From Mecca to Mashhad

The Narrative of an Illustrated Shiʿi Pilgrimage Scroll from the Qajar Period

Bibliographic Data

ID9343102
AuthorsUlrich Marzolph (0000-0001-6356-539X, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume31
Issue1
Pages207-242
Publication date2014-10-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMuqarnas Online (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0732-2992 • E-ISSN: 2211-8993
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/22118993-00311p09
OpenAlexW615072713
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited2

Hajj certificates are stylized legal documents testifying to the fact that a certain individual has participated in the pilgrimage to Mecca and has executed the required rituals. While most previous studies of hajj certificates and related phenomena are concerned with specimens that are either very old or particularly attractive in terms of their execution, fairly recent items, and particularly printed ones, have not received much attention. Moreover, hajj certificates have so far mostly been studied as a Sunni or general Muslim phenomenon, and items with a specific Shiʿi agenda have largely been neglected. The present essay discusses in detail an illustrated Shiʿi pilgrimage scroll from the Qajar period that is currently preserved in a private collection in Hawai‘i. Preceded by the Niebuhr scroll, an illustrated manuscript copy dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, and followed by modern printed posters, the lithographed Qajar-period scroll presents a distinct Shiʿi perspective in that the pilgrim’s ultimate goal is the sanctuary of the Eighth Shiʿi Imam, ʿAli ibn Musa al-Rida (d. 818), in Mashhad

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Hajj · Islam · Literature · Narrative · Period (music · Pilgrim · Pilgrimage · Scroll · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History

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