Norouz; Declaration of Iranians' Livelihood, Eternity
By: Dr. Ali Shariati
A Short speech
about The Persian New Year
To say something new about Norouz is a difficult task. Norouz is a
national celebration and everyone knows what a national celebration us. Norouz
is celebrated every year, and talked about each year again. Much has been said
about it, and you have heard a lot in this regard. So is there no point in
talking about it one again?
Of course there is! Do we not renew Norouz each year. So let us also
hear about it repeatedly as well. It is boring and even nonsense to repeat a
scientific or a literary text. Wisdom rejects repetition, but sensations
welcome it. Nature too, likes repeti tion, and the societies need it.
Nature is basically made up of repetition. A society is strengthened
through repetition, sensations gain their life from it and Norouz is a
beautiful, repetitious story in which the nature, sensations and the society
are all engaged, yet it never gets old or boring.
Norouz, which has for long centuries been the master and most gracious
of all the national ceremonies around the world, maintains its young, strong,
lively existence, because it is not an imposed, an artificial or a political
ceremony.
It is the ceremony of the universe, the happiness day of earth and the
birthday of the sun and the skies. The glorious day when every natural
phenomenon evolves, blooms and resolutes filled with the sweet anxiety of many
"startings".
The national ceremonies of the other cultures often encourage men and
women to leave their workshops, farms, deserts, alleys and streets, gardens and
pastures, and then gather up in rooms under the ceilings, behind closed doors.
They gather in such surroundings as bars, dancings, cellars saloons and
house... in places that are heated with gas, lit with light bulbs, filled with
smoke, made pretty with artificial colors, decorated with paper or plastic
flowers and ornaments, scented with perfumes or burning herbs... Norouz, on the
contrary, grabs the people's hands kindly and pulls them joyfully along with it
out of their small surroundings in rooms, behind closed doors, under ceilings,
from among tall buildings and cement pavement s in and around towns into the
glorious vast pastures, green areas and the broad, kind embrace of nature,
where everyone feels free and jubilant.
The kind spring sun warms them and brightens their day, the glory of
witnessing renewing of creation and themselves excites them, the wind and the
spring rain beautifully designs new scenes which are already background with
bloomed buds of various colors and scented with:
"Smell of rain,
smell of spearmint,
smell of soil.
And smell of boughs that are wet of gentle spring rain and shining clean"...
smell of spearmint,
smell of soil.
And smell of boughs that are wet of gentle spring rain and shining clean"...
Norouz is a great chance for recollection of lots of great memories.
Memories of relationship between man and nature, which is renewed each year.
This forgetful child of nature who has got himself so much engaged in
artificial affairs and pre-sceduled eng agements, that he/she has even totally
forgotten his own lovely mother.
He/she is now called back to the kind embrace of his loving mother with
the magical spell of Norouz. There, they will together joyfully celebrate this
happy reunion.
The careless child will find out about his/her own origin in the kind
embrace of his/her mother, and the mother's face will bloom in finding back her
lost child, shed tears of happiness for this happy occasion, cry joyfully in
spring thunders, get young a nd pretty another time, and briefly speaking, like
the Prophet Jacob (AS), who regained his lost sight after smelling the scent of
Joseph's (AS) shirt, will be bestowed a sharp sight to see her dear child once
again.
The more complex or heavier our artificial, technical civilization will
become, the more urgent the need to reunion with and return to the nature's
embrace.
Thus, unlike traditions, that get old and incompetent, and sometimes
even useless as time goes by, Norouz gets younger, prettier and stronger with
the passage of time, and that is because Norouz is a third way for reconciling
between the two sides of the long cultural aware that has been going on since
the era of Lao-Tso and Conficious until the recent days of Roseau and Walter.
Norouz is not merely a good chance for relaxing and being happy, but a
bare need of the society and the vitally needed spiritual food for a nation.
