Obstacles to Religious Tourism in the City of Karbala

Ahlam Hassan Jassim Abdul Karim
Supervised by Asst. Prof. Dr. Fawaz Hamdan Abboud

The concept of religious tourism, one of the most important types of global tourism, has played a prominent role in consolidating the function of tourism and expanding its geographical scope, as it constitutes, in the view of many, the pillar of tourism that is not based on the availability of geographical (natural) justifications such as tourist lakes, summer resorts, rivers, and picturesque natural places, but is linked to the civilizational dimension and religious heritage of the peoples of the world, as it transports tourists from their places of residence to different places in the world to conduct religious visits and trips within or outside the borders of the state and for limited periods of time to perform certain religious rituals, in addition to the entertainment dimension that it provides in that (1). Which goes beyond the concept of tourism, which researchers almost agree on as “a group of phenomena and relationships that arise as a result of travel or residence for a person
or for some people temporarily, which does not turn into permanent residence or is linked to paid work” (2).
The concept of religious tourism is linked to many religious and heritage sites and places in the world that appear prominently in our Arab and Islamic world clearly.

Iraqi Religious Cities
Islam, with all its culture and transparent spirit, created a unique urban behavior represented in the establishment of many religious cities, the basis of which is religious and archaeological landmarks such as places of worship and mosques in Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and others, or the shrines of the Companions and righteous saints as in Najaf, Karbala, Samarra, Basra and Baghdad in Iraq.. and others. These cities have formed places for residence and worship together and the religious tourism movement is active in them for tourists from all over the world due to the spiritual atmosphere it provides that attracts residents directly. Perhaps the city of Karbala is one of the Iraqi cities that enjoys a prestigious position in the hearts of many Muslims inside and outside the country, and from this standpoint it was chosen as a prominent tourism model that represents the activity of religious tourism in its clear form.

(1) Sabry Abdel Samee, Tourism Theory, 2nd ed., El-Tobgy Commercial Press, Cairo, 1993, p. 76.
(2) Dennism, nush “tourism as an, anthropological subjecn in current anthropology” the University of Chicago, October, 1981. p. 461.