Shi’i Muslim women’s pilgrimage rituals to Lady Fatemeh-Masoumeh’s shrine in Qom

Lady Fatemeh Masoumeh of Qom is a significant Shi’i and national figure in Iran. Her birthday anniversary is the official Girls’ Day, as she is considered the symbol of virginity and singlehood in the country. This anthropological study explores the collective pilgrimage rituals of a group of Iranian Shi’i women who visit Lady Masoumeh’s shrine in Qom. This chapter discusses the spiritual journey that women make in the single-sex collective pilgrimage. The study shows how women create spaces of spirituality and comfort where the boundaries of leisure, tourism and religious practice get blurred. By going on the journey, women connect to objects, space and each other, and bond with Lady Masoumeh’s sacred narrative through their own life stories. While pilgrimage is practiced for an array of personal reasons, visiting the Lady is also interpreted as a political practice that simultaneously celebrates and mourns the minority position of Shi’a in Islamic history. The chapter ends with reflections on the complexities of spatial, temporal and material aspects of pilgrimage.