"[Chaharshanbeh Soori] not only lacks a religious basis, it also brings about harm and misdeed. It is advised that [the rituals] be refrained from." That's the text of a fatwa published by the official website of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in response to a religious query about Chaharshanbeh Soori, the ancient Iranian Festival of Fire held on the eve of the last Wednesday before Nowruz, the start of the Iranian New Year. The festival is largely marked with bonfires set up in alleyways and streets nationwide with people gathering around to jump over the flames and celebrate the arrival of spring.
The Iranian supreme leader's statement is not the sole opinion expressed by clerics and political figures within the Islamic Republic in rejection of Chaharshanbeh Soori. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a number of religious figures have repeatedly dismissed the ceremony on the grounds that it runs counter to Islamic principles. They consider the celebrations to be a series of "superstitions" characterized by "religiously forbidden" customs. For instance, Morteza Motahari — a key ideologue of the Islamic Revolution — considered the popular epigram shouted when jumping over fires on the annual occasion as a manifestation of blasphemy and polytheism. "Jumping over the fire … bears signs of blasphemy. … Such slogans are descriptive of fire worshippers. Islam was introduced to battle these very rituals," Motahari wrote in one of his religious essays.
Meanwhile, foreign-based opposition groups such as Mujahedeen-e Khalq have issued calls ahead of the same festival to turn the event into political rallies against the Islamic Republic.
In recent years, however, the conservative clerical community's rejection has not managed to throw the festival into oblivion. Moreover, calls from the opposition for protests have not given the event a political color either. Days ahead of this year's Chaharshanbeh Soori, which falls on March 19, opposition groups have been launching campaigns across social media for organized rallies against the Islamic Republic. But the state is seemingly easing restrictions and exhibiting far less strictness about the ancient festival this year. To many pundits, this is partly explained by a gradual reemergence of patriotism and a strong emphasis on "Iran's glory" in remarks by the country's senior leadership.
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