Zoroastrian Customs : The New Year's Revolution

Here is an interesting article on Zoroastrian customs practiced for the coming new year.

On the same day, people try to foresee the future. The omens are read in various ways. Women who want a child, girls who have not yet found a husband, men who are hoping to conclude a successful business deal or even to get married, go out into the streets or stay behind closed doors eavesdropping on conversations between people they do not know. They interpret the words they overhear as omens of the future and make wishes and pray to try to ward off misfortune.

Say that is just the way I try to predict next what is about to happen in American politics. And boy, do I ever pray to avoid political misfortune.

Well so much for culture and predicting the future. Let us get to the important part:

In all the rites of Now Rouz [New Year- ED.], whatever their origin, there is one constantly recurring feature: the conflict between light and darkness, in keeping with the old Zoroastrian dualism. It is no coincidence that legend should attribute the invention of this feast to Jamshid or Feridun, legendary kings and divine heroes who triumphed over the forces of darkness.

But if Islam has kept up this Zoroastrian feast, it is because of the role it plays in the stabilization of the fiscal year and also because of its jovial and lively ceremonies which were highly esteemed at the courts of the caliphs and the sultans.

The singing and music which always mark Now Rouz explain why the sufis are interested in this festival. ENDS NO ROUZ 17305

But the mullahs don't like it. It represents the opposition in the way that Catholocism in Poland represented the opposition. It may be that the force of an old religion, thought dead for at least a thousand years, will rise and defeat political Islam.