Anthropology of Pilgrimage: A Study in Pathology of Arbaeen Ceremony

Over the past two decades, the Arbaeen ceremony has turned from a relatively simple walk carried out only by Iraqi Shia citizens into a widespread event attended by more than 25 million Shias from all over the world, including about three million Iranians. Naturally, this large amount of human presence in one place and to hold a ceremony, along with all the achievements and functions it has, also has negative unwanted consequences that can cause "damages" to the ceremony, to the participants (pilgrims) and those related to it (all Shiites and governments of Iran and Iraq). Especially when we consider that the presence of Iranians in the Arbaeen walking ceremony increased from a few thousand people to several million people in less than a decade; A growth that many people and institutions did not expect and therefore did not have the necessary preparation to face its consequences. In this article, we will first draw a general pathology of this ceremony and then analyze these injuries from the perspective of tourism anthropology.

In conducting this research, field methods along with document and library studies have been used. In this context, the writer's experience of attending the Arbaeen ceremony and also in-depth interviews with sixty people (20 experts, 20 supporters of holding Arbaeen and 20 critics of holding Arbaeen in the current way) are placed in this direction. Several of the interviewed experts were Iraqis who were familiar with the Persian language and Iranian culture due to their years of presence in Iran. All interviews were conducted and recorded in Farsi. Then it became a text and the problems were extraction of them. These injuries were divided into categories and combined or separated several times until we finally reached the final category.

Based on the findings of this research, the major damages caused to the Arbaeen walking ceremony can be included in seven categories: governmental-administrative, cultural-social, economic, environmental, political and international damages and finally tourism. Subcategories can be found and enumerated in each of these categories, and the most important subcategories have been briefly introduced in the present study. At the end, solutions were presented to eliminate or reduce these damages. The most important solutions are the government's intervention and activity in providing the infrastructure of this ceremony (such as sanitary facilities for the length of the route or arranging vehicles for the transportation of pilgrims) and entrusting executive activities, especially in the field of organizing processions, to the public and civil sectors and avoiding government Mowkebs from making large and magnificent Mowkebs. Also, it is suggested to the civil institutions related to the Arbaeen ceremony to be more focused and active in the field of familiarizing the pilgrims with the culture of the Iraqi hosts and pilgrimage customs and avoiding behaviors contrary to the pilgrimage culture