy land, Karbala, and this has symbolically become a fundamental part of the identity and faith of Shiites around the world. The most important consequence of free access to the holy shrines has caused the fundamental change of this formulation of the centrality of the Holy Land and the end of this historical syndrome of regretting for the Holy Land and the desire for pilgrimage.

The largest religious community of Muslims is formed every year on the occasion of the 40th Day of Ashura by walking to Karbala and during the Arbaeen procession. This pilgrimage walk, while being a wonderful manifestation of religious experience, is a diverse field of Charity services to pilgrims, as well as a clear example of "religious charity". Religious experience is usually formed during religious practices and rituals, including during pilgrimage. But this study begins specifically with the important question of whether the experience of participation and involvement in religious charity can have the characteristics of a religious experience? To answer this question, the qualitative research method has been used using interview and participatory observation techniques by recording data such as photos, videos and field notes. Iranian pilgrims as well as processions, procession holders and members of Iranian and Iraqi processions were the observation unit and the population studied in this study. The findings showed that the experience of participating in religious charitable services, as well as the use of these services in the Arbaeen walk, can be a ground for the emergence and characteristics of religious experience. By extending the results to other situations of religious practice in which religious Charity deeds are possible, it has been argued that the possibility of defining religious charity as one of the contexts of religious experience in the Arbaeen walk can be a positive answer to the possibility of this kind of definition of Religious experience should be in all situations of religious experience - in addition to pilgrimage and Arbaeen.

Studying the types of participation in Ashura rituals in Shi’a’s societies has great importance due to intense intermixture that has been established with collective conscience of the followers of this religion. Meanwhile, the study of the Arbaeen walking ritual, which has shown wonderful changes in recent years and become a special and multifaceted socio-cultural phenomenon, has increased importance. Therefore, this article has considered the description and analysis of areas and types of collective participation in Arbaeen Walk phenomenon. 17 semi-structured interviews are conducted with Iranian servants and Managers of different Mukeb as the group with most level and scope of the conflict with this phenomenon in comparing with other participants. Analyzing the content of the interviews by using a combination of thematic analysis and ideal type making methods, after three coding steps, led us to 10 themes in relation to the areas of participation and 12 themes in relation to the type of participation. And finally, it was concluded that we are facing a unique kind of participation in the Arbaeen Walking.

Pilgrimage is considered as part of the culture of religions and religion is an important motivation and stimulus for travel and every year millions of people travel to religious holy places in different parts of the world for religious purposes. In this article, the study of the act of pilgrimage on the Arbaeen walk is considered from the perspective of young people. Research methodology The data of this qualitative study were collected through semi-structured interviews and participatory observation and the base theory method was used for data analysis. Theoretical and purposive sampling method was interviewed with 35 young Iranian pilgrims (18-35) on the Arbaein hike from Najaf to Karbala in November 2019.  After analyzing the qualitative data, five main themes were identified: 1) physical travel or travel; 2) cognitive, belief; 3) empirical, emotional; 4) Arbaean lifestyle; 5) Arbaean identity. Each has different sub-indices. The overall results of the study indicate that hiking is an important factor in identifying and playing an essential role in the spiritual, physical and spiritual well-being of a person. The results of this study also show the superiority of spiritual intention and pilgrimage of pilgrims over material and worldly civil intentions.