درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

As one of the richest intellectual domains of mankind, Islamic culture has played a prominent role in the formation of diverse dimensions of Islamic community. In this regard, the rich Islamic art, which is intermixed with the elegance of Islamic architecture, is regarded as one of the aspects of Towhid (belief in the oneness of God) and divine worldview. Since the mankind is not a single-dimensional creature, and is innately inclined to beauty and innovation, architects have sought to create an original work imbued with spiritual meanings and themes within a material realm through reliance on their experience, thoughts, individual creativity as well as an aesthetic spirit on one hand, and the manifestation of spirituality and other notions on the other. The contemporary human, by setting out on journey on the earth, has made an attempt to seek knowledge and awareness, and Islamic architecture is considered as an epiphany of human nature as well as a manifestation of contemplation and existence in the depth of human spirit, which is believed to be one of the most significant elements of tourism. The present research is aimed at exploring the conceptual symbols in Islamic architecture originating from Islamic worldview, as the rich Islamic principles have inspired Muslim architects, whose thoughts and environment have been influenced by Islamic worldview. The present article has been written adopting a descriptive-analytical method. The results indicate that architectural elements in Iran have not been created without taking Islamic ideology and concepts into account, but rather all the elements applied are endowed with spirituality and divine symbols.

Spiritual tourism and fulfilling its promotion and development is one of the challenges of this recently blooming industry during the last decade. Such matter must be reconsidered by the society inside the country on one hand, and promoting and organizing such approach internationally on the other. To improve and create variety in this industry and helping to introduce and develop the spiritual culture of this country therefore, finding innovative and interesting methods seem to be a major necessity. The religious-cultural potentials of the country and religious rituals and theatrical performance and national religious semi-theatres in particular are some of the most significant instances which could be under instruction and short and/or long-term planning of tourism industry managers. By investigating these arts and rituals, their features and the way they could be applied in this survey, in this article we would introduce and then explain each item and discuss their potentials afterwards. So what is emphasized in this article is that the Persian theatre, rituals and Persian Ta’zieh in particular are so potent and have their cultural and artistic functions which could be included in grand programs based on a precise, systematic plan and contribute to their rapid growth and becoming one of the major tourist spots and attractions. In this respect, we introduce and respect such rituals and their characteristics and features to our citizens and other nationalities to recognize spiritual tourism in particular. We aim to propose approaches and suggestions in order to recognize, record, organize and collect such rituals in both domestic and foreign tourism. This article has a descriptive-analysis approach based on library documented records.

One of the ways to consolidate peace and friendship despite the remarkable progress of humanity, is tourism and spirituality. Tourism can change the tourists’ worldview and attitude by increasing their knowledge from visiting the landscapes of nature, geographical locations and legacy of the ancients, a change in adherence to the principles and values and the Slavery of the unique god. Being combined with peace and friendship, tourism can create a strong friendship and solidarity in the minds of tourists through recognizing the legacy of the past and the recognition of different nations and religions and different ethnicities and cultures. This solidarity and friendship is very important especially in the current and global era due to the problems of community life such as air pollution, psychological problems, cyber threats, social abnormalities. Given this approach and employing the analytical-descriptive method, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How the tourism-related dimension of spirituality can be able to create peace and stability and to strengthen peace and friendship among different societies from a local to the global scale? The findings of the research indicate that in the event of spirituality overcome in the tourist industry and travel of tourists, all activities of the tourist have the capacity to establish peace and cooperate on all scales. And tourism and spirituality for peace and friendship between nations and cultures are a powerful tool and a good platform.

Comprehensive and reliable conceptual definition of concepts can be considered as the first step toward managing the phenomena based on those concepts. Spiritual tourism is a multidimensional phenomenon with different mixed concepts such as spiritual experience, spiritual tourist, achieving spirituality through tourism, deepening and institutionalizing spirituality perception (experience), training and learning spirituality (spiritual experiences), development planning, spiritual tourism economics, and spiritual tourism marketing. The mentioned concepts are formed in dialectical models that are influenced by disciplines such as geography, history, economics, management, religion, and mysticism. Regardless of the level and the type of combination of concepts, the definition of these concepts may be different in various paradigms due to the differences in assumptions, ontology, epistemology and methodology of different paradigms. Such a different even makes the spiritual tourism’s definition process more difficult. Spiritual tourism has already common definitions in literature that are not formally classified based on various paradigms’ assumptions; and have not been specified by the tourists under which paradigm that they are formed. Therefore, in this paper, the concept of spiritual tourism is reviewed from the perspective of different paradigms such as positivism, critical romanticism, post-modernism, critical realism, and pragmatism and new definitions are extracted. Based on the results of this article, the passage from abstract concepts to operational concepts in the field of spiritual tourism has been smoother. Besides, a more sustainable vision has been created about how to create and disseminate knowledge in the field of spiritual tourism. Hence, the main aim and contribution of this article is to extract the different conceptual definitions of spiritual tourism in different paradigms, in order to provide a reliable paradigm conceptual definition of tourism spiritual. The present paper concluded that a reliable and comprehensive definition of spiritual tourism can be provided in Pragmatism Paradigm framework.  This pragmatic definition can be used as a base for future planning, management, marketing, and other operational and administrative applications.

The objective of this study is to investigate the extent of spirituality in various types of tourism, and to test the hypothesis of the existence of common spiritual experiences among all types of tourists. McKercher's typology of cultural tourists and Norman's (2012) typology of tourists' spiritual experiences were applied to classify various groups of spiritual tourists participating in each type of tourism activity. The study population consisted of all individuals who have travelled with the purpose of pilgrimage, recreation, visiting cultural historical attractions, business, visiting religious sites, or participating in ecotourism and nature-based tourism. Sampling was done based on the convenience method according to the size and nature of the target population. Finally, it was concluded that most pilgrims and visitors to the religious sites were purposeful and sightseeing spiritual tourists with a deep intention to search for spiritual growth. Also, among nature-based tourists, ecotourists, business and recreational tourists, and those who had traveled to visit cultural and historical sites, a considerable number were Casual, Incidental and Serendipitous Spiritual Tourists, whilst only a small proportion had purposefully travelled for spiritual growth. Nevertheless, the research indicates the existence of at least one powerful element of spirituality in all types of tourism.