Being neighbors to imam reza: Pilgrimage practices and return intentions of hazara afghans living in Mashhad, Iran

Many Shi'a Afghan refugees and migrants—most of whom are Hazara—have intentionally settled in Mashhad, Iran, the home of the Shrine of Imam Reza. Hazara also make pilgrimage to the Shrine of Imam Hossein located in Kerbala, Iraq. Hazara comprise nearly half of all documented Afghans in Iran, yet until mid-2005, their returns comprised only one quarter of the total UNHCR-assisted return figures to Afghanistan. Drawing on literature from anthropology and refugee studies on the affect of religious practice in a context of displacement, this article considers whether pilgrimage aspirations and practices of Hazara Afghans in Iran might constitute a factor in their decision making about repatriation to Afghanistan. The study proposes that the decision to return to Afghanistan for certain categories of Hazara is influenced by their pilgrimage practices and attachment to Shrine locations in Iran. This paper is based on the findings of a postdoctoral study undertaken by the first author during October and November 2003 while she was a visiting scholar in the Department of Demography at the University of Tehran, Iran, and a multi-sited study of Afghans in Iran undertaken by the two authors in 2005, in collaboration with Hossein Mahmoudian, Gholamreza Jamishidiha and Rasoul Sadeghi at the University of Tehran.