The true morning will not come, until Yalda Night is gone

Saturday night is Yalda: the longest night of the year. The forces of Ahriman are at their peak. From tomorrow, the Sun God starts to triumph – and we all start getting longer days.

I’ve written about Yalda before – but this year, I wanted to focus on its very earliest origins.

In Babylonian times, it was believed that the first creation represented order coming out of chaos. To celebrate this, there was a festival which included the temporary subversion of order. Chaos ruled for a day as masters and servants reversed roles. The king would dress in white and change places with ordinary people: “A mock king was crowned and masquerades spilled onto the streets. As the old year died, rules of ordinary living were relaxed”.

Much of this persisted in Iran until Sassanian times – it’s mentioned by Biruni and others in their records of pre-Islamic rituals and festivals. But originally the Zoroastrians of Iran called it Shab-e Cheleh, so-named as it was  celebrated forty days before the next major Persian festival Jashn-e Sadeh.

Yalda is a Syriac word imported which means birth (tavalud and melaad are from the same origin). The word Yalda only seems to have entered the Persian language in the period after the massive persecution of early Christians in Rome. After this, many Christian refugees fled into the Sassanian Empire – it is thought that these Christians introduced and popularized “Yalda” in Iran, with “Shab e Yalda” and “Shab e Cheleh” gradually becoming synonymous.

Then after Islam arrived, Yalda turned into more of a social occasion. Different kinds of dried fruits, nuts, seeds and fresh winter fruits are consumed – remembering the ancient feasts to celebrate and pray to the deities to ensure the protection of the winter crops.