Tourist Perception of Waqf as Spiritual heritage in Iran

Abstract

As a symbol of the Islamic spiritual economy, <em>Waqf</em> has been always present and alive in all aspects of the Islamic countries, and it has attracted the attentions of many researchers of different fields due to its multidimensional functional. Based on their desire for eternity, they defined <em>Waqf</em> in terms of a proverb saying “I benefit from whatever I endow". In several tourists' travelogues such as travelogues by Nasir Khusraw, Jean Chardin, etc. has mentioned this spiritual tradition as a humanistic economy showing the effects of <em>Waqf</em> on perceiving the tourist destination. Since the modern generation of tourists look for new experiences, thus obtaining a rich content of this spiritual heritage can satisfy them and help the promotion of humanistic models of economy such as <em>Waqf</em>. In terms of its objective, this is a practical research, and it is descriptive-analytical based on its data collection method. The results are obtained in meta-synthesis of documents, articles and travelogues relation to the <em>Waqf</em> tradition. Indeed, the main objective of this article is to provide the mentioned introduction, promotion and reinforcement to understand the different aspects of <em>Waqf</em> tradition based on the travelogues in order to reinforce the perceived value by the tourists of Iranian cities so that the modeling of these concepts leads to the promotion of this spiritual economy model among the other cultures. The results show that considering the perceivable aspects of <em>Waqf</em>, this intangible heritage can be introduced to the tourists in terms of four main aspects including the emotional, cognitive, functional and social aspects and to promote this spiritual heritage based on the religious background of tourists at the international level with regard to the environmental-humanistic aspects of economy; as in Iranian culture, it is believed that “give bread to everyone who enters this house and don't ask his faith, because the one who deserves a life for god, deserves a bread for us".