The practice of remote ziyra, whereby a devotee visits an imms tomb not through physical pilgrimage but by reciting a pilgrimage litany, appears in the earliest Twelver literature on ziyra.
Conversely, the ritual consequences of this practice, whereby visiting theimmcan be performed as regularly as any other pious recitation, affixed to daily prayer alongsidedhikrLit. the act of reminding; remembrance. The Quran exhorts individuals to remember God: Oh ye who believe! Remember (udhkur贖) God with much remembrance (dhikran kath蘋ran) (Q. 33:41). Dhikr designates a…, tasb蘋廎 and du尪尨, are only gradually realised over many centuries. This lecture will offer a historical outline of this development, and in so doing will explore the profound changes it signals in Twelver devotional life. The entrenchment of remote ziyra anchored fealty to theimmin personal devotion rather than societal action, and this required new kinds of spiritual guidance from the fuqah尨 who regulated such matters. As well as delineating remote ziyra as a ritual form, scholars increasingly sought to direct the emotional and imaginative states by which these encounters with theimmshould be accompanied.
