Ancient mid-winter festival celebrated by Iran’s Zoroastrians

Iran’s Zoroastrians gathered on Sunday to celebrate their mid-winter festival called Jashn-e Sadeh at the Zoroastrians’ fire temples of Kerman and Yazd, the southeastern and central Iranian cities.

The Sadeh Festival was held with the recitation of prayers and the anthem of Zoroastrian priests.  

This ritual is passed down from generation to generation for millennia; and is nowadays more popular among Iranian Zoroastrians in Tehran, Yazd, Shiraz, and Kerman.

With a date backing to the first Persian empire, Achaemenid Empire, the Sadeh Festival, or Jashn-e Sadeh, is held annually at the beginning of the evening of the 10th day of the Iranian calendar month of Bahman (Jan. 30).

Some believe Sadeh is to honor fire and to defeat the forces of darkness and cold. That’s why they set fire to a big pile of wood.

The ritual starts when some Zoroastrian priests called Moobeds recite verses from the Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrians.

They are always dressed in white cotton robes, trousers, and hats as a sign of purity.

The common belief emphasizes that it is a mid-winter ritual to celebrate the date when the earth starts warming up.

In May 2020, the Sadeh Festival was registered on Iran’s National Intangible Cultural Heritage List.  

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