Funerary Customs and Endowment of Graveyards in Mazandaran

Funerals are held in Mazandaran following specific customs. They are often held in hoseyniyehs (religious centers) or holy shrines near cemeteries. In the past, some pieces of land were sometimes endowed to graves. The present paper initially deals with death-related rituals in Mazandaran and then investigates the ownership quality of graveyard lands in the funerary customs of Mazani people. The author has examined the contents of a number of cemetery endowment deeds following a descriptive-analytic method to achieve this purpose. The findings of this study indicate that the funerary rituals and endowment of graveyards in Mazandaran originate in the worldview of the people of this region. Believing in afterlife, benefactors not only endowed land to graveyards for the peace of the spirit of their diseased dears but also made several other endowments on the grave of their relatives and great figures so that they could benefit from their good deeds in both worlds.