On the philosophical aspects of studying the Institute of Pilgrimage

Abstract

In recent decades, due to a number of historical (primarily) and ideological factors, the tendency for social and ethnic communities to actively search for the sacred foundations of existence in order to ideologically consolidate Kazakh society has clearly manifested itself. The need to acquire spiritual values has become extremely important both for society as a whole and for each individual. And Kazakhstan, with its traditional orientation towards Islam, was no exception. Today, the focus of attention of society, the state and academic science is on such fundamental foundations of culture as myth, religion, ritual, the concentrated expression of which is the phenomenon of the sacred. It is characteristic that this trend can be traced in the framework of both religious and secular cultural spheres. All this indicates that in Kazakh society there is an urgent need to define a spiritual coordinate system and develop the most effective forms of its expression. The phenomenon of pilgrimage also belongs to such universal phenomena that synthesize these cultural processes. Today, pilgrimage remains one of the most actively developing cultural phenomena and not only in Islam. Every year, tens and hundreds of thousands of people join the ranks of pilgrims, rushing to both traditional and newly emerging shrines.