Between Narration of Reality and Ego-document: Persian Pilgrimage Reports of the Qajar period

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Roxane Haag-Higuchi; Professorin Dr. Birgitt Hoffmann
• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 453548911

This project focuses on the comparative analysis of Persian pilgrimage reports of the Qajar era. It was the ruler, Nāṣir ad-Dīn Šāh (r. 1848-1896), himself who contributed to the flourishing of this genre. When he returned from his pilgrimage to the Shiite holy sites in Iraq in 1871 his travel diary was published in due course. And he animated members of the family and the court to prepare similar reports of their pilgrimages. Nāṣ̣ir ad-Dīn Šāh’s travel diary and two voluminous pilgrimage reports of two Qajar princes were selected as an excellent choice for comparative analysis. These journeys beyond Iranian territory proper exposed the royal travelers to political, social and technological innovations as well as to differences in conditions of everyday life. In their writings the cognitive processing of these impressions and experiences can be traced. They highlight the intellectual and mental disposition of the Iranian court society in a period of accelerating change. Contents, formal features, language devices and contexts of the pilgrim reports are analyzed with respect to patterns of perception and narrative strategies which inform and structure these texts. Furthermore the social and cultural context s in which these travelogues emerged and on which they retroacted are investigated. In view of the complexity of the texts in their double functions as narration of reality (“Wirklichkeitserzählungen”) and ego-documents and to avoid a mere descriptive case study a multiple approach in theories and methods will be applied. The concept of “Wirklichkeitserzählung” takes into account the differences between fictional and factual narrating. The analysis of formal aspects refers to concepts and terminology of textual analysis and narratology. With regard to the analysis of contents the aspects of description of the places visited and individual perceptions and experiences and how they are interrelated are to be explored. The focus will be on the cognitive construction of political and social space, on the perception of borders, the emergence of territorial concepts of statehood and the resulting positioning of Iran in the Middle East. The description and the performance of religious rituals, the exceptional position of Shiites and the perception of sacred landscapes are equally important topics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants