Norooz and the 7 Sin’s

March 20 or 21. Falls precisely on spring equinox.

Spring is here, friends. Let’s stay in the garden, and be guests to the strangers of the green…

— Rumi

sabzeh_mapiran

Norooz is known by dozens of names across the many countries where it’s celebrated. Nowruz, Norouz, Noruz, Noroz, Nowroz, Nauryz, Navruz, Novroze, and more.

Now comes from the same root as “new”, and ruz means both “day” and “time”.

But however you spell it, the Persian New Year is one of the oldest holidays in the world. It dates back to the Zoroastrian religion, and the almost universal practice in the ancient world of welcoming the New Year with the beginning of spring. It’s celebrated on the spring equinox, usually March 21 in the Gregorian calendar, plus or minus a day.

During Esfand, the last month of the Persian calendar, houses are cleaned top to bottom. This original “spring cleaning” is called khane tekani, and stems from the Zoroastrian preoccupation for cleanliness, a virtue further emphasized in Islam and in Persian culture. [Note: You won’t find “cleanliness is next to godliness” in the Bible, but it’s imperative in the Qur’an.] Khane tekani includes house painting, washing the carpets and rugs, clearing out the attic, and cleaning the yard.

Family members are also measured for new clothes.

An essential feature of Nowruz is the “Sofreh-e Haft Sin”—Sofreh is a special table cloth which is spread out a few days prior to the New Year on the family table to hold the Haft Sin.

Haft means 7. But no, it’s not the Seven Sins (although one of the ‘Sin’s is an apple). In the Persian alphabet the letter S is called Sin, and the Haft Sin are items that begin with S and are placed on the table:

  • Sabzeh (sabza): wheat, barley or lentil sprouts grown in a dish, to symbolize rebirth
  • Seeb (sib): apples, for health and beauty
  • Seer (sir): garlic cloves, symbolizing medicine
  • Serkeh (serka): vinegar, representing both age and patience
  • Samanu: a sweet reddish pudding made from wheat germ,  specially prepared according to tradition by the women of the household, symbolizing affluence.
  • Senjed: dried fruit of the oleaster, or lotus tree, symbolizing love. Rumor has it that the fragrant blossoms of the lotus tree make people fall in love.
  • Somaq: sumac berries, symbolizing the color of sunrise, and the victory of good over evil
The Haft Sin Table
The Haft Sin Table © Hamed Saber

Sometimes additional S’s are added to the table, or used in place of one of the above.

  • Sekka: newly minted coins, for prosperity and wealth
  • Sepand: seeds of wild rue, which are burned in a small incense burner after the New Year to ward off evil spirits
  • Sonbol: a fragrant hyacinth or narcissus flower, symbolizing the coming of spring.

Other common sights on the Nowruz table are:

  • decorated eggs, symbolizing fertility. Easter eggs come from the Persian tradition, not the other way around.
  • rose water, representing purification
  • a bowl of water with an orange, symbolizing the earth floating in space
  • candlesticks, one for each child in the family
  • a mirror, to reflect creation, which is believed to have occurred on the first day of spring.
  • and goldfish—in a fishbowl, not the little crackers. The goldfish symbolize life, as well as the constellation of Pisces, which the sun leaves as it enters the new year.

Nowruz is a cultural celebration rather than a religious one, but many families include the Qur’an on their Haft Sin table.

The traditions associated with Nowruz are far too numerous to describe here, but you can read about some of them at Norwuz Traditions – http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Nowruz/NowRuz.html.

Chaharshanbe Suri (fire-jumping)
Chaharshanbe Suri (fire-jumping), from a Kurdish Newrooz celebration in Istanbul

♦    ♦    ♦

Come to the orchard in spring.
There is light and wine and sweethearts
in the pomegranate field.
If you do not come,
these do not matter.
If you do come,
these do not matter.

Rumi

♦    ♦    ♦

This year President Obama made an unprecedented video message to people observing Nowruz in Iran and elsewhere:

“Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world. This holiday is both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal, and I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family.”

What’s that? Not unprecedented? Nope, it turns out President Bush issued a similar greeting on March 20, 2003, though it was aimed at Iranians within the United States:

“During Nowruz, people of Iranian descent celebrate the arrival of spring, a season of rebirth. This joyous occasion provides an opportunity for Persians to cherish their rich heritage and enjoy the company of family and friends in anticipation of happiness and blessings in the year ahead.”

The March 20, 2003 announcement received far less play than Obama’s. A sign of bias in the liberal media? Perhaps. Or possibly because Bush’s Nowruz message fell on the exact same day as the invasion of Iraq.