What else is capable of brightening up cold hearts, in a dark world,
based upon ever-ongoing changes, revolutions, separation and loss,
disintegration and dissolving, where the only thing that is stable and never
subject to change is ever-renewing itself and instability?
What else can make a nation invulnerable in the cruel path of the
carriage of time, which destroys anything in its path, breaks and crashes any
pillar and demolishes any base?
No nation is formed within a night, one generation's era of even two. A
nation can be described as the continuous string of many generations that time,
this pitiless, thoughtless sword of nature, separates their physical
connections along the course of th eir history.
Unfortunately, we cannot have a two-way correspondence with our
ancestors those who have formed the soil of our nation.
The horrendous, deep valley of history is dug. The long, hollow
centuries have formed a great impassable gap between us and them. It is only
our traditions that speaking away from the sharp eyes of the cruel time
executioner, can kindly take our hands and convey us spiritually to the other
side of this terrifying valley, thus reconciling between us and our glorious
past, our ancestors.
It is in the holy face of these traditions that we can feel their
presence by our side today, and Norouz celebrations are among the steadiest,
most gracious of these traditions.
Whenever we celebrate Norouz, it is as if we are taking part in every
Norouz celebration observed on this land ever since the beginning of this
ceremony. That is the time when all the black and white pages of history of our
ancient nation are turned one a fter the other before our curious eyes, and we
eagerly eye witness their events.
Believing in the fact that our nation has always celebrated Norouz in
our homeland awakens these exciting ideas in our minds that... "Why sure,
every year, even in the sad year when Alexander pained the facade of this
country red with the noble blood of o ur nation, by the long blazing flames
which were burning the beautiful Persepolice Palace, right there in the same
year, our oppressed ancestors must have celebrated Norouz more seriously and
more piously, amid their sorrows.
So dearly has been Norouz celebrated in those sad years, and all the
years similar to them. A cause to be cheered despite all the miseries."
It has never been an excuse to be "careless, cheap and
forgetful", but a pretext to announce the lively determination of our
nation to be and to continue to be and maintain strong ties with a glorious
past, which the time factor and the invaders of differ ent races have always
tried in vain, to wipe off the scene of existence.
Norouz has always been so dear. To Zoroastrian clergies, to sagacious
old men in ancient history, to Muslims, to Shia Muslims, and to Persian
speaking people all over the world.
Everyone has considered Norouz a beloved one, and talked about it
sympathetically.
Even the philosophers and scientists who have considered Norouz
"The first day of creation, when Ahourmazda (God, in ancient Persians
mythology) created the universe in six days, and was busy till the sixth day
when this job was accomplished, and that is why the first day of Farwardin (the
first Iranian month of the year) is named Hourmazd and the sixth day, "The
Holy Day".
What a beautiful story it is. Even prettier than reality itself!
Doesn't every human being honestly feel that the first day of spring is the
first day of creation repeated again?
If God set a beginning for life on earth, that day must have
doubtlessly been the Norouz day. Surely, spring has always been the first
season of the year. God must not have ever made summer, winter or fall the
first season of the year, may!
The fist grass on earth must have surely started sprouting on the first
day of spring, the rivers must have started running then, and the buds blooming
which means Norouz must have always been on the first day of spring,
simultaneous with the renewing of creation.
"Soul" must have surely been created in this season. Love's
first bow must have stricken a heart on its first day, and the sun risen for
the first time on the very same day, marking the start of the clock of
universe.
Islam, which wiped off all the discrimination and colors of racism and
tribalism, and changed the form of many traditions, on the contrary polished
the beautiful facade of Norouz. It approved of this glorious tradition, let is
sapling continue to grow and get stronger, now with a strong, gentle support,
safe from extinction in the first days of introducing Islam to the Iranians.
The two great events of appointing Imam Ali (AS) as the Prophet's
spiritual inheritor on Al Qadir day, and choosing him as the Calif of the
Muslims and Emir of all the believers (Amirul Mu'menin) have both been on
Norouz day and surely what a great coinci dence!
