Visual Culture of Shi’ism: Qajar-era Murals in Gilan’s Holy Shrines

Having arisen out of a wide variety of research traditions, visual culture studies are certainly different. Shia believers painted their holy shrines with murals, which have a long history of customs and traditions. Gilan’s holy Shrines are places where religious events were held together with paintings on their walls dating back to the Qajar era. Accordingly, the images were influenced by developments such as the prevalence of Ta’ziyeh and the promotion of art and literature. This study focuses on religious and ritualistic beliefs of the region from the Qajar era to the present time. To this end, the question here is raised about the relationship between the concepts behind Gilan Shrineschr('39') decorative images and visual culture of Shi’ism during Qajar. Being qualitative in nature, the present study adopts a descriptive approach to content analysis with the findings demonstrating that the popularity of Ta’ziyeh and Shabihkhani during the Qajar era was the pivotal reason for building Gilan Shrines with those images. Furthermore, the event of Karbala, Stories of Prophets with its religious connotation, and folk tales all played a role in the formation of the paintings of Gilan Shrines.