Yalda Night
Based on Wikipedia: Yalda Night
The Night That Swallowed the Sun
On the longest night of the year, when darkness stretches to its absolute limit, millions of people across Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and their neighboring lands do something wonderfully defiant. They refuse to sleep.
They gather with family and friends, pile tables high with pomegranates and watermelons, crack open books of medieval poetry, and stay awake talking, laughing, and eating until the sun finally crawls back above the horizon. This is Yalda Night, one of humanity's oldest continuous celebrations, a festival that has been observed for at least two and a half thousand years.
The winter solstice—that moment when Earth's axial tilt positions the sun at its lowest point in the sky—occurs around December 21st each year. In the Iranian calendar, this falls on the night between the last day of Azar and the first day of Dey. It's the hinge point of the year, when the days stop shrinking and begin their slow expansion back toward summer. Ancient peoples understood this. They watched it happen every year, and they knew that something profound was occurring in the heavens.
Two Names, Two Histories
The festival goes by two names, and each tells a different story about its origins.
The name "Chelle Night"—sometimes spelled Chelleh—means "fortieth night" in Persian. This refers to the forty-day period of deep winter that begins on the solstice. The ancient Iranians divided winter into chunks: first came the "great Chelle," a forty-day span of the harshest cold, followed by the "small Chelle," a twenty-day period that overlapped with its predecessor. The solstice night opened this formidable stretch of winter, hence the name.
The other name, "Yalda," has a more surprising origin. It comes from Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic spoken by early Christians in the Middle East. In Syriac, "yalda" means "birth." But not just any birth—it was the word Christians used for the Nativity of Jesus Christ.
How did a Christian word become attached to an ancient Iranian festival? The answer lies in the complex religious geography of the ancient world.
When Christians Lived Under Persian Protection
In the first centuries of the Common Era, the Roman Empire was an uncomfortable place for Christians. Persecution was common, and the faith's followers faced periodic waves of violence and suppression. But to the east, beyond Rome's reach, lay the Parthian Empire and later the Sasanian Empire—what we would today call Iran. These Persian empires, while officially Zoroastrian, offered something precious to religious minorities: tolerance.
Significant communities of Christians settled in Persian territory, bringing their religious calendar with them. Among their observances was Christmas, which they celebrated on the winter solstice—nine months after the feast of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear a son. The Syriac Christians called this celebration "Yalda."
The Persian festival of the winter solstice was already ancient by this time, but it had no single name. As the Christian communities celebrated their Yalda on the same night, the word drifted across religious boundaries. Gradually, Iranians began calling their own solstice celebration by the Christian name, even though it had nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. The two festivals happened to fall on the same night, and the borrowed word stuck.
Today, most Iranians probably don't know that "Yalda" is a Syriac word. They simply use it interchangeably with "Shab-e Chelle," unaware that they're blending two entirely different religious traditions into a single night of celebration.
Older Than History
The roots of the winter solstice celebration in Iran extend back far beyond Christianity, beyond even Zoroastrianism, into the murky prehistoric past when humans first began to understand the patterns of the sky.
The Achaemenid Empire—the vast Persian realm founded by Cyrus the Great—formally included Yalda Night in its official calendar by at least 502 BCE, during the reign of Darius I. This was the empire that stretched from Egypt to the borders of India, and its celebration of the winter solstice was already an ancient tradition at that time.
But the festival's origins lie even further back, in the religious practices that predated Zoroastrianism. Iranian researcher Zana Salehrad has traced its roots to solar rituals held in pre-Zoroastrian times, when humans celebrated the rebirth of the sun on the longest night. These earliest peoples understood something that still holds true: after this night, the sun would begin its long journey back toward summer.
For people whose entire lives depended on agriculture—on planting and harvesting at the right times, on having enough light to work and enough warmth to survive—the movements of the sun were not abstract astronomy. They were matters of life and death.
The Night When Evil Peaks
The ancient Zoroastrians had a problem with the winter solstice. In their cosmology, the world was a battleground between Ahura Mazda, the god of light and goodness, and Ahriman, the spirit of darkness and evil. If the longest night of the year was when darkness reigned supreme, then surely it was also when Ahriman's power was at its peak.
