Theology of Shiite Ziyāra: The Case for a Norm-Sensitive Approach to Religion

Ziy & amacr;ra (pilgrimage) is a religiously motivated travel and an often understudied but increasingly integral part of Shiite religious life where it functions as a rich system of ritual thought and practice. Adopting an emic approach to the study of religion, which emphasizes understanding a system from the perspective of an insider who is familiar with its practices, this paper employs a norm-sensitive approach to deal with the theological significance of ziy & amacr;ra in Shiite thought. Therefore, this study has twofold objectives. Firstly, we aim to examine the theological foundations underlying Shiite ziy & amacr;ra. Hence, the first phase of the present research applies textual analysis to review the existing evidence in ziy & amacr;ra texts and intertextual sources. Then, we move on from a textual methodology to a more contextual approach to explore diverse interpretations of Shiite pilgrimage in different Shiite discourses, including fideistic, political, existential, and spiritual discourses. Drawing upon the possibility and authenticity of a new, norm-sensitive, and theological understanding of the ziy & amacr;ra phenomenon, this study aims secondly to return to Shiite tradition in an attempt to retrieve the opportunities for building a new theology of ziy & amacr;ra.