Baku's Zorkhana located just a few steps from the Bukhari and Multani caravanserais, towards the Maiden's Tower dates back to at least the 15th century. One of the Baku's Inner City's entertainment areas was the Zorkhana. In recent years, the sport appears to be gaining popularity in the countries adjacent to Iran, including Iraq and Afghanistan. The IZSF was established in response to this and it is currently the world governing body for all zourkhāneh. Suggestions have included making practice more upbeat and distributing duties among the younger members instead of adhering strictly to seniority. The matter of attracting younger members has been a major discourse for some time.
Today, varzesh-e pahlavāni is touted as the reason why Iranians are regular winners at international wrestling and weight-lifting events. This did not last, however, as the Islamic Republic eventually promoted varzesh-e bastani as a symbol of Iranian pride and culture. įollowing the Iranian Revolution of 1979 the tradition lost some of its popularity as the new regime discouraged anything tied to pre-Islamic paganism, which included the Gnostic and Mