We're seeing lots of reports regarding continued pilgrimage to #Qom, despite the #coronavirus outbreak there. It's horrible to watch Iran go through yet another crisis, but I also can't help but think about the historical parallels. 
Pilgrimage & contagious diseases have history, and many of the 19th century sources I use in my research on these shrines mention disease, so here is a (brief) long view on pilgrimage in the time of #Corvid19
The most common disease in 19th-c. Iran was cholera, but there were also plague outbreaks, the worst being 1830-31. Of course, plague largely spread through movement of people, and pilgrims inadvertently took disease to the shrine cities, such as Qom and Mashhad, with them.
These shrines are places where huge crowds gather, but the pilgrimage ritual has long involved the touching and kissing of the gates and doors of the shrines, and the grill around the cenotaph, further increasing the likelihood of transmission of contagious diseases.
However, there were also pilgrims who knowingly carried disease with them. The sick would make a pilgrimage either to seek a cure or to die and be buried in proximity to the shrine, in order to benefit from the sanctity of the site in the hereafter.
Conolly, travelling to Mashhad in 1829, gave a moving account of a pilgrim who reached Mashhad just in time, dying there shortly after arriving. Conolly wrote: "I cannot forget the smile that lighted up the death-like countenance of this man…" when he saw the golden dome.
In a similar vein, corpses were taken to shrines in droves, particularly to the shrine in Qom and those across the border, such as those in Karbala and Najaf. Almost all European travellers to Qom in 19th c. mention the awful stench from the bodies. Lady Sheil wrote...
"A most dreadful and almost unendurable
smell proceeded from the caravan... these
boxes contained corpses which... were now on their way to Kerbella for interment... The boxes are
nailed in the most imperfect manner, admitting
of the free exit of the most dangerous exhalations."
smell proceeded from the caravan... these
boxes contained corpses which... were now on their way to Kerbella for interment... The boxes are
nailed in the most imperfect manner, admitting
of the free exit of the most dangerous exhalations."
There is also mention of fears that disease is travelling through the water used in and around the shrines - either that which is being used for ablutions, or for washing the dead.
However, there were also attempts to halt the march of these diseases. For example, from 1851 the Ottomans instituted quarantine procedures in an attempt to protect against the movement of diseases brought by pilgrims and corpses from Iran to the holy shrines.
So, that's it for now, but if anybody does want further reading, have a look at Sabri Ateş's 'Bones of Contention' on movement of bodies across the Iran-Iraq border, and Ahmad Seyf's article on 'Iran and the Great Plague'.
