Pilgrimage versus stereotype: Forging new links between

Abstract

Recently one of the common terms in most media outlets is "islamophobia" which tends to<br><br>cover Muslims or Islam-related topics in a deleterious light. Unfortunately, there are extremists in<br><br>almost all religions through the history; however, prejudice has always existed to establish old<br><br>stereotype or fallacy of overgeneralization about Islam. Although Muslim's community has been<br><br>attempting to show neutral image of Islam to the World (/slamophonic, Trueislam ... ), still negative<br><br>images of Islam outnumber and are far more widespread than positive ones.<br><br>After the rise of comparative literature along with cultural studies. the significance of nationality<br><br>attracts attention for interpreting work of art in a cross-national relation rather than sticking to the<br><br>boundary of national identities. In a similar attempt, comparative study of religion has been an<br><br>important part of human culture, history, politics, economics, art, and literature. Nevertheless,<br><br>researchers have more tended to focus on religious side rather than cultural, historical, and other<br><br>aspects of religion .Pilgrims come from all religions. Morinis has defined pilgrimage as "a travel to, and communion with, a specific, nonsubstitutable physical site that represents and makes manifest the religious,cultural or personal values of individual a source of core identity for pilgrimage." (Morinis qtd. In<br><br>Hyde, K. F, & Harman, S., 2011, p.1343). This research proposes to consider pilgrimage as<br><br>religious, cultural, and multicultural theme in anthropological research. Furthermore, in contrast to<br><br>Victor Turner's "Communitas" in which people share the same experience in pilgrimage as a<br><br>community; pilgrimage will be discussed as an individual experience that is vastly varied.<br><br>The incorporation of Imagology and postcolonial approaches to the objects of this study that are<br><br>pilgrimage and media contribute to the interdisciplinary focus of the project. Imagology is a shift<br><br>toward more cross national identity in the base and cultural preoccupation in a broad sense. Thus,<br><br>we suggest the hypothesis that Pilgrimage offers a practical way of forging different links between<br><br>them.As a result, here we report new method for employing comparative study of religion in crosscultural encounters and dialogue between two cultures on pilgrimage. The present study hopes to<br><br>show pilgrimage both as secular and religious act that could be studied as a tool for stabilizing and<br><br>reforming image of "Other"; this image is the fundamental concern of Imagology.