A New Reading in Literary Tourism 

Asst. Prof. Dheyaa Khaleel Nayel

Literary Tourism is a type of literary work in which the writer attempts to explore some aspects or places in some areas in one country or different countries. This kind of literature mainly deals with cities and the main sights in those cities as they appear either in the works written by some writers or in the life of those writers. To make it different, this article relies mainly on the writer’s personal ideas and observation. In this connection, the practice of giving names to markets of different types has always been controversial among researchers or even shopkeepers. In this short article, we explore some names trying to elaborate on the reasons behind choosing such names. Generally speaking, in religious cities names often carry a religious tone indicating the religious faith of the city and its inhabitants; for this reason, names of, schools and a large number of markets are related to religion in a way or another. In our city Kerbala, most of the streets if not all of them have religiously flavoured names. For instance, streets like Alzahraa is named after Lady Fatima (peace be upon her). Another main street carries the name of Al –Karrar is named after Imam Ali ( peace be upon him). Those names are part and parcel of the people’s identity as they mark things they wholeheartedly adhere to. True that most of the names have religious flavor, some are foreign and have no connection with religion. The reasons for adopting such names is the fact that they are worldwide brands and shopkeepers have no right to modify or change them, so they have to keep it as it is. Additionally, those foreign names attract the attention of the youths because they are exotic, flashy and cinematic. It is very crucial to argue that names of markets can function as identity markers. Names having religious significance refer to the majority of the people while the borrowed names basically represent a group of individuals aspiring to ideals not necessarily belonging to their religious beliefs or cities.