Max Weber's Ideal Type as an Analytical Tool For Ashura Rites

Considering the importance of Ashura in the culture of Iranian society, the present research attempted to study the Ashura rituals with the help of one of the prominent analytical tools in the social sciences, the Weberian concept of "Ideal type". The questions of the study are: whether the ideal type of Weber can be adapted to the rites of Ashura mourning? What are the most important empirical findings of this concept in the field of Ashura mourning? Our research method was the qualitative method and the research strategy was the abductive strategy. That is, to understand the actors' actions and to classify them, we employ a dynamic approach to the problem of research. To gather the data, we used theoretical sampling and interviewed 32 respondents. In addition, a thematic analysis technique (coding operation, data classification, etc.) was used to achieve an analytical typology.The findings showed that mourners' actions can be grouped under four types: traditionalists, formalists, ethnocentric and religious modernists. These four types are different in terms of the discourse, the purpose, the amount of television access, the main characters of the assemblies, the basics, and the audience. Of course, this typology is a descriptive-analytic study of actors of these rituals and does not necessarily mean that all the characteristics mentioned are found only in one type or that there is an exact boundary between them.