The Persian New Year
The first Day of Spring

There are few historically factual reports on the real origination of the celebration of Nou-Rooz, the Iranian New Year, and the First Day of Spring (Vernal Equinox) What knowledge is available to us, of this most important of Iranian celebration, is based on oral traditions, legends , epics and some facts gleaned from the mists of history.

Legends has it that Nou-Rooz is the first Day of Creation, when Hoormazd, (Ahura Mazda). The Noble Creator began his work of creation, which he completed on the sixth day. Therefore, the First Day of Farvardin (the first Month of the Iranian Calendar) is also called Hoormazd and together with the other five days, is considered sacred. In the beginning this festival was called Farvardin Jashn (Festival of Farvardin); and Nou-Roozeh. Centuries later it was called by many other names, among them: Jashn-e-Now Rooz (Festival of New Day), Bahar Jashn (Festival of Spring)

Most historians believe Jamshid, a king of the Pishdadian Dynasty, to the Originator of Nou-Rooz and our Epic Poet, Ferdowsi, has immortalized this in his Shahnameh (Book of Kings).

Factually speaking, however, ancient Iranians celebrated two major natural phenomena associated with their agriculture. This was of great importance to them, because it helped them determine properly the season for tilling the land, seeding, and irrigation the soil and harvesting the produce. To assist them in their agriculture they turned their sights to the sky to learn about the seasons, to find out the proper time for cultivation and the periods of rainfall, and the effects of the sun on the growth of their agricultural products.

So by means of knowledge available to them at that time, and by observing the movements of the sun and other planets, they accurately calculated the day, the hour and the minutes in connection with the change of seasons. One of these natural phenomena was spring, when day and night are equal in time, called Vernal Equinox. While the second equivalence of the day and night is the first day of autumn, and called Autumnal Equinox. The first equinox was Nou-Rooz or Nou-Roozgan, while the second was named Meh-Rooz or Mehreghan.

Ancient Iranians then began to celebrate the change of seasons. Spring is a season when nature wakes up from its winter sleep, when it renews and revives itself, when trees sprout new leaves, and the flower bushes give out new buds and blossoms. They imitated the phenomena of revival and newness associated with nature’s spring season, in many aspects of their lives and living, by wearing new clothes, spring-cleaning the house or moving into a new one, buying new things, and generally brightening and enlivening their work and living environment.

Nou-Rooz was and is a national festival and is not connected with any religion even with Iran’s ancient religion” Zoroastrianism. The Nou-Rooz Festival was developed in recognition of the blooming of nature, just as Mehregan was chosen to celebrate harvest and planting time in the autumn. This festival existed before the coming of the Aryans from Central Asia to Iran and before the birth of Prophet Zoroaster. It was later adopted and made part of the religious rituals of Zoroastrians and Muslims, and is also celebrated by Iranian Jews and Christians.

The Iranian Calendar and the beginning of Nou-Rooz, or Iranian New Year, were developed 3000 years before Jesus. The planetary calculations carried out to develop it, were accurate enough to make it come short to only by one day every 300 years. However, during the reign of Jalal-ud-Din Malek Shah Saljuqi, a team of astronomers, headed by the world-famous Iranian poet, astronomer and mathematician, Omar Khayyam of Nishapour, improved the ancient Iranian Calendar naming it the Jalali or Maleki Calendar after the reigning monarch.

This Calendar, which is being used to the present day, is the closest to the Solar Year, and is so accurate, even to the second, such that is comes out short only by one day in every 3330 years! In comparison the Gregorian calendar is short by a day every 1000 years!

IMAN events

We celeberate Norouz at IMAN by holding many cultural events. Please call (310)-202-8181 for more information.