People of no faith and of many

Not every Iranian is religious. Some describe themselves as secular, agnostic or atheist, bi-din or la-mazhab, ‘without religion’. Others are spiritual without belonging to any faith; still others keep the rites of their family’s religion as culture, without belief. Iranian history has always had its sceptics. The quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam doubt the promises of preachers and urge the drinker to take hold of today, and generations of readers have found in Hafez a poet who mocks hypocritical piety while longing for something greater.

Measuring belief in Iran is difficult. Official statistics count almost every Iranian as a member of a recognised faith, while online surveys, such as those carried out by the Netherlands-based research group GAMAAN in 2020, report a much more varied picture, including many people who say they are non-religious. Researchers debate how far either picture can be trusted. In the Islamic Republic of Iran leaving Islam is not legally recognised, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran has raised concern that apostasy can be prosecuted. In Afghanistan, too, non-belief cannot be declared openly. In Tajikistan and the Republic of Azerbaijan, with their Soviet past, secular states sit beside living Muslim traditions.

Nowruz

Whatever they believe, nearly all Iranians share a calendar of customs older than any of today’s faiths. Nowruz, ‘new day’, begins at the spring equinox. In the weeks before, families clean their houses, khaneh-tekani, and grow green shoots of wheat or lentils. On the last Tuesday evening of the year, Chaharshanbeh Suri, people jump over small fires singing zardi-ye man az to, sorkhi-ye to az man: ‘my yellow to you, your red to me’. The haft-sin table is laid with seven things whose names begin with the letter sin, among them sabzeh (sprouts), sib (apple) and serkeh (vinegar), beside a mirror, painted eggs, goldfish and, in many homes, a Qur’an, a Bible, an Avesta, a book of Hafez or the Shahnameh. On the thirteenth day, Sizdah Bedar, everyone goes outside for a picnic and throws the sprouts into running water.

Nowruz is kept by Zoroastrians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, Yarsan and non-believers alike, and by Kurds, Tajiks, Afghans, Azerbaijanis and peoples across Central Asia and the Caucasus. UNESCO inscribed it in 2009 on the nomination of several countries, including Iran, and extended the inscription in 2016 to include Afghanistan, Tajikistan and others.

Yalda

On the longest night of the year, at the winter solstice, families gather for Shab-e Yalda, also called Shab-e Chelleh. They stay up late around the korsi, eating watermelon and pomegranates, nuts and dried fruit, telling stories and opening the Divan of Hafez at random to read a fal, an omen, for each person. UNESCO inscribed Yalda/Chelleh in 2022, on a joint nomination by Iran and Afghanistan. Believers of every faith and people of none sit at the same table, under the same verse.