شد و مجلس شد

amin mehrabani faculty member, department of social history, encyclopaedia islamica foundation, tehran, iranshadd is a symbolic belt which was being tied around the waist of the neophytes and novices of fity?n, a?n?f and some sufi communities in an initiation ceremony where the earlier waist-tied (mashd?d) members presented. by this ceremony, the person became, provisionally or permanently, a member of the aforementioned communities. it has been emerged at least in the 7th century and continued in some sufi orders so far. in addition to be a sign of acceptance in the mentioned groups, shadd has also functioned in some other ways; among the traders, it has somehow been as a license for their job and among some sufis functioned as lubs i khirqa ceremony. in this paper, the function, history, material, apparent features, conditions and terms of mashd?ds ceremony details have been investigated. the study is based on the futuwwat-n?mas and kasb-n?mas, particularly the persian ones which have been seldom studied in previous surveys.keywords: shadd, rab? al-miezam, initiation ceremony, futuwwat, abn?f.