Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond; Reconfiguring Gender

4 Shi’i Muslim women’s pilgrimage rituals to Lady Fatemeh-Masoumeh’s shrine in Qom Ladan Rahbari1 Introduction: Muslim pilgrimage and ritual The intimate connections between commerce, religion, fashion, celebration and consumption have been subject of considerable scholarly attention (Mitra 2016). In sacred journeys, the boundaries of tourism and pilgrimage, consumption and celebration are often blurred as the pilgrims use marketed material objects for spiritual reasons and take part in activities which include enjoyment that is rewarding in more than a merely spiritual sense. Throughout the pilgrimage, everyday materials and practices – from clothing to cars – used or consumed in the ritual, embody and acquire sacred, secular, material and spiritual qualities. Since the religious domain is not immune to the workings of the market (Sinha 2014), sacred journeys and pilgrimage rituals are theorized in the realm of both religious and secular journeys. This study is interested in the exploration of the sacralisation of everyday practices and objects, and marketization of the sacred in pilgrimage. Pilgrimage shrines are frequently attractions for vacationers engaged partly in ‘religious tourism’ or ‘pilgrimage tourism’ rather than in purely religious and spiritual journeys (Badone and Roseman 2010). Pilgrims’ behaviours provide an insight into the nature of symbolic, mystical and material consumption (Moufahim and Lichrou 2019). These elements inform the research and analysis of women’s pilgrimage to recognize and distinguish different things, practices and connections that women as pilgrims make with the objects, spaces and temporalities in religious and spiritual do- mains. This study thus addresses not only spiritual and immaterial aspects of rituals but also the materialities involved in relation to gender and, more specifically, to women’s pilgrimage performance. Gender is specifically relevant for the study of w omen’s pilgrimage activities due to the existing limitations put on women’s mobility in some interpretations of Islam. There are dispensations for women, including limitations on travelling without being accompanied by a maḥram,2 according to some branches in Islam, and on travelling if one’s husband forbids one to do so (Battour, Ismail, and Battor 2010). Despite this, in many Muslim 76 Ladan Rahbari contexts, women are well represented among visitors to the shrine (Gulevich and Colby 2004, 386). According to authoritative interpretations of Islam, men and women are moral equals in God’s eyes and are expected to fulfil the same duties of worship, prayer, faith, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage to Mecca (Oxford Islamic Studies 2019). Prescribed forms of pilgrimage and travels to shrines and holy places have been a large part of Islamic social activities and discourses (Nikolaisen 2004), regardless of gender. Muslim pilgrims of all genders undertake the ziyāra for a variety of reasons: to make religious vows; to offer their gratitude to religious figures for favours received; to ask for healings or other forms of help; to absorb the spirituality of the place; or simply to be inspired by or express their admira- tion and love for the holy person (Gulevich and Colby 2004, 386). Gender, among other identity markers, can affect interpretations and intentions of pilgrims, the ways rituals are practiced and embodied, and the symbolic relationship between the pilgrim and the realm of the sacred. This chapter aims to contribute to the studies of Muslim pilgrimage and women’s religious and embodied everyday practices, in particular through exploring the intersection of spiritual and everyday elements of religious mobility. The study also offers insights on women’s single-sex pilgrimage in the Iranian context. The findings will most likely find resonance among researchers and scholars interested in topics of Muslim pilgrimage, gender and religious women’s mobility. This chapter is organized as follows: in the next section, the practice of pilgrimage and the centrality of Lady Masoumeh’s shrine in Qom are contextualized within the contemporary cultural and political discourses of pilgrimage to holy sites in Iran. In the subsequent sections, after introducing the research methodology, women’s rituals, mobility, tourism-pilgrimage nexus and interpretations of emo- tional and spiritual trajectory throughout the journey are investigated. This trajectory is studied in relation to the sacralisation of the everyday and the marketization of the sacred. Who is Lady Masoumeh? It is estimated that approximately 10–15% of all Muslims worldwide follow the Shi’a branch of Islam. Shi’a is thus a minority Muslim group globally, but the population constitutes a large majority in Iran, and a majority in countries such as Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. Shi’i population’s geographical distribution spreads from the Middle Eastern and Asian countries to the Shi’i diaspora in Europe and America (Kalinock 2006). In Shi’i narratives, Imams – descendants of the Prophet and Imāmzādahs – Imams’ children – serve not only as spiritual and political leaders, but also as the only maintainers of the ‘true’ path of Islam after the Prophet. The city of Qom in Iran – sometimes called the Shi’i Vatican (Blair 2016) – is largely considered the contemporary centre of the Twelver Shi’a.3 The city increasingly attracted Shi’i theologians after the mid-17th century Shi’i Muslim women’s pilgrimage rituals 77 (Canby 2009) when during the Safavid Dynasty Shi’a was coined as the official religion of the Persian territories.4 Most of the available Shi’i sources are produced, supported and sanctioned by political entities and theologi- cal institutions located in the city of Qom. The practice of pilgrimage is one of the ways in which Qom institutions – coupled with the Iranian state – promote their Shi’i identity. One of the most significant sacred sites in Iran is the shrine of Lady Fatemeh-Sughra or Fatemeh-Masoumeh (called Masoumeh in this paper) in Qom. The shrine is considered the second most important site in the country only after that of Lady Masoumeh’s brother, Imam Reza, which is located in the city of Mashhad. Lady Masoumeh (790–816 CE) was the seventh Imam, Musa Al-Kazem’s daughter with his wife Najmeh,5 and the eighth Imam, Reza’s sister.6 There are multi- ple Shi’i hadiths (narrations about the sayings and acts of the Prophet and the Imams) from different Shi’i Imams that venerate Lady Masoumeh and her shrine in Qom and that predict that the city of Qom would become the centre of Shi’i knowledge (YJC, 2015). A hadith from Imam Sadegh (702–765 CE – sixth Shi’i Imam) states: A lady who is descendant of me, by the name of Fatemeh, will be buried in Qom. Whoever visits her, will be rewarded by entry to Heaven – Imam Sadegh. (Majlesi volume 48, page 317)7 There are similar hadiths from Imam Reza and Imam Javad (ninth Imam of Twelvers) who encourage believers to visit Lady Masoumeh’s shrine. The shrine is exalted also because besides Lady Masoumeh, three daughters of Imam Javad are buried there. The shrine is especially attractive for practic- ing Muslim Shi’i women. Like other prominent female religious figures, such as Fatemeh-Zahra8 and Zeinab,9 Masoumeh’s life (and death) story, her per- sonal characteristics and political imagery make her a role model for Shi’i women. It is because of this status that Lady Masoumeh’s shrine is estimated to be visited by around 20 million pilgrims every year (Shabestan 2014). Lady Masoumeh represents historical Shi’i resistance to anti-Shi’i regimes and her birthday is the national Girls’ Day (Rooz-e Dokhtar) in Iran. She is venerated as the symbol of virginity and singlehood. The political aspect of her imagery should be understood within the larger Shi’i political narrative as a people who believe that the rightful place of their Imams as political rulers was denied to them. Their history is one that is based on narratives of dis- crimination and oppression by anti-Shi’a forces that continue to exist in some Sunni Muslim majority contexts. Shi’a believe that all their 12 Imams were martyred. This martyrdom discourse resonates in the life-story of Lady Ma- soumeh, who died while travelling to Khorasan to re-unite with her brother, who was also her ‘guardian’ after the death of their father. While the con- ditions of her death are unknown, there also speculations that Masoumeh, similar to her brother, was poisoned (Eshtehardi 2001) and martyred. 78 Ladan Rahbari In terms of Lady Masoumeh’s gendered imagery as a single woman, different sources have offered divergent accounts. According to one source, her singlehood was due to the severe suppression of Shi’a and especially Imam Reza’s family, resulting in no one daring to ask for her hand in marriage (Hawzah 2007). Another argument is that there were no men who matched her level of spirituality and knowledge. This explanation might not seem so far-fetched if we consider a hadith by Imam Sadegh (the sixth Imam) in reference to Lady Fatemeh-Zahra that states: If God had not created the Commander of the Faithful [Ali, LR] for Fatemeh[-Zahra, LR], then there would not have been a suitable husband for her in the whole world from the time of Adam to the end of mankind. – Imam Sadegh (Al-Islam n.d.-a) Thus, in line with this view, the same reasoning could have been applied in the case of Lady Masoumeh. The Shi’i historian Yaqubi (897–898 CE) suggested a third argument, according to which Lady Masoumeh refrained from marriage in compliance with the will of her father, Imam Musa Al-Kazim (Yaqubi 2003). The two latter hypotheses are, however, rejected by contemporary Shi’i institutions in Qom (Hawzah 2007) since they con- tradict the high value of marriage in Islam and among the Shi’a.10 Their argument is that because of the significance of marriage in Islam, the lack of good matches is not a strong justification for singlehood.

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