Arba’een – Iraq

Date varies. January 14, 2012

Shia Muslims finish the trek to Hussein Mosque in Karbala

This week an estimated 9 million people gathered in the city of Karbala to remember the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the holiest figures of Islam since its founder.

Forty days ago Shiite Muslims began a period of remembrance for the third Imam, who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.

After being released from captivity, surviving followers of Imam Hussein

“headed towards Karbala so that they could revisit the graves of their loved ones and bury the heads of the Martyrs with the bodies. They arrived at the site of the graves and the battle of Karbala on the twentieth of Safar, or forty days after the martyrdom of Imam Hussein and his followers.”
http://www.shirazi.org.uk/ashura.htm

Arba’een means 40. It’s a sacred length of time in Islam.

The Qu’ran recalls the story Moses (Musa) and his forty nights away from the people to hear the word of God. [2:51]  Muhammad said,

“Whoever dedicates himself to God for forty days, will find springs of wisdom sprout out of his heart and flow on his tongue.”

The holiday this year appears to be remarkably free of violence, considering the 9 million visitors that streamed from all parts of the country. In 2004 simultaneous bombings targeted pilgrims observing Arba’een; the attacks killed 170.

“I came to Karbala with my family and children after walking for 12 days,” says one pilgrim from Basra, “We were not afraid of terrorists…We have been taking risks and if we die we will be martyrs.”

Karbala Crowded With 9 Million Pilgrims
Why 40 Days of Mourning Arbaeen of Iman Hussein?

Zartusht no-diso

[published Dec. 27, 2007]

Zarathustra

Today former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide attacker in Rawalpindi where she was attending a campaign rally. Bhutto was waving to the crowd from the sunroof of her vehicle after the rally when she was struck down by an attacker who fired shots and then set off an explosive devise. Over 20 spectators were killed.

As the government and press squabble over who was behind it and the cause of her death (by bullet, shrapnel, or by her hitting her head on the sun roof, as the government insists) and who was behind it, Zoroastrians remember the slaying of another leader.

Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism, once the dominant religion of Persia, was killed just three hundred miles to the northwest in Balkh, Afghanistan.
Zarathustra, or Zoroaster as he was known to the Greeks, lived in the region of Iran and Afghanistan around 1100 BC.

He spread the idea of monotheism long before Muhammad, Buddha, or Jesus walked the earth. He may have even predated Moses.

His philosophies regarding the continuing struggle of good versus evil, and the judgment of humans at the end of their life, is thought to have inspired numerous religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

It is a common misconception that the Zoroastrians worship fire. They see fire and light as symbols of God. Zoroaster believed God–Ahura Mazda–communicated with humans through three things: Good Thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds. But that God gave man free will to decide whether to follow these three, or to give in to evil

Once the predominant religion of what is now Iran, Zoroastrianism is now practiced by a scant 200,000 or less people, mostly in Iran and India. Zoroastrians do not accept converts. One must be born into the religion, which is one of the reasons their numbers are scarce.

One famous twentieth-century Zoroastrian was Freddie Mercury, the voice and genius behind the rock group Queen, who wrote the famous Bohemian Rhapsody:

“Goodbye everybody, I’ve got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth…”

The West is familiar with Zarathustra mainly from a scattering of cultural references.

Frederich Neitzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra using a fictionalized version of the prophet who bears little resemblance to the actual man.

Richard Strauss then composed a majestic orchestral piece of the same name. This piece was then used by Stanley Kubrick in what has been called “the greatest movie opening ever” in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

In the opening the moon, Earth, and sun align. The choice of music is appropriate as Zoroastrians were keen astronomers for their time, charting the movements of the sun, moon and stars. (Astrophysicist Grant Mathews believes the three wise men in the Bible who spotted the star of Bethlehem were actually Zoroastrians tracking an unusual alignment of the planets in 6BC.) However, the Zoroastrians do not believe in reincarnation, a theme suggested by the film’s end.

Similar to Benizar Bhutto, Zoroaster was struck down by an assassin while on the alter, according to the Shahnama–the massive 10th century national epic of Persia.

Yalda: Rebirth of the Sun

(usually) December 21

Creation! Before the light of creation dazzled chaos,
Love was created — that set creation on fire…

— Hafez

On the longest night of the year Iranians around the world celebrate Yalda. It means “rebirth”, referring to the rebirth of the sun. Today is also the first day of the month of Dey.

The history of this celebration goes back almost to the dawn of civilization itself, when the ancient Aryan tribes of the central Asian steppes worshipped the sun as the source of life.

