# Naw-Ruz, Festival of (March 21)

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Christopher Buck, Naw-Ruz, Festival of (March 21), bahai-library.com.
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> 620    Naw-Rúz, Festival of (March 21)
> 
> See also Akshay Tritiya (Jain); Diwali; Gyana Panchami; Kartika Purnima;
> Mauna Agyaras; Mahavir Jayanti; New Year’s Day (Jain); Paryushana; Paush
> Dashami.
> 
> References
> Jaini, P. S. The Jaina Path of Purification. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979, 1990.
> Kothari, Jyoti. “Festival of India: Navpad Oli in Jainism.” Posted at http://hubpages.com/
> hub/Festival-of-India-Navpad-Oli-jain-festivalnavapad-navapada-siddhachakraayambil-jainism. Accessed June 15, 2010.
> Singh, Narendra K., ed. Encyclopedia of Jainism. 30 vols. New Delhi: Anmol, 2001.
> 
> Naw-Rúz, Festival of (March 21)
> 
> The Festival of the Naw-Rúz is one of five Bahá’ı́ festivals and one of the nine
> Bahá’ı́ holy days on which work is to be suspended.
> On March 21, 2010, the United Nations marked the first “International Day for
> Nowruz” (Persian, “New Day”), an ancient spring festival of Persian origin (and
> the Zoroastrian New Year’s Day) celebrated for over 3,000 years and enjoyed
> today by more than 300 million people worldwide as the beginning of the new
> year. Mary Boyce notes that it “seems a reasonable surmise that Nowrūz, the holiest of them all [Zoroastrian holy days], with deep doctrinal significance, was
> founded by Zoroaster himself” (Boyce, Encyclopædia Iranica). Naw-Rúz may
> be sacred or secular, depending on the setting. For Bahá’ı́s, Naw-Rúz is sacred,
> imbued with the symbolism of spiritual renewal.
> As the first day of the Bahá’ı́ New Year, Naw-Rúz coincides with the spring
> equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, which typically occurs on March 21. However, since Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892, prophet-founder of the Bahá’ı́ Faith) enjoined
> that this festival be celebrated on whatever day the sun passes into the constellation of Aries—that is, the vernal equinox—Naw-Rúz could fall on March 19, 20,
> 21, or 22, depending on the precise time of the equinox (even should this occur
> one minute before sunset). It is expected that the precise timing of Naw-Rúz will
> require a designated spot on earth—to be decided by the Universal House of
> Justice (the governing international Bahá’ı́ council) in the future—to serve as the
> standard for astronomically determining the spring equinox. Since Naw-Rúz also
> falls on the first day of a Bahá’ı́ month, it coincides with the day on which a
> Nineteen-Day Feast is to be observed, but the two events must be kept separate.
> Bahá’ı́ communities typically observe Naw-Rúz and meetings that combine
> prayerful devotions with joyous fellowship. “Naw-Rúz is our New Year, a Feast
> of hospitality and rejoicing” (Shoghi Effendi, Directives from the Guardian, 30).
> Bahá’ı́s from Iranian backgrounds may follow some traditions associated with
> the ancient Persian festival, but these cultural practices are kept distinct from the
> religious observance itself. To augment the festive joy, signal events are often
> Naw-Rúz, Festival of (March 21)         621
> 
> scheduled to take place on Naw-Rúz, being an ideal time for momentous
> announcements as well.
> The Báb (1819–1850), precursor and herald of Bahá’u’lláh, created a new calendar—called the Badı́‘ (“Wondrous”/“New”) calendar—which consists of
> 19 months of 19 days each, with four intercalary days (five in leap years) to round
> out the solar year. The only religious festival that the Báb had instituted was
> Naw-Rúz. The first day of the new year (i.e., the day of “Bahá’ ”) was Naw-Rúz
> (March 21), which the Báb specifically set apart in honor of “Him Whom God
> shall make manifest,” whose advent the Báb foretold and whose appearance, as
> Bahá’u’lláh, the majority of the Báb’s followers accepted. The Báb wrote:
> 
> God hath called that month the month of Bahá’ (Splendour, Glory), meaning
> that therein lieth the splendour and glory of all months, and He hath singled it
> out for Him Whom God shall make manifest. (The Báb, Persian Bayán 5:3;
> provisional translation by Saiedi, Gate of the Heart, 328)
> 
> Because this day was “singled it out for Him Whom God shall make manifest,”
> Naw-Rúz was highly symbolic and its observance pointed forward to that messianic
> figure for whose imminent advent it was the Báb’s professed mission to prepare the
> world (and whom the majority of Bábı́s recognized as Bahá’u’lláh later on). The
> Báb described Naw-Rúz as the Day of God on which goodly acts performed would
> receive the recompense for same acts as though performed for an entire year, while
> those who recite a special verse 361 times would be preserved from anything illfated during the course of the coming year (The Báb, Persian Bayán 5:3). The Báb’s
> laws, which were scarcely put into practice during the time of the Báb, were primarily
> intended to prepare his followers for the coming of “Him Whom God shall make
> manifest” and would be abrogated, except as accepted, at his advent. Such laws, as
> Nader Saiedi points out, were “not meant to be taken literally but instead perform a
> symbolic and profoundly transformative function” (Saiedi, Gate of the Heart, 343).
> Even so, Bahá’u’lláh preserved and adapted several of the Báb’s major laws to
> be observed by the Bahá’ı́s. Bahá’u’lláh formally ordained Naw-Rúz as a festival
> unto those who have observed the period of fasting that precedes Naw-Rúz:
> 
> O Pen of the Most High! Say: O people of the world! We have enjoined upon
> you fasting during a brief period, and at its close have designated for you
> Naw-Rúz as a feast. Thus hath the Day-Star of Utterance shone forth above
> the horizon of the Book as decreed by Him Who is the Lord of the beginning
> and the end. (Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, 25)
> This Bahá’ı́ law refers to the nineteen-day Fast (March 2–20), a period of spiritual discipline and purification, during which Bahá’ı́s abstain from food and drink
> from sunrise to sunset. (Bahá’ı́ days begin and end at sunset.) Since the Fast
> ends on the sunset on which Naw-Rúz begins, Naw-Rúz celebrations are often
> combined with a dinner.
> 622    Naw-Rúz, Festival of (March 21)
> 
> Unlike the other Bahá’ı́ holy days, which commemorate historic events in
> Bahá’ı́ history, Naw-Rúz has religious significance primarily due to its symbolism
> of renewal. As an Indo-European language, Persian is distantly related to English,
> which explains why the word “naw” (pronounced “no”) in Persian is similar to the
> English word “new.” Naw-Rúz not only heralds the advent of spring, but is also
> symbolic of a “spiritual springtime.” On a personal level, the Festival of
> Naw-Rúz is a time for renewal. On the occasion of Naw-Rúz in 1906, ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá (1844–1921), the successor to Bahá’u’lláh, wrote to the American Bahá’ı́s
> saying, in part:
> 
> It is New Year; . . . now is the beginning of a cycle of Reality, a New Cycle, a
> New Age, a New Century, a New Time and a New Year. . . . I wish this blessing to appear and become manifest in the faces and characteristics of the
> believers, so that they, too, may become a new people, and . . . may make
> the world a new world, to the end that . . . the sword be turned into the olive
> branch; the flash of hatred become the flame of the love of God . . . all races
> as one race; and all national anthems harmonized into one melody.
> (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas, 38–40)
> 
> Thus, this ancient Zoroastrian holy day and Persian springtime festival has been
> transformed into a Bahá’ı́ holy day, which has, as its animating purpose, the creation of a new world in which a new era of peace and prosperity may be brought
> about through the universal Bahá’ı́ principles of unity through diversity, famously
> expressed by Bahá’u’lláh in 1890 in a historic visit by Cambridge orientalist
> Edward G. Browne (A Traveller’s Narrative, xl), in these oft-quoted words:
> 
> That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the
> bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be
> annulled—what harm is there in this? . . . Yet so it shall be; these fruitless
> strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the “Most Great Peace” shall
> come.
> 
> Bahá’ı́s see this “New Day” as having transformed the vernal equinox into a
> universal celebration of the oneness of humankind.
> Christopher Buck
> 
> See also ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Ascension of; Ayyám-i-Há (Bahá’ı́ Intercalary Days);
> Báb, Festival of the Birth of the; Báb, Festival of the Declaration of the; Báb, Martyrdom of the; Bahá’ı́ Calendar and Rhythms of Worship; Bahá’ı́ Faith; Bahá’ı́
> Fast; Bahá’u’lláh, Ascension of; Bahá’u’lláh, Festival of the Birth of; Covenant,
> Day of the; Nineteen-Day Feast (Bahá’ı́); Race Unity Day; Ridván, Festival of;
> ˙
> World Religion Day.
> Nehan        623
> 
> References
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas. Chicago: Bahá’ı́ Publishing Committee,
> 1909.
> Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Haifa: Bahá’ı́ World Centre, 1992.
> Boyce, Mary. “Festivals: Zoroastrian.” In Encyclopædia Iranica, edited by Ehsan
> Yarshater. Vol. 9 (1999). Posted at http://www.iranica.com/articles/festivals-vi-vii-viii.
> Accessed July 15, 2010.
> Browne, Edward G. A Traveller’s Narrative. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University
> Press, 1891.
> Momen, Moojan. “Festivals, vi. Bahai.” In Encyclopædia Iranica, edited by Ehsan
> Yarshater. Vol. 9 (1999). Posted at http://www.iranica.com/articles/festivals-vi-vii-viii.
> Accessed July 15, 2010.
> Saiedi, Nader. Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Báb. Ottawa and
> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Association for Bahá’ı́ Studies/Wilfrid Laurier University
> Press, 2008.
> Shoghi Effendi. Directives from the Guardian. New Delhi: Bahá’ı́ Publishing Trust, 1973.
> Walbridge, John. “Naw-Rúz: The Bahá’ı́ New Year.” In Sacred Acts, Sacred Space, Sacred
> Time, 213–16. Oxford: George Ronald, 1996.
> 
> Nehan
> 
> Many Buddhists believe that the birth, the day of enlightenment (at the age of 35),
> and death (in his 80s) of Gautama Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist movement,
> occurred on the same day of the year. That day, usually called Wesak, is the night
> of the full moon of the Hindu month of Vaisakha (usually in May on the Common
> Era calendar). Tibetans call it Sakya Dawa.
> Other Buddhists, most notably those in Japan, hold their commemorations of
> those three events on separate days. Nehan, February 15, is the day Japanese Buddhists believe that Gautama Buddha died near the town of Kushinagara, almost
> due north of Calcutta near the border with Nepal, on the banks of the Hiranyavati
> River. The Buddha is often pictured in a reclining state, using his right hand as a
> pillow, calling to memory the moments before his death. Early accounts of his
> death suggest that he was sleeping on a bed between two sala trees whose white
> flowers fell continuously during his last day.
> In his last discourse, called the Yuikyogyo, the Last Teaching of Shakyamuni
> Buddha, he discussed the transitory state of life, noting that the physical body
> (even his) dies, and that it is the Dharma (the teaching) that is eternal. He also
> noted that he had withheld nothing from his teachings, that there were no secret
> teachings, nor any teachings with a hidden meaning, He closed by saying that
> “In a moment, I shall be passing into Nirvana.” His death is popularly referred to
> as the Mahanirvana or Parinirvana. In Japan, there are a variety of ways to
>
> — *Naw-Ruz, Festival of (March 21) (Used by permission of the curator)*