This made the solstice night dangerous. Evil spirits—what the Zoroastrians called "dews"—prowled the darkness, waiting to inflict misfortune on the unwary. The solution was to stay awake, surrounded by the protective company of family and friends, and wait out the darkness together.
People would gather in groups, share the last remaining fruits preserved from summer, tell stories, and find ways to pass the long hours until dawn. There was safety in numbers, and safety in staying alert. To fall asleep alone on this night was to invite disaster.
The next day was cause for celebration. The first of Dey was called Khorram-ruz, the "joyful day," or Navad-ruz, meaning "ninety days"—a reference to the roughly ninety days remaining until Nowruz, the Persian New Year that falls on the spring equinox. The worst was over. The sun was returning.
Over the centuries, belief in evil spirits has faded. Few Iranians today stay awake because they fear the dews. But the customs remain: the late-night gatherings, the sharing of food, the poetry, the storytelling. The religious significance has been lost, but the traditions have proven more durable than the beliefs that created them.
The Colors of Survival
Walk into any Iranian home on Yalda Night and you'll find certain things on the table. Pomegranates. Watermelons. Nuts. Dried fruits. The spread might seem random, but it carries deep symbolic weight.
The pomegranate and watermelon are particularly significant, and the reason is their color. Cut them open and you find brilliant red—the crimson of dawn, the hue of blood, the glow of life itself. On the darkest night of the year, Iranians surround themselves with reminders of the light that will return.
Watermelon in December might seem strange to anyone accustomed to the seasonal rhythms of European or American eating. But Iran's climate and long agricultural traditions made it possible to preserve watermelons from the summer harvest, and the practice became wrapped in superstition. Eating watermelon on Yalda Night was believed to protect against the excessive heat of the coming summer—a kind of prophylactic magic, using the cold of winter to ward off the dangers of heat.
In the Khorasan region of northeastern Iran, the superstitions become even more specific. Eat carrots, pears, pomegranates, and green olives on Yalda Night, the locals say, and you'll be protected from insect bites—especially scorpions. Eat garlic, and you'll ward off joint pain. These beliefs may seem whimsical, but they reveal something important: for the people who hold them, Yalda Night is not merely a celebration. It's a turning point, a moment when the actions you take can influence the entire year to come.
The Poetry of Hafez
In most Iranian households, you'll find a well-worn book tucked into the shelves. It's the Divan of Hafez—the collected poems of the fourteenth-century Persian poet whose full name was Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī, but whom everyone simply calls Hafez.
Hafez is to Persian literature what Shakespeare is to English, but with a crucial difference: Iranians don't just read him, they use him for divination.
The practice is called fāl-e Ḥāfeẓ. You hold the book, close your eyes, think of a question or a concern, and then open to a random page. The poem you land on is believed to hold guidance for your situation—a kind of bibliomancy, divination by book.
On Yalda Night, fāl-e Ḥāfeẓ is practically obligatory. After dinner, as the family settles in for the long night ahead, someone will bring out the Divan. One by one, people take their turn, asking their questions and receiving their poetic answers. Hafez's verses are cryptic and beautiful, open to interpretation, perfect for the kind of late-night philosophical discussion that Yalda encourages.
There's a rule, though: you shouldn't divine more than three times in one night. According to tradition, if you keep going back to the book, asking question after question, Hafez himself may grow irritated with you. Even from beyond the grave, the poet has limits.
The Shahnameh and the Epic Past
Hafez isn't the only book brought out on Yalda Night. Many families also read from the Shahnameh—the "Book of Kings"—a monumental epic poem written by the poet Ferdowsi around the year 1000 CE.
The Shahnameh is one of the longest poems ever written, clocking in at approximately 50,000 couplets. It tells the mythological and historical story of Iran from the creation of the world through the Arab conquest in the seventh century. Its heroes include legendary kings like Jamshid, who ruled for seven hundred years, and tragic figures like Rostam, the greatest warrior in Persian mythology, who unknowingly kills his own son in battle.
Reading the Shahnameh on Yalda Night connects modern Iranians to their ancient past. The poem was written specifically to preserve Persian culture and the Persian language at a time when Arabic was threatening to overwhelm them. Ferdowsi famously boasted that he had revived the Persian language through his verse. Reciting his words on the longest night of the year is an act of cultural continuity—a way of saying that Iran endures.
