Local calendar of East Azerbaijan, a lasting legacy

Humankind has long recognized the importance of calendars and has sought to create them in order to plan activities, especially in agriculture or choosing the proper time for migration. To achieve this, various peoples paid attention to factors such as the moon’s orbit around the Earth, its changing phases, and the positions of stars and celestial bodies as the basis for constructing calendars.

Calendars in Iran

Throughout history, various calendars have been used in Iran, some of which became more widespread than others. Studies on these calendars and their variations show differences in how years were counted, a distinction that is also reflected in calendar events. Leap year calculation is one of the most important elements in Iranian calendars and has gradually evolved over several centuries.

After the advent of Islam in Iran, the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina was adopted as the starting point for year numbering. Subsequently, the lunar Hijri calendar, based on the moon’s cycle, became common. Although this calendar supported religious observances well, its seasonal mobility made it less suitable for tasks such as tax collection. Therefore, solar-based calendars, which used the Earth’s orbit around the sun as the basis of chronology, were also developed and used.

Among the various calendrical systems in Iran, the Jalali calendar is the most famous and widely accepted. This calendar, still in use today, is attributed to the renowned Iranian scholar, poet, mathematician, and astronomer Omar Khayyam. Since he designed it during the reign of Jalal al-Din Malikshah Seljuk (1072–1092 AD), it became known as the Jalali calendar. In this system, the start of the new year coincides with the sun reaching the vernal equinox.

In addition to the Jalali calendar, local calendars were also used in different parts of Iran, in which people's activities in the fields of agriculture, such as harvesting or planting crops, were the most important events. The local calendar of East Azerbaijan is one of these local calendars, which expresses an important part of the oral culture of the people of this land. Due to the importance of this calendar, it was registered in the list of intangible heritage of Iran in 2013 AD (1391 Solar Hijri) in order to provide the grounds for its preservation and strengthening.

Local Calendar of East Azerbaijan and Its Features

The most important feature of the local calendar of East Azerbaijan is perhaps the role of people's beliefs and traditions, which made it useful for planning economic and cultural activities. This connection has intertwined the calendar with popular rituals.

The calendar is based on the rising and setting of stars, their positions in the sky, and the movements of the moon and sun. It was designed to help villagers identify the best times for livestock and agricultural activities and to estimate climate changes. Consequently, the experiential knowledge of the people played a key role in its development and in marking important events. For example, April 14th, called "Nissan" in the local calendar, was when people awaited rainfall. Other notable occasions include "Geçi Qıran" (the mid-May cold that can cause goat deaths), "Yayın Qıkh Bəshi" (the forty-fifth day of summer, marking peak heat), "Quyruq Doğdi," and "Kalvaz" (the minor and major winter periods).

Like many other calendars, it consists of four three-month seasons, each with its own name: Yaz (spring), Yay (summer), Paiz (autumn), and Fesh (winter). During the use of oral calendars, literate people familiar with more precise calendars taught these methods to farmers, improving the calendar’s accuracy and time divisions. Nevertheless, it is still used among some nomads and villagers today.