Thus, all the abundant love, piety and belief of the Muslim Iranians in
Imam Ali's (AS) right and holiness became the supporting resort for Norouz.
This glorious celebration, which had begun its life with the ancient soul and
love of a nation, was now dou bly fortified with the holy spirit of a great
religion, Islam, as well.
A national tradition was thus intermingling with religious piety and
the new strong love which had sprinkled in the hearts of these people, getting
holier. During the Saffavid Dynasty's era, it even became an established Shia
tradition, abundant with piet y and pure beliefs, now complete with special
prayers.
As the history books reveal, "One year, when Norouz and Ashoura
(the tenth day of the lunar month of Moharram, when Imam Hussein (AS) and his
followers were martyred in Karbala-one of the saddest events in the history of
Shia; a mourning holiday) coincide d, the Saffavid Shah spent that day mourning
for Imam Hussein (AS) and celebrated the following day as Norouz!"
Norouz which is old and the dust of many centuries has set on its face,
has witnessed the hymns of moqan (clergies of sun worshippers) calling and endearing
it, the holy psalms of the Zoroastrians at their Fire-Temples addressed to it,
Avesta's murmurs ca lling it holy names, and heavenly rhymes of Ahourmazd,
praising it personally and secretly in its ears.
From then on, it has been praised with the holy verses of Qur'an and
Allah's own words. Special salats (Islamic prayer, similar to five-time daily
prayers) were devised for Norouz, as well as special prayers to be said at
Norouz day and the moment of turn ing the year.
These were all coupled with love of Imam Ali (AS) and his just
government in Shiaism. This approach pumped fresh blood in the veins of this
old tradition, which has lived a long life along with all our ancestors since
old days, and cheered up the moments of every one of us, with tender and
profound love, always very sincerely.
The main prophesy of Norouz yet, is to polish the stains of sadness and
hopelessness off the hearts of this nation, which has often been betrayed and
even stabbed from behind, and blow the soul of jubilance in the corpse of this
land and its people.
And yet that is not all. Norouz is responsible for strengthening the
ties between the present generation and all our wise ancestors in the past on
the one hand, and strengthen the ties of these all with mother nature on the
other hand.
Above all, Norouz strengthens the ties of oneness among the present day
Iranians, who have the bitter memories of suffering the invasions of many
kinds, cruelties of both insider and outsider enemies, executioners who made
minarets of their heads and mass acred many generations.
It melts the thick ice of the walls of being strangers among our nation
and sows the seeds of being related to each other, flesh and blood. Thus, it
fills the deep gaps of forgetfulness which often separate the hearts of
different groups of the nation had it not been filled with the kindness of
Norouz.
And we, in these happy moments, light the holy Ahouraian fire of Norouz
once again, and deep in our conscience, tread the black death-stricken deserts
of hollow centuries, and get ready to celebrate Norouz along with al the men
and women, who once celebra ted this glorious national ceremony on this land.
Their noble blood runs in our veins, our hearts beat happily with it and their
souls once again start life in our bodies under the clear skies of Iran.
Thus, we proudly proclaim our lively existence as a happy wise nation,
standing tall amid the heavy winds of horrendous incidents which are capable of
uprooting any strong tree, but not our nation's.
We announce that we are alive and we will continue our proud existence
on this land till the end of the time, even in this dark century when our
enemies, and particularly the usurper West, are fiercely determined to make us
foreign with our own culture, so that we will be their obedient slaves, with no
personality of our own to rely on.
So let us renew our alliance with all our ancestors and with all the
different races of our nation, as well as with our mythology in this historical
intersection of time, beliefs and traditions.
Let us borrow the precious inheritance of love from them and promise to
be faithful inheritors of it. Let us promise as a nation, never to die, or how
in obedience to other cultures, because our roots are deeply delved into the
rich culture of humankind, piety of religions and nobleness of an ancient
nation that is standing tall at the great passage of history and at the scene
of the whole universe.
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