PERSIAN/IRANIAN CULTURE:

The word "Persian" is used as an adjective, especially pertaining to the arts, and to describe the principal language spoken in Iran. The word is often used to show the larger cultural area of Iranian civilization. This includes populations living in Iraq, the Persian Gulf region, the Caucasus region, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India. The formal name of the Iranian state is Jomhuri-ye Islami-ye Iran , the Islamic Republic of Iran.

FOOD:

Iranians have a healthy diet with fresh fruits, greens and vegetables. Meat, that is usually lamb, goat, or chicken, is used as a side dish, other than a main meal. Rice and fresh semi leavened whole-grain bread are also very typical. One of the things that they drink a lot of is black tea. It’s also important to know that they will not eat pork. Breakfast is a light meal with fresh flatbread, tea, and maybe butter, white cheese, almost like feta, and jam. Eggs may also be eaten fried or boiled. Meat is not eaten at breakfast. In a middle-class house the main meal usually starts with fresh vegetables like scallions, radishes, fresh basil, mint, coriander, and others. This is served with flatbread and white cheese. The main dish is rice, called chelow, served with one or more stews made of meat and a fresh vegetable or fruit. This stew, called khoresht is almost like mild curry. One particularly nowned khoresht , fesenjun , is made of lamb, chicken, and duck. Rice may also be prepared as a pilaf or polow, by mixing in fresh herbs, vegetables, fruit, or meat after it is boiled, but before it is steamed. The Iranian national dish, called chelow kabab, and is made of a filet of lamb marinated in lemon juice or yogurt, onions, and saffron, grilled over a hot fire. This is served with grilled onions and tomatoes on a bed of chelow. The butter and egg are mixed with the hot rice, which cooks the egg, and berries are put on top. A common drink with a meal is dough , yogurt and salted water, similar to Turkish ayran, Lebanese lebni, and Indian lassi.After a meal, people will eat fruit, and drink black tea, but these can be given at any time. Sweets are usually eaten with tea in the afternoon, not as dessert. The most famous are gaz , a natural nougat made with rose water, and sohan , a saffron, butter, and pistachio praline. The evening meal is usually a light meal made of leftover food from the noon meal, or a little bread, cheese, fruit, and tea. 

FOOD DURING CEREMONIES:
Ritual foods can be divided in two categories, which are: foods that are eaten in celebration, and foods that are prepared and eaten as a charitable religious act. A few foods are traditional for the New Year's celebration. Fish is consumed as the first meal of the New Year, with a polow made with greens. There is also a kind of sweet pudding made of ground sprouted wheat called samanou. During the Islamic month of fasting (not eating), Ramadan, no food or drink is consumed from when the sun goes up, to when it goes down. Families, before the sun goes up, will prepare heavy breakfasts that look like lunches. The same thing is done when the sun goes down. Special crispy fried sweets, made from yogurt and put in syrup are frequently eaten. 

CELEBRATIONS AND HOLIDAYS:
Most holidays in Iran are religious, but there are some that are connected to historical events as well. The Iranian New Year's Celebration ( Now Ruz ) is the most important holiday. The Now Ruz celebration is full of pre-Islamic symbolism,like for example the practice of jumping over bonfires on the Wednesday before the equinox. Celebrations will be done for thirteen days. In some parts of Iran the winter solstice is celebrated in a special manner. Watermelons are saved from the summer and hung in a protected place. On the longest night of the year, family and friends stay up all night, tell stories, and eat the watermelons. The nation also celebrates Islamic Republic Day on 1 April to remember the 1979 Revolution.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN:
Women have always had a strong role in Iranian life, but not much in public. However, brave women will go to the streets for a good public cause. In the years since the Revolution, women have made great progress in nearly every area of life. Female employment is the one area where women haven’t done so well from the Revolution. Even under the current Islamic regime, all jobs are open to women, but they have a rule to follow, which is dressing modestly. Islam requires that both women and men wear modest dresses. For men this means not wearing tight pants, shorts, short-sleeved shirts, and open collars. Iranians see women's hair as erotic, and so covering both the hair and the female form is a must. For many centuries women in Iran have done this by wearing the chador, a piece of dark cloth that is wrapped around the body and head, and at the chin. Makeup is not allowed. In private, women dress as they want, but not when they go out. The emotional roles of Iranian men and women are different from those in the United States and many other Western countries. In particular, it is considered strong for men to be emotionally sensitive and artistic. Women however, can be emotionally distant without looking unfeminine. Crying in public is not bad for both men and women. They can also be really sweet and being caring to their same-sex friends with no intention of eroticism. Kissing and hand-holding between members of the same sex is common. But physical contact between members of the opposite sex is not ok, if people are not from the same family. 

RELIGION:
The state religion in Iran is Ithnaashara or Twelver Shi'ism, established by the Safavid Dynasty in the seventeenth century. This part of Islam has many different practices and beliefs that is different from the Sunni Islam practiced in most of the Muslim world. Shi'a Muslims pray the descendants of Fatimah, daughter of the prophet Muhammad, and her husband, Ali, Muhammad's cousin. There are twelve Imams recognized by this branch of Shi'ism. All were killed but the twelfth, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who disappeared, but will return at the end of time with Jesus to judge people. A symbol seen all around Iran is an open hand. This is a complex symbol with different interpretations, but one is that the five fingers represent the "five bodies" important to Shi'ism, and these are Muhammad, Fatimah, Ali, and the two sons of Fatimah and Ali, Husayn and Hassain. It is Hassain, however, who is the true important figure in Iranian symbolic life. Hassain was killed in a fight for power between rival parts, later known as Shi'a and Sunni. His death is observed during the year on every possible occasion.
Even if most Iranians are Twelver Shi'a Muslims, important religious minorities are also present in Iranian life. Zoroastrians are connected to the Achaemenid Empire from more than two thousand years ago. Iranian Jews are the oldest Jewish community in the world, that started during the removal to Babylon. Armenians, which are Christian people, who were taken to Iran by Iranian rulers, and Assyrian Christians, who follow a non-Trinitarian doctrine, have been in Iran since the third century. Sunni Muslims are represented by Arab and Baluchi people in the south and Turkish populations in the north and west. The Baha'i movement were able to make people change their beliefs, not only from Islam, but also from Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity.