MILL CREEK — Everyone who entered the room for the night’s celebration passed a table set with a curious array of objects.
The apples symbolized fertility and beauty, the mirror wisdom and creativity. There were decorated eggs, a plateful of coins and a bowl with live goldfish.
The name for each item on the traditional Haft Sin table began with the letter “s” — not in English, but in Persian, the main language of Iran.
“It’s a culture we brought from back home,” said a Tehran native who now lives in Bothell. “This is to show a little bit of our Persian new year.”
Fragrant hyacinth flowers, spiced basmati rice and chords on a 12-string acoustic guitar suffused the Willis Tucker Park conference room on March 21.
Most of the dozens of people gathered there are members of the Baha’i faith. They were celebrating Naw-Ruz, a new year’s holiday observed by Baha’is and other religious groups around the time of the spring equinox.
The ancient tradition is common throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. It’s a time of fasting, of spring cleaning and of buying new clothes — generally of setting the tone for the year to come. Like Easter for Christians, it incorporates symbols of renewal.
As befits a religion that seeks to unify humanity, local Baha’is welcomed everyone to the local Naw-Ruz celebration.
The festivities began with prayers in English, Spanish, Arabic and Persian. People queued up for a potluck dinner and later hit the dance floor to the sound of pop music.
The Baha’i religion was founded in mid-19th-century Persia by Baha’u’llah. There are believed to be more than 5 million adherents today, present in almost every country in the world.
They recognize figures from other religious traditions as prophets, among them Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha and Krishna.
The religion emphasizes the equality of men and women. It opposes discrimination and places a high value on education.
If a Baha’i family is forced to choose between sending a boy or a girl to school, the preference is to send the girl. That’s because they consider mothers to be the first educators of children.
To explain her faith, Pegah Ouji, a 24-year-old woman who lives in Tacoma, quoted a passage from Abdu’l-Baha, the eldest son of the religion’s founder: “To be a Baha’i simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood.”
Some local Baha’is are American-born, having converted as adults.
“I grew up very Catholic, played the church organ,” said Mary Ellen Wood, of Edmonds.
Wood found her new faith about 40 years ago, while a college student in Illinois.
Many local Baha’is, though, are religious refugees from the Islamic Republic of Iran, where they face fierce government persecution. Baha’is there cannot pursue higher education or have government jobs.
Badie, the woman from Bothell, came to the U.S. with her sister in 1989 to attend university, an opportunity that would have been denied to them in Iran.
Ouji also arrived in the U.S. with her family, in 2006, so she could pursue higher education.
“We wanted to send her to a private school and they wouldn’t accept her because of her religion,” said her father, Farzan Seilani, of Lynnwood.
Seilani said people of other faiths in Iran, including the majority Shia Muslims, also suffer persecution if they stray from the government line. Baha’is, however, face worse religious discrimination from the Islamic government than even Iran’s small communities of Jews and Christians, he said.
Seilani was a panelist for a screening of the documentary “To Light a Candle” earlier this month at Edmonds Community College. The film, by Iranian-Canadian director Maziar Bahari, depicts the plight of Baha’is in Iran. A website, www.educationisnotacrime.me, provides more information about their situation and a campaign to protect their human rights.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
