| Summary: | The spread of Coronavirus disease in Iran, as an Islamic country, has brought about a large number of problematic issues. Some conflicts have emerged regarding the confrontation between adherence to hygienic measures and the performance of religious ceremonies, especially visit of Imam Reza shrine as the most important religious site in Iran. It seems that these conflicts have not been solved yet and are still at play. This survey study employs a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach to investigate pilgrims’ justifications for making a pilgrimage to visit the shrine of Imam Reza during the spread of Coronavirus by means of content analysis. To this end, during the survey phase, 936 questionnaires were completed by the respondents and, in the qualitative phase, 46 pilgrims visiting the shrine of Imam Reza were interviewed in order to study the reasons for their presence in the shrine under such unique circumstances and analyze their justifications regarding their pilgrimage method in the shrine. The findings of the survey revealed that some pilgrims deemed the shrine to be so sacred that, basically, they would consider it free of any kind of disease. In contrast, the other pilgrims, while attesting that the virus can exist in the shrine, believed that it is possible to engage in pilgrimage as long as the required hygienic measures are observed. The findings of the qualitative phase revealed that pilgrims’ justifications (rationalities for pilgrimage) can be categorized into four classes: tradition-devotion, repudiation-mitigation, obligation-imitation, and rational methods. What differentiates these four methods is the degree of attention paid to the earthly matter, (i.e., the disease) and the extent to which it is taken seriously.
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