Haft-Sin

Haft-Sin – Photo by ir.sputniknews.com

We are going to talk about Haft-Sin of Nowruz (an arrangement of seven symbolic items whose names start with the letter “س” pronounced as “seen” the 15th letter in the Persian alphabet). There are different ideas regarding the philosophy of Nowruz:

Some people believe that before the advent of Islam, it was called Haft-Shin and as the Islam emerged, it was changed into Haft-Sin, one of the items was Sharab (wine) which was in contrast with the principle of Islam and so it was changed to Haft-Sin among the Iranian Muslim families.

In another point of view, it is believed that the Iranian families used seven different dried or fresh fruits in their Nowruz table and they called it “Haft-Chin”. These seven items were: Senjed (Rissian olives), Samanu, Sumac, Sib ( apple), Sir (garlic), Serkeh (vinager) and Sabzeh (wheat, lentil and …). By the advent of Islam, as there was no letter of “CH” in Arabic language, it was converted to “S” (Sin). As all these items are edible and from an agricultural category, it can be somehow a logical point of view but it cannot be said with absolute certainty due to lack of written historical sources about the history of Haft-Sin.