Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Religion as a cultural phenomenon has long been global. But in terms of different global settings and social contexts, this universal dimension has represented itself in various religious forms. In the contemporary era, the new forms of religion have articulated around new cultural and social categories in which set the ground for emerging or reconstructing various types of religious rituals, rites, networks, institutions, beliefs, symbols, religiosities, sacred spaces, etc. Transnational patterns of religion are one of the significant manifestations of this global trend. This paper, given this global terrain, is aimed to investigate one of the greatest religious ceremonies of Shia, namely Arbaeen Rally (Pilgrimage), as a transnational religious event and moment. Every year, more than 20 million pilgrims from different parts of the world take part in this religious ceremony in the Shia’s holy and sacred sites and shrines in Iraq. Retrieving and reconstructing this old ceremony with new rituals and coordinates in the current Shi’ite world, indicate the emergence of new religious phenomena and experiences with global and transnational features in the geo-culture of Middle East. By drawing on the sociological approach, this paper traces the transnational ties and features of this religious phenomenon in three levels, namely the micro-level, in which the focus is on the experiences and relationships between individuals, meso-level, which the organizational and institutional levels of the ceremony will be examined, and finally in macro-level the structural and socio-historical context of this religious phenomenon will be explained.