The intangible inheritance in Najaf Al-Ashraf (A study of religious rituals and ceremonies)

Abstract

Religious heritage is the knowledge store that reaches us from previous generations in all its forms, whether it is religious or social, cultural or civilizational, and with all its details, whether it reaches us completely or distorted. These heritages differ in the ways they are performed from one country to another and from one society to another. They represent the essence of individuals’ behavior and the facade of the society in which they are practiced. The practice of religious heritages in Iraq in general and Najaf in particular differed in terms of their performance.

Some practiced them with a kind of exaggeration and others moderated their performance, as they must be practiced rationally to reach the level of sophistication in performance and to preserve them from extinction. Religious heritages also enjoy religious importance through preserving the values and moral and religious constants in the individual’s soul, in addition to their social importance, which is represented in the cohesion of society through the collective performance that distinguishes them. The best evidence of their importance is the pressures they were exposed to by the ruling authorities in Iraq during different periods of time, but they are still ongoing and have an influential and effective role in.