As these tribes migrated to Persia–as well as to parts of India, Europe and the Far East–they took their traditions to a new latitude. The sun-as-benefactor was a notably different view than those held by cultures of the Arabian desert, who were bombarded with the sun’s heat and thus envisioned hell to be a place of fire and flame.

yalda_sun_night

The concept of the sun god Mithra solidified in what is now Iran. Thousands of years before Christ and Mohammad, Persians worshipped Mithra and held fire in great esteem as a representation of the sun’s incarnation on earth. Many Iranians still celebrate Nooruz (the Spring equinox) by jumping over fire, a practice that caused religious leaders to arrest hundreds of participants as recently as 2001. According to scholar Esmail Nooriala:

It is not an act of worshipping fire. You make a fire from bundles of thistles and thorns, then jump over them with joy and enthusiasm. You become mixed with an element of nature, dance with its flames and absorb its kind of warmth. You do not think of an abstract God who is sitting on a thrown somewhere in Heaven and expects you to suppress your joy and behave in his ever lasting and expanding presence.

As Rome moved eastward to Persia, and as Persian soldiers were captured and brought back to Rome, a curious cultural exchange occurred. The Roman army–and with it a good segment of the Roman population–were exposed to and absorbed the ideas of Persian Mithriasm. At one point the worship of Mithra reached all the way from Spain to India, although the practices in the Roman Mithraism, such as bull-related rituals and imagery, bore little in common with the Mithraism of Persia.

Persia experienced a long, slow conversion from natural pantheistic religion to abstract monotheism.

Followers of Zoroaster, believed to be the first monotheistic religion, exalted Ahura Mazda as the one true divinity. Mithraism and Zoroastrianism coexisted in Persia for over a millennia, often melding and merging. It wasn’t until Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the official religion that the Persian Empire–which had rejected the idea of a state religion for over a thousand years–sought to increase its power by institutionalizing Zoroastrianism.

During the Arab invasion from the West 1400 years ago, Islam replaced Zoroastrianism as the religion of Persia. But Persians maintained their local languages, customs and many of their traditions.

The reemergence of Yalda is a relatively recent phenomenon. It has occurred mostly in the past 25 years, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Many Iranians, both in Iran and abroad, seek to reconnect with thousands of years of tradition and history.

These traditions include the celebration of the birth of Mithra, observed on the winter solstice. Just as the darkest hour is before dawn, the sun god is reborn precisely during the year’s longest night.

On this night many Iranians gather together, enjoy nuts and fruits of the season–pomegranate chief among them–and recite the poems of great Iranian writers like Hafez…

At dusk I woke with all my cares vanished:
in that pitch black of night I drank from the water of life.
Enraptured with the glow of the inner light:
I drank of that cup of light, glorified in nature.
What a glorious morning, what a glorious night!

— Hafez

Everyone
whether he be drunk or sober
seeks the beloved.
Every place
whether it be mosque or synagogue
is the house of love.

— Hafez

Merry Yalda by Esmail Nooriala

Happy Yalda, Yuletide, Mithrakana

The Poems of Hafez

Urs of Rumi

December 17

Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish, every sweet word will fade,
But do not be disheartened,
The source they come from is eternal, growing,
Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it.”

December 17 is the Urs of Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balhi, or as he’s known affectionately in the West, Rumi, master Persian poet and proto-founder of the Sufi Order of the Whirling Dervishes.

Rumi

Urs refers to the death of a Sufi saint, but it comes from the Arabic word for “wedding” and literally means “nuptial” or “bride’s night”. In Sufism, death is viewed not as a tragedy but as a joyous union of the soul with God.

Thus, rather than mourn the anniversary of Rumi’s death, his followers celebrate jubilantly.

Rumi was born in what is now Afghanistan in 1207 AD. When he was a boy, his family headed west during the Mongol invasions. He spent much of his life in the Rum area of Asia Minor (now Turkey) which is how he earned his nickname Rumi. At age 25, he became head of a madrasah, inheriting the post from his father.

Rumi’s poems speak to the oneness of the universe, a central component of Sufism, although they touch on many topics…

Once you think of me
Dead and gone
You will make up with me
You will miss me
You may even adore me
Why be a worshiper of the dead
Think of me as a goner
Come and make up now…

Rumi’s works and philosophy were spread by his followers and his son Sultan Walad, who founded the Order of Mawlawi Sufis, aka the Whirling Dervishes, the order that brought new meaning to the term “poetry in motion”

In Sufism, a branch of spiritual philosophy stemming from the Sunni tradition, one does not learn the deeper truths of God from books but from direct experience. To become a dervish, one must train for years under a master, then spend years humbly serving society.

The goal is to reach a state of fitra: separation from one’s ego to become one with Divine Unity.

Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balhi finally reached that long-awaited union 801 years ago today. Today his Urs is celebrated not just in Persia but by Sufis and poetry-lovers around the world.

