Happy 1391!
Happy New Year y’all! In a lot of countries, people are having New Year’s holidays right now to celebrate Nowruz, often referred to as Persian New Year. It usually takes place between the 20th and the 21th of March, which falls on the March equinox. This is not a coincedence at all, since the Persian calender starts on the March equinox.
The cultural meaning of Nowruz is this: According to the ancient Persian mythology Jamshid, the mythological king of Persia, ascended to the throne on this day. Each year this is commemorated with festivities for two weeks. These festivities recall the story of creation and the ancient cosmology of Iranian and Persian people. However, for some people it means more than just recalling this mythology: The opposition’s leader in Iran has even been released from house arrest for a couple of days to meet his family. For the Iranians however, it will not be 2012 yet. Their calender starts in the year prophet Muhammad left Mekka to go to Medina (Madinat un-Nabi), which is 622 in the ”christian” calender.This journey Muhammed and his fellow muslims made, plays an important part in the muslim faith and is often referred to as the hidjra.
A lot of cultural elements play a part in this huge celebration: special clothes, a lot of delicious food and music. For now I’d just like to say to everyone in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Albania and everyone else who is celebrating the new year: Norouz-e-tan pirouz, har rouzetan Norouz!
arabexperience 
Best of luck in all your studying 🙂 Learning about different cultures is a beautiful thing. Happy Nowruz!
Thank you very much! I love it until now, it’s fascinating and illuminating. I’m currently reading the Qu’ran translated into Dutch by Iranian writer Kader Abdolah (I posted something about him as well). I hope to publish something about my experience with this translation soon! Happy Nowruz back, I’m going to check out your blog now :)!