The Forty and Its Power
Why forty? The number appears everywhere in Yalda Night traditions—forty days of winter, the "fortieth night," even a custom in some regions of serving forty different varieties of food during the celebration.
Forty is a number with weight in many cultures. The Hebrews wandered the desert for forty years. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. The period of Lent lasts forty days. In Islam, forty is considered a number of completion and change.
In the Sufi mystical tradition of Islam, there's a practice called Chella—spelled the same as the Persian word for "forty"—which involves forty days of retreat, fasting, and spiritual discipline. Though this Sufi practice isn't directly connected to the winter solstice festival, the shared vocabulary hints at the deep cultural significance the number holds throughout the Iranian and Islamic worlds.
The connection may go back to practical observation. Forty days is roughly how long the harshest part of winter lasts. It's also close to the length of a lunar month plus a bit more—long enough to feel like a real trial, short enough to survive if you've prepared properly. Ancient peoples marked their lives by these periods, and the number forty became embedded in their mythology and ritual.
A Festival in the Modern World
In December 2022, UNESCO added Yalda Night to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage—an official recognition that this ancient celebration represents something valuable about human culture that deserves preservation.
The addition was significant. It acknowledged that Yalda Night has survived not despite change, but through it. The festival has adapted to every transformation Iranian society has undergone—the rise and fall of empires, the coming of Islam, the modernization of the twentieth century, the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Through all of it, people have continued gathering on the longest night to eat pomegranates and read poetry.
Today's celebrations look different than they did in ancient times, of course. The candles that once lit homes and courtyards have given way to electric lights. The korsi—a low table covered with a blanket, with a heater underneath, around which families traditionally gathered—is becoming less common in urban apartments. Some modern Iranians throw Yalda Night parties complete with DJs and dancing, a far cry from the solemn warding-off of demons that the festival once entailed.
But the core elements persist. Families still come together. They still eat the traditional foods. They still read Hafez and tell stories. They still stay up late, keeping watch through the darkness until dawn.
The Universal and the Particular
Yalda Night belongs to a family of winter solstice celebrations that span the Northern Hemisphere. The Chinese observe Dongzhi, the "extreme of winter," with family gatherings and special foods. Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, which usually falls in December. Europeans have their various solstice traditions, many of which were absorbed into Christmas.
All of these festivals share a common insight: when darkness is at its deepest, humans gather together, light candles or fires, and celebrate the return of the light. The specific customs vary—you won't find watermelons at a Swedish Christmas or Hafez at a Chinese Dongzhi—but the underlying impulse is the same.
What makes Yalda Night distinctive is its continuity. Many winter solstice traditions were suppressed, transformed, or absorbed into newer religions over the centuries. The Roman Saturnalia became Christmas. The Germanic Yule became Christmas. The Celtic midwinter festivals mostly vanished altogether.
But Yalda Night has survived as Yalda Night. It borrowed a Christian name, but it never became a Christian festival. It continued through the Islamic conquest of Iran, even though Islam brought its own calendar and holidays. It persisted through modernization and revolution. Today, an Iranian celebrating Yalda Night is participating in the same basic festival that their ancestors celebrated under Darius the Great—a continuous thread of human tradition stretching back more than two and a half millennia.
The Night That Opens Winter
There's something clarifying about marking the darkest night. It acknowledges reality—yes, this is the bottom, this is when the darkness is worst—while also insisting on hope. The night will end. The sun will return. The days will lengthen.
The Zoroastrians understood this as a cosmic battle: Ahriman's moment of greatest power was also the beginning of his defeat. The light would inevitably return. The celebration was not a denial of darkness but an affirmation that darkness was temporary.
Modern Iranians may not believe in Ahriman, but they still understand something about facing the difficult moments together rather than alone. When the night is longest, you gather with the people you love. You eat well. You tell stories and read poetry. You stay awake, keeping watch.
And then the sun rises, and winter begins its slow retreat, and you've made it through another year's darkest hour—together, surrounded by pomegranates and pistachios and the eternal verses of Hafez.