If you bake bread with the wheat that grows on my grave
you’ll become drunk with joy and
even the oven will recite ecstatic poems.
If you come to pay your respects
even my gravestone will invite you to dance
so don’t come without your drum.
Don’t be sad. You have come to Gods feast.
Even death cannot stop my yearning
for the sweet kiss of my love.
Tear my shroud and wear it as a shirt,
the door will open and you’ll hear
the music of your soul fill the air.
I am created from the ecstasy of love and
when I die, my essence will be released
like the scent of crushed rose petals.
My soul wants to leap and join
the towering soul of Shams.

– Ghazal (Ode) 683
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
“Rumi: Hidden Music”
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001

Birthday of His Highness the Aga Khan

December 13

His Highness the Aga Khan has been the Imam of the Shia Ismaili for over fifty years. The Ismaili are the second largest group of Shia in the world. At age 20 he was chosen by his grandfather to succeed him rather than his father or uncle. Wrote his grandfather, Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan:

“In view of the fundamentally altered conditions in the world in very recent years due to the great changes that have taken place, including the discoveries of atomic science, I am convinced that it is in the best interests of the Shia Muslim Ismaili community that I should be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years and in the midst of the new age, and who brings a new outlook on life to his office.”

Five years before 9/11 the Aga Khan gave a foretelling speech to a group of young people, mostly Americans, about to enter “the real world.” Excerpts are below.

“Today in the occident, the Muslim world is deeply misunderstood by most.

“The Muslim world is noted in the West, North America and Europe, more for the violence of certain minorities than for the peacefulness of its faith and the vast majority of its people…And the Muslim world has, consequently, become something that the West may not want to think about, does not understand, and will associate with only when it is inevitable…

“…the historical process of secularisation which occurred in the West, never took place in Muslim societies. What we are witnessing today, in certain Islamic countries, is exactly the opposite evolution…

“The news-capturing power of this trend contributes to the Western tendency to perceive all Muslims or their societies as a homogeneous mass of people living in some undefined theocratic space, a single “other” evolving elsewhere. And yet with a Muslim majority in some 44 countries and nearly a quarter of the globe’s population, it should be evident that our world cannot be made up of identical people, sharing identical goals, motivations, or interpretations of the faith…

“…Concepts such as meritocracy, free-world economics, or multi-party democracy, honed and tested in the West may generally have proven their worth. But valid though they may be, responsible leadership in the Islamic world must ask if they can be adapted to their cultures which may not have the traditions or infra-structure to assimilate them: There is a real risk that political pluralism could harden latent ethnic or religious divisions into existing or new political structures…

“Although the modern page of human history was written in the West, you should not expect or desire for that page to be photocopied by the Muslim world.”

Full speech at http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/195-96/95-147t.html

I was in the large church room when the Aga Khan delivered this address. Like others of my young age I did not understand the importance of his words, every one of which came true in the years that followed.

More words of the Aga Khan at:http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/quotes-of-aga-khan/

Aga Khan’s 70th Birthday Today

Sizdah Bedar – Nature Day

April 2

It’s time to celebrate the 13th!

April 2 is Sizdah Bedar, the last day of the Norooz celebrations.

Sizdah means 13, and Sizdah Bedar is celebrated on the 13th day of the Persian new year, which begins on the spring equinox, March 20 or 21.

The first twelve days of the New Year are spent visiting the homes of family and friends. Grandparents and older relatives come first. Then other family members. Then families visit with friends during the later days.

All this leads to the last day of the Norooz season, the 13th.

It’s not because 13 is particularly lucky in Iran or anything. In fact, Sizdah Bedar translates roughly to “getting rid of the 13th.” Persians spend the unlucky 13th day mitigating its potential bad influence on the year by creating good luck of their own. They do this with big communal picnics and outings to parks or the Great Outdoors, and by being surrounded by nature in general. For this reason, Sizdah Bedar is also referred to as Picnic Day or Nature Day.

Some telltale signs it’s 13 Bedar and not just a really big picnic:

  • A lot of red, white, and green
  • Persian music and dancing
  • Noodle soup and lettuce in sekanjebin — a homemade syrup with sugar and vinegar
  • And you might see plates of what looks like grass growing in a patch of soil. This is sabzeh. These sprouts of wheat or lentils, are planted in early March so as to be short blades by the equinox, symbolizing rebirth. Sizdah Bedar is the traditional date to dispose of the sabzeh, which is often done by young a woman, who ties the ends of sprouts together before dropping them in running water. The tradition stems from fertility rites said to bring good luck in finding a mate in the coming year.
Sabzeh © Michele Roohani

Sizdah Bedar is a cultural holiday, not a religious one. But by coincidence, Sizdah Bedar comes one day after Republic Day in Iran. Republic Day marks the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran on April 1, 1979. Yesterday was the 30th anniversary.