While reading ‘Ali Dashti’s Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohamad, I came across this footnote:
An emāmzāda is a son, daughter, or
descendant of an Emām and thus a scion of ‘Ali and Fātema. Tombs of emāmzādas
are found in many Iranian villages and towns and are visited by devotees who
address appeals for help or intercession to the emāmzāda, either orally
or in writing on a piece of paper or cloth called a dakhil. Many of
these shrines are domed, and some are very old. Some may have been tombs of
local saints or Sufi votaries. In most cases, no information about the careers,
let alone the genealogies, of the revered persons have come down; nevertheless
they are all popularly supposed to be descendants of Emāms. (‘Ali Dashti, Twenty
Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohamad [tarns. F.R.C.
Bagley; Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1994], 212 n. 26)
The
mention of intercession by the living to the dead in a strand of Islam is
interesting, as Islam lacks what the New Testament explicitly teaches: an
intercessor who is not just a past, but also a present-propitiation (cf. 1 John
2:1-2; Heb 2:17; cf. Rev 5:5-6).
The
following article in the Encyclopaedia Iranica is of interest: