Abstract
In many cultures, including the Islamic world, people believe that sacred places are the meeting point of heaven and earth, and that being buried in such places brings happiness after death. Therefore, people bury their deceased in sacred places whenever possible.The holy shrines of Imam Reza (AS) and his sister Hazrat Masoumeh (SA), due to their special sanctity, are the burial places of prominent individuals, especially religious scholars. The issue arises from the fact that due to the limited space and the exclusiveness of these places to a certain class, it raises the question of what kind of attitude pilgrims have towards the relatively exclusive burial of scholars near the shrines? In order to discover the meanings embedded in the minds of people who have experience of visiting the graves of scholars in the holy shrines, the author has examined their lived experience with a phenomenological approach by conducting semi-structured interviews and analyzing the themes contained in the responses. The results of the study show that, despite the initial assumption of the researcher, the positive themes of “special position and high personality”, “cultural authority and life model”, “having spiritual effects of graves”, “association of prior knowledge towards celebrities”, “impressive social services”, “spiritual care towards scholars”, “spirituality and mysticism of the buried”, “semantic affinity between scholars and Ahl al-Bayt” and finally “discrimination and disturbance” were evoked in the lived experience of the pilgrims. All the above organizing themes are categorized under the overarching theme of “positive view towards the burial of scholars in the Mashahed al-Musharrif.” The interviewees positively evaluated the burial of scholars and celebrities, provided that they avoided “discrimination” and did not cause “disturbance to pilgrims.”
Keywords: Graves of scholars, Imam Reza (AS), Hazrat Masoumeh (SA), Phenomenology, Holy place, Mashahed al-Mushorraif.