Yarsan Kurds celebrate Mehregan festival

KERMANSHAH, Iran (Kurdistan24) – Iranian Kurds in Kermanshah Province celebrated the ancient festival of Mehregan on Monday through dance and music.

Mehregan (“Mehr” meaning kindness) is an ancient festival that celebrates the beginning of fall and symbolizes knowledge, love, light, and friendship.

In the city of Sahna, Kermanshah Province, Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhilat) a group of Yarsan followers honored the onset of autumn through dance and bilingual music in Farsi and Kurdish.

Women who symbolize the generosity of Mother Nature have been praised and celebrated in this festival.

Mehregan, also a time for giving thanks, was observed for six days in old times through drinking wine, dancing, and singing.

Nowadays in Iran where alcohol and women’s dance and singing is forbidden because of Islamic rules, Yarsan Kurds still celebrate the occasion through poetry and all-male singing.

Yarsan, or Ahl–e-Haq, meaning “People of Truth,” is a religious and ethnic minority mostly residing in the Kurdish-dominated province of Kermanshah in the northwest of Iran. The faith also has followers in Iraq and Turkey.

Although the Yarsan number over one million in Iran, they are considered Fergh-e-Zaleh, a “false cult,” by the Shia-dominated Islamic Republic of Iran.

In August, Washington condemned Iran’s abuses of religious minorities, including Yarsan and Sunni Kurds, Baha’is, Christians, and Jews.

In its Wednesday International Religious Freedom Report for 2016, the US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour reported that non-Muslims and non-Shia continue to face societal discrimination, especially the Bahai community.

Ardeshir Rashidi, a Yarsan from Kermanshah, told Kurdistan24, “The continuous assault and disrespect for the belief and faith of Yarsan under the Islamic State of Iran must be rejected by every decent human being everywhere.”

Rashidi, the founder and president of the Kurdish American Education Society (KAES) in California, said since the Islamic revolution in Iran, leaders and members of Yarsan have repeatedly been summoned to the religious cities of Qom and Tehran “to be reminded of the regime’s intolerance for the Yarsan Faith.” 

He believes the attempt to “proselytize the Yarsan Community to convert has led to [the] implementation of policies that are at the core of all kinds of rights violations.”

According to Rashidi, the Iranian government disregards the Yarsan faith and disrespects the ancient holy shrines while threatening the life of the leaders of the religion.

Additionally, religious leaders are imprisoned, executed, and the community is excluded from social, cultural, and economic rights.

In 2013, members of the Yarsan faith in Iran and the Kurdistan Region, staged angry protests outside the mayor’s office in the city of Hamadan where two Yarsans set themselves on fire in protest.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany