Jashn-e Sadeh

The story behind the day

Sadeh, also written Sada, is the Iranian winter festival of fire. It falls on the tenth day of the month of Bahman, around 30 January, about fifty days before Nowruz, and it is kept by kindling a great communal fire. The Persian epic ties it to Hushang, an early king who discovered fire. Medieval Muslim courts feasted on the day, but court observance later declined, while farming and herding communities kept it up. Today Zoroastrians in Iran keep it as a religious feast, and people of other faiths gather round the flames too.^[1–9]

Origins

Sada is a fire festival of the Iranian winter. Its name is traditionally linked to the Persian word for "hundred". Medieval writers explained this as the hundredth day of winter, while another explanation counts fifty days and fifty nights between the festival and Nowruz; modern scholars treat the true origin of the word as uncertain. The Shāhnāma, the Persian Book of Kings, tells how Hushang, one of the earliest kings, discovered fire and taught his people to revere it as a gift from heaven. In some tellings he found it when he struck at a dragon with a stone, and the festival commemorates the discovery.^{[4, 11]}

What it marks

For the farming and herding communities who kept it longest, Sada belongs to the working year. UNESCO notes that it is the day when farmland is prepared for the spring planting, and that people use it to mark the end of the coldest days. Zoroastrians in Iran regard it as a feast of their religion, and the fire is its centre. Others join in, and UNESCO describes the practice as uniting people of different cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds.^[7–9]

How it came to be

After Iran came under Muslim rule, Sada was remembered as a festival of the ancient kings, and its celebration is recorded at courts from the Samanid and Ziyarid period of the tenth century to the Saljuqs of the twelfth. Later, court observance seems to have declined. The custom lasted at a popular level among farming and herding communities, and not in the cities.^[5–7]

How it is kept

the Sadeh bonfire outside Kerman, mobeds in white — The Sadeh bonfire outside Kerman, mobeds in whiteIllustration · AI-generated

Sada is kept by kindling a bonfire. Zoroastrians in Iran, as a Zoroastrian heritage body describes it, light the fire at nightfall after prayers, with music and celebration. People pray, sing and dance around the flames. The date follows the Iranian calendar: the tenth of Bahman, around 30 January.^{[1–2, 8, 12]}

Sources

Each statement above was checked against published sources; the verdict says whether it stood as written, was corrected or was hedged.