درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Ameri believes that knowledge is formed through matter and form. This matter either originates from religion or does not. If the matter comes from a religious source, it constitutes religious sciences in the specific sense, including disciplines such as hadith studies and similar fields. However, since religion requires not only matter but also form, and since the general form of all sciences is shaped by the universal intellect that is the source of religion—namely, the intellect of the Prophet—while their details are discovered by ordinary human intellects, it can be said that the true form of all sciences is religion and knowledge takes shape under a form called religion. In this sense, all real sciences,inasmuch as they correspond to reality,are religious, and it is religion, through its teachings, that leads to the existence of real sciences. In other words, since the combination of religion and human intellect, which is called wisdom, forms the structure of real sciences, it can be said that the main paradigm for the formation of real sciences is wisdom.

In this article I draw attention to a little-studied phenomenon in the study of pilgrimage and sacred sites: how famed pilgrimage locations and routes may be replicated on a smaller scale in other locations. The article focuses mainly on Japanese pilgrimages, using primarily the example of the 1300-kilometre-long Shikoku pilgrimage, and shows how local small-scale versions of this pilgrimage developed historically throughout Japan from the seventeenth century onwards and were also taken abroad by Japanese migrants. A key factor in the development of these localised versions of the pilgrimage was that, for most people in earlier times, long distance pilgrimages were difficult if not impossible. Yet there was a widespread sense that such pilgrimages and the sacred figures associated with them were universal in nature and should be available to all. As such, localised replications on a smaller scale were developed so that those unable to go to sacred sites and make long journeys to distant famed pilgrimage sites, could have access in their own localities. While outlining key factors behind such developments in Japanese contexts the article shows that this is not something only evident in Japan; it is a phenomenon found globally and across numerous religious traditions and geographic settings. Examples are provided of similar developments in Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist contexts globally. In outlining some of the underlying implications of this phenomenon, of pilgrimages and sacred sites being replicated in localised versions, the article particularly highlights the issue of movement and mobility, a topic that has rightly been highlighted as an analytical theme in studies of pilgrimage. However, thus far, discussions of mobility and movement in pilgrimage contexts have focused on movement to and around sacred sites, and on the people—pilgrims—who do this. As the article argues, movement can also go the other way: of pilgrimages and sacred sites moving to where potential pilgrims are, and it flags up this issue along with the need for more research into replicated pilgrimages, as key areas of pilgrimage studies research.