Opinion,Think! Analysis, Essays Friday|10-01-2020

TOP a rocky hill southeast of tinued worshipping at these sites for dif- Tehran sits the shrine of Bibi ferent reasons: a common sight not only in Shahrbanu, a Persian princess South Asia but in Iran as well, where nu- who was the daughter of the merous shrines are shared between Mus- Alast Sassanian king of Iran. Following the lims, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians. Islamic conquest, she is said to have mar- And let’s not forget that Zoroastrian- ried Imam Husain, the grandson of Proph- ism itself was a state religion, meaning et Muhammad. many of its shrines were likely built atop When Imam Husain was killed at previously existing pagan sites. Karbala by the corrupt caliph Yazid – a South Asian pilgrims have been com- battle that has become a seminal moment ing to Iran for centuries. Based on my re- in the history of Islam – Shahrbanu fled search in the British Library’s historical and sought refuge further east. archives, I have found that the British The legend goes that when she ar- consul in Mashhad estimated that about rived at the mountain, her enemies were 100 Indian pilgrims visited the city every close behind her. At the mountain’s base month in the 1920s. she prayed for deliverance, and the rocks But with the increasing ease of travel opened up and took her in, protecting her and the vast improvement of infrastruc- from being enslaved by her husband’s ture in Iran since the 1979 Revolution, it murderers. is easier than ever for millions of South The legend has long attracted Iranian Asian pilgrims to make their way to Iran. pilgrims to the shrine. Sitting on tour buses making their Shahrbanu perfectly brings together way overland from Karachi to Tehran, two key parts of Iranian identity: the Per- pilgrims reconnect lands torn apart from sian past and the Muslim present. These each other by colonialism. days, if you visit the shrine you’re just as Whereas for so long Iranians and likely to encounter Pakistani or Indian pil- South Asians were more likely to meet grims as you are Iranians. each other in Dubai or the West, today the On a recent visit, I found a large Pak- streets of Qom, Mashhad or Tehran are far istani tour group in the majority among more likely sites for this encounter. smaller numbers of Iranian and Iraqi pil- This article first appeared on Dawn. grims. A Pakistani visitor I spoke to said the tour had driven overland from Kara- chi to visit the major shrines at Mashhad and Qom. They were ending their trek across Iran’s holy sites at Bibi Shahrba- nu’s shrine. These flows of pilgrims are part of a growing network of Muslim shrine tour- ism that connects Iran and the countries around it, especially Pakistan, India, Iraq, Their Lebanon and the Persian Gulf. presence – as The pilgrimages are focused on the shrines of the 12 Shia imams. Although well as that of most of the tombs are in Iraq, some are in RELIGIOUS SPACES Iran, and as the latter is safer and easier their fire temples to access, it has become a major centre in cities like for pilgrimage. The main sites are Mashhad, which Mumbai and hosts the tomb of Imam Reza, the eighth At These Shrines In Iran, Shia imam, and Qom, which hosts his sis- Karachi – are a ter’s tomb, along with smaller tombs of the constant reminder relatives of the 12 imams in Tehran. Many of South Asia’s tours visit both Iran and Iraq in one trip, Indian And Pakistani Pilgrims while others concentrate solely on Iran. longstanding and Although the majority of pilgrims are Shia, many Sunnis come too. This is continual links especially true for India and Pakistan, with Iran. After where the Shia imams are historically re- Discover Common Ground vered by many Sunnis as well. Signs of the Zoroastrianism South Asian pilgrimage boom are visible lex ham in any Iranian shrine city. In Qom’s old A S ceased to be Iran’s

South Asia, there have always been many More recently, Zoroastrians have long state religion and languages – but Persian was the language maintained close networks and ties be- most Zoroastrians and culture that tied people together irre- tween Iran and South Asia. Over the last spective of what they spoke at home. two millennia, thousands of Persian Zoro- gradually Today, about half of Iranians grow up astrians from Iran and Central Asia have converted to speaking a language other than Persian migrated to what is now India and Paki- – Azeri Turkish, Kurdish, Baluchi, Ara- stan, and today they are known as Parsis Islam, they took bic, Turkmen — but Persian remains the or Iranis. language that ties everyone together. But Their presence – as well as that of their their holy sites this Persian Cosmopolis has much deeper fire temples in cities like Mumbai and Ka- with them. Many roots than Islam. Bibi Shahrbanu’s tomb rachi – are a constant reminder of South outside Tehran highlights this fact. Asia’s longstanding and continual links fire temples were Like many others across Iran, the with Iran. After Zoroastrianism ceased to shrine is thought to have previously been be Iran’s state religion and most Zoroas- converted into a Zoroastrian fire temple dedicated to the trians gradually converted to Islam, they shrines over time, goddess Anahita, for whom a legend simi- took their holy sites with them. Many fire lar to Bibi Shahrbanu’s also exists. temples were converted into shrines over and places that Meanwhile, Zoroastrianism – which time, and places that had been sacred for was the state religion of Iran before Islam centuries retained their sense of holiness, had been sacred – shares many features with early Hindu- albeit with different names. for centuries ism. For example, Ahura Mazda is consid- This process of converting Zoroastrian ered God in the Zoroastrian holy texts, the temples to Islamic shrines is not unique retained their Avesta, but is associated with evil in the to Islam. The major Christian holy sites sense of holiness, Hindu Vedas. In Zoroastrianism, spiritual in Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Palestine, beings called daevas are associated with for example, were built atop pagan Roman albeit with evil, while in Hinduism, devas are associ- temples that were demolished as part of the ated with good. conversion of the Empire to Christianity. different names. This overlap points to a shared origin And many Hindu sites, likewise, were city, Urdu signage competes with Persian world’s few Shia-majority countries, Shias from which both religions departed. previously local deities that were taken and Arabic. of neighbouring countries are often associ- This is also evidenced by the fact that over by Brahminical traditions. Over Twenty million pilgrims visit Qom ated with Iran. As a result, they often have Persian and Hindi diverged from the same time, the memory of the initial gods was every single year. While the majority are to craft identities and how they present language. As a result, Sanskrit and Old lost or deemphasised as the site’s associa- Iranian, they are joined by Muslims from themselves locally with Iran in mind. Persian share both grammar and vocabu- tion with a Brahminical holy figure came both East and West. Pilgrimage is one of the few times lary, and many similarities persist in their to be more prominent. Shias are able to actually see the country modern descendants. More commonly, different people con- Religious tourism for themselves. A visit to Iran isn’t just When we think of cosmopolitanism, a chance to pray at the shrines of holy we often think of places like Dubai, where women and men. It’s also an opportunity people from different countries come for to evaluate the positives and negatives of work – but in Iran, there is a shrine cosmo- the Iranian political model politanism that draws together worship- The rising popularity of samosas as pers from across the world. Iranian fast food attests to the boom in Pilgrims from both Pakistan and In- South Asian pilgrimage, but also points to dia come, meeting each other in bazaars the longer history of ties that bind these and mosques, and they in turn meet Iraq- countries. Locally, samosas are known as is, Lebanese, Afghans and many others. sambousak. Although South Asians tend While in Dubai all these people might be to think of samosas as quintessentially lo- around, the neoliberal economic structure cal, historians believe they actually come and stratification of society between rich from Central Asia, introduced first to West and poor segregates national and econom- Asia, and subsequently to India. ic groups. In Iran today, this history is not well- Yet all these groups mix freely in and known; most people think of samosas as around the shrines, haggling over prices typical Arab-style food from the Persian together, trying new foods in restaurants Gulf coast, along with falafel. and checking out the devotional icons for sale at the local bazaars. Iranian-style Persian cosmopolis paintings and depictions of Islamic holy But because South Asians also love figures have become increasingly popular samosas, the main streets of Qom are now among Shia communities elsewhere. This full of shops selling this beloved transna- is no doubt furthered by the many souve- tional snack food. The samosa is a remind- nirs pilgrims bring home with them. er that Iran has long been closely connect- For pilgrims from countries like ed to South Asia. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Bahrain, This connection is not just through where Shia communities often feel under Islam – which entered South Asia through siege due to violent persecution, a visit to Iran – but also a long history of Persian lan- Iran can feel like a breath of fresh air. guage and culture, which connected these As pilgrims tour Iran, they see a differ- two regions and Central Asia together. ent political system: a strongly-centralised Scholars have called this shared cul- Islamic Republic where the highways are ture the Persian Cosmopolis. For five cen- well-developed, and security and safety turies until the arrival of the British, Per- are ever-present and tightly-regulated. sian was the lingua franca of India. Due to the fact that Iran is one of the In Iran and Central Asia, just like in