Role of Numbers in Iranian Transitional Rituals (Case Study: Cultures of Guilan, Amol, Taleshan, Boroujerd, Lorestan, Khorasan, Ezadkhast)

Numbers have always been of great importance in Iranian culture and also their presence has been tangible and significant in almost every belief, etiquette, and rituals of rural or urban Iranian civilizations and folklore. Meanwhile, transition rituals, among all customs, are the ones in which most substantial figures of Iranian culture e.g. 3, 7, 10, 40,… can be identified. By transitional rituals we mean the customs which help an individual to transform from one stage of life into another one; rites such as birth, marriage, and death, each of which contains different combination of numbers and their repetition. In this study, it is tried to identify the transitional rituals in which numbers play an important role, to cluster them, to specify which figures are prominent in these sorts of rituals, and finally to seek the source of adoration toward specific numbers. The chosen regions of Iran in terms of investigation for this article are as following: Gilan, Amol, Taleshan, Boroujerd, Lorestan, Khorasan, Izadkhast.