Varzesh-e Pahlavani (Zurkhaneh)
Iranian ritual and physical training in the house of strength, the zurkhaneh, with wooden clubs, an iron bow and drum rhythm. UNESCO inscribed it in 2010.
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Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
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About Varzesh-e Pahlavani (Zurkhaneh)
Varzesh-e Pahlavani is an Iranian martial art that UNESCO inscribed in 2010 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage under the name Pahlevani and Zoorkhanei rituals and which, according to UNESCO, combines elements of Islam, Gnosticism and ancient Persian belief. It is practised in the zurkhaneh, according to Green in a house of strength, and according to UNESCO it is a sequence of gymnastic and conditioning movements performed by ten to twenty men, each with equipment symbolising ancient weapons.
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The nomination file traces the roots of the ritual to Mithraism 3,000 years ago, but elsewhere speaks of a ritual three hundred years old. Green states that the Iranian wrestling koshti developed from ancient Persian academies and that Shah Ismail the Great supported the zurkhaneh. We have not found the founder or the year of origin in the sources. According to the nomination file, the hall has an octagonal pit, the gowd, 70 centimetres deep, where practitioners stand by age and seniority. The morshed leads the ritual, who plays the zarb drum and recites epic and mystic verses. According to Qantara.de, men swing wooden clubs weighing up to fifty kilograms and do push-ups on long wooden boards, and Green describes the iron bow kadabeh with a chain instead of a string and spinning dances. Led by the pishkesvat, practitioners learn ethics and chivalry, and whoever masters the skills and the ethical stages can, according to UNESCO, earn the title pahlevani. Koshti wrestling, once practised in the zurkhaneh, was according to Green replaced by modern wrestling in the mid-20th century and according to Qantara.de disappeared from the zurkhaneh, but Iranians like to attribute their wrestling successes to this tradition. According to UNESCO there are about 500 zurkhaneh in Iran, mostly in central provinces. According to Qantara.de, women still may not take part in the rituals.
History
UNESCO describes pahlevani as an Iranian martial art that combines elements of Islam, Gnosticism and ancient Persian belief. The nomination file traces the roots of the ritual to Mithraism 3,000 years ago, but elsewhere calls it three hundred years old. We have not found the founder or the year of origin in the sources. Green states that martial arts academies called Varzesh-e-Pahlavani arose in ancient Persia and that Iran developed from them its own wrestling koshti, with combat and sporting sides. According to him, Shah Ismail the Great was known for supporting the zurkhaneh, and traditional equipment has been used there since at least his reign. According to Qantara.de, heavy wooden clubs were part of soldiers' preparation for war in the Middle Ages. According to Qantara.de, the ethics of the pahlevan stress modesty, fairness, respect for elders and helping the weak, and the pahlevan in the truest sense is Imam Ali, whose portrait no zurkhaneh may lack. We have not yet been able to verify the Encyclopaedia Iranica and the full texts of Chehabi's studies on the zurkhaneh.
How it differs
According to Green, koshti wrestling belonged to zurkhaneh training, but in the mid-20th century it was replaced, like other traditional arts, by modern Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, in which Iranians excelled. Qantara.de writes that wrestling was once an important part of the ceremony, but vanished from the zurkhaneh when Iranian wrestling joined international competitions and freestyle arrived. According to Qantara.de, Iranians like to credit their wrestling successes to the zurkhaneh tradition. Green cites evidence that Turkish oil wrestling yağlı güreş is related to Persian koshti, and notes the similarity of pehlivan and pahlavani.
Technique
According to the UNESCO nomination file, the zurkhaneh contains an octagonal pit, the gowd, 70 centimetres deep, in which the practitioners stand at assigned places according to age and seniority. Green quotes a description from 1962: an octagonal pit fifteen feet in diameter, lined with blue tiles and filled with earth, behind it lifting apparatus and on the wall a portrait of Ali. According to Green, the equipment is essentially enlarged weapons, for example the kadabeh, an iron bow with a chain instead of a string, which practitioners swing in training dances. Qantara.de describes how after the warm-up the men swing enormous wooden clubs weighing up to fifty kilograms and, in the octagonal arena, do push-ups to the rhythm of the drum with their legs far apart and their hands on long wooden boards laid on the ground.
Training
According to UNESCO, the ritual is a sequence of gymnastic and conditioning movements performed by ten to twenty men, each with equipment symbolising ancient weapons. It is led by the morshed, a singer who plays the zarb drum, recites epic and mystic Sufi verses and whose training lasts many years. Green describes rhythmic conditioning exercises followed by spinning dances accompanied by bells, drums, gongs and sung passages from the Shahnameh, with clear links to Sufi practice. A 2022 Qantara.de report from Shiraz states that the morshed plays a frame drum and occasionally strikes one of four bells hung in front of him, that the exercises follow his beats and that everything has a strict ceremonial order. He recites verses of Hafez, Rumi or Ferdowsi, followed by praise of the Prophet and his family.
Ranks and progression
According to UNESCO, practitioners learn ethics and chivalry under a pishkesvat's guidance. Whoever masters the skills and passes through the gnostic ethical stages may earn the title of pahlevani, which means standing and authority in the community. The nomination file explains the pahlavan as a master of skills and heroic ethics and the pishkesvats as champions who gradually rose to high social standing. We have not found the detailed progression, examinations or number of stages in the sources.
Today
UNESCO inscribed the zurkhaneh ceremonies on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010. According to UNESCO, there are about 500 zurkhanehs in Iran, mostly in the central provinces, and according to the nomination file the ceremony is also practised in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan and India. According to the file, the safeguarding of the element is coordinated by the national federation Pahlevani and Zoorkhanei Federation. The International Council of Traditional Sports and Games (ICTSG) lists the International Zurkhaneh Sports and Koshti Pahlavani Federation, based in Tehran, as founded in 2004 and as its member since 2021. According to Qantara.de, women are still not allowed to take part in the ceremonies. In 2020 Iranian women launched social media campaigns, provoked fatwas from Shiite scholars and were supported by the world club-swinging champion Hamidreza Kordi. In the abstract of a 2019 study, Chehabi writes that after 1979 gender segregation was reintroduced and that in recent years women have been trying to open the zurkhaneh.
Did you know
According to the UNESCO nomination file, the entrance to a zurkhaneh is low so that visitors bow when entering, and the morshed's place is called the sardam. In the golrizan ceremony, flowers are placed in every corner of the zurkhaneh as an appeal for gifts to the needy. Practitioners wear trunks decorated with arabesques with the botee-jeghghe motif, an abstraction of a bent cypress that symbolizes the humble champion. According to Qantara.de, zurkhanehs are usually built below ground level to escape heat and draughts, and training is traditionally done barefoot and naked to the waist, meant to symbolize the absence of social distinctions. The well-known zurkhaneh champion Shaban Bimokh was, according to Qantara.de, one of the leaders of the CIA-backed street brawlers who sided with the Shah in the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 1953.
Frequently asked questions
What is a zurkhaneh?
A zurkhaneh, which Green calls a house of strength, is a building where Iranian pahlevani is practised. According to the UNESCO nomination file, it has an octagonal gowd pit 70 centimetres deep.
Who is the morshed?
The morshed leads the zurkhaneh ceremony. According to UNESCO, he plays the zarb drum, recites epic and mystical verses, and his training lasts many years.
Can women train in a zurkhaneh?
According to Qantara.de, women are still barred from the ceremonies. Since 2020, Iranian women have used social media campaigns to try to open up the zurkhaneh.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.