ABSTRACT

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts covered in the preceding chapter of this book. The book explores how pilgrimage acts as a catalyst for conflict as it is about pilgrimage as a producer of peace. In fact, pilgrimage is in certain respects becoming even more prominent as an institution, at least in relation to immediately post-Reformation Europe. The book explains the history, anthropology, religious studies and geography providing a truly nuanced picture of what both peace' and pilgrimage' might mean, and how they might relate to each other. It presents a cross-cutting ties being constructed even more clearly in Magarita Karamihova's analysis of peace-making in post-community Bulgaria. Or again, another contemporary example is provided by Rana Singh's contribution on Muslim shrines and co-existence in Banares/Varanasi/Kashi, where daily interaction among Muslims and Hindus has its counterpart in the religious reciprocities and mutual influences evident in Sufi shrines and martyrs' tombs.