Journal of Women Interdisciplinary Researches

Abstract The Arbaeen walking ritual, as one of the mourning ceremonies centered on the martyrdom of the third Shiite Imam, is considered among the most prominent and richest religious rituals, encompassing extensive quantitative and qualitative dimensions and diverse modes of organization and performance. Participants from all social strata and classes, representing a wide spectrum of religious beliefs and levels of religiosity, take part in this ritual. Within this context, Women, as one of the important participating groups, play a role in various stages of this ritual, given their different physical characteristics, mental and psychological states, as well as their distinct religious, educational, and environmental training. Women’s participation, accompanied by diverse personal experiences, takes shape through patterns such as individual, friendly, family-based, and caravan journeys, alongside a form of collective life and coexistence with others. This study adopts a qualitative approach and employs an ethnographic method, utilizing tools such as observation, participant observation, visual documentation, documentary review, and other data collection techniques to examine the nature of women’s presence and participation in the Arbaeen walking ritual. The findings indicate that women’s role-playing extends broadly both before and during the ritual. Prior to the event, these roles include contributing to the financial support of mawkibs (service stations), assisting in facilitating the participation of economically disadvantaged individuals in the pilgrimage, preparing and organizing necessary supplies for mawkibs, and engaging in similar activities. During the ritual, women actively provide a wide range of services required by pilgrims particularly female pilgrims organize women-only mourning gatherings, care for and accompany children, and undertake various supportive activities. Moreover, women play a crucial role in encouraging, promoting, and transmitting the concepts, values, and beliefs associated with the Arbaeen walking ritual to others and to future generations. Each of these forms of participation is carried out with the intention of achieving personal goals while simultaneously realizing broader human and collective ideals, grounded in profound divine and religious principles. Nevertheless, alongside these active forms of participation, certain behavioral and practical challenges albeit limited in proportion to the overall population such as begging or behaviors inconsistent with the ethics of desirable social coexistence, are also observed along the route. These issues underscore the necessity of awareness-raising and the provision of appropriate guidance to prevent their expansion in future years. Examining behaviors and actions related to women’s presence and participation in the Arbaeen walking ritual reveals a pattern of contemporary lived experience that, contrary to conventional definitions and expectations of modernity, can be conceptualized as an “enchanted modernity.” An enchanted modernity whose functional logic is based on the effort for individual growth and transcendence, along with faith in the unseen and beyond the material world, and at the same time, the use of material resources, social relations, and new tools and possibilities in order to achieve this growth and transcendence.

Abstract In recent decades, women's fiction writing has claimed a significant share of contemporary literature, and examining the aesthetic techniques in their writings can open a window into understanding the mental and cognitive mechanisms governing the literary creation process. Therefore, the present study, based on the assumption that women writers draw upon relatively similar cognitive patterns in constructing similes, conducts a comparative analysis of the use of simile in two works: The Acrid Taste of Persimmon by Zoya Pirzad and Maut al-Baja'a (Death of the Swan) by Haifa Bitar. The question is: What similar outcome can be extracted from the stories of Zoya Pirzad and Haifa Bitar regarding the conceptual network of similes? And what reading can be derived from the similarities and differences in the application of similes by these two authors? In this study, using a descriptive-analytical method and relying on the concept of “coherence” relations in Tiegard’s theory, the simile networks have been analyzed based on the components of “supportive” and “oppositional” relations. The results of the study indicate that the authors have acted similarly in shaping coherence patterns, selecting types of targets, density, and the level of simile networks in women’s writing. The striking similarities in the cognitive patterns of simile in the works of two women writers from different languages and cultures point to the existence of shared mental models that originate from their lived experiences, gendered unconscious, and similar ways of perceiving and conceptualizing the world.