Islamic saint veneration: Iran

Islamic saint veneration is not generally known outside of the Islamic world, and is rarely discussed in textbooks on Islam. Practices of Islamic saint veneration can vary by region, and there is little English-language information on Islamic saint veneration as it is practiced in Iran. The most distinctive characteristic of saint veneration in modern Iran is the presence of and pilgrimage to thousands of Imamzadeh shrines – shrines dedicated to the numerous descendants of the twelve Shi‘ite Imams. Through an examination of Islamic saint veneration, the religious history of Iran, current Municipality of Tehran data on shrines near Tehran, the anthropological work of Anne Bettridge on shrine culture in the city of Shiraz, and a modern Shi‘ite pilgrimage guide, this thesis seeks to situate the practice of Islamic saint veneration in modern Iran. As will be demonstrated herein, the prevalence of Imamzadeh shrines in modern Iran is due to religious reforms instituted during the Safavid era in Iranian history(1501-1736 C.E.), when the mostly-Sunni population was converted to Twelver Shi‘ism. During the conversion process, the already-extant practices of saint veneration in Iran were reformed from the local panoply they had been and promoted in the particularly Twelver-Shi‘ite image of Imam and Imamzadeh veneration – as a means of reinforcing and validating imperial control, and as means of popularizing Shi‘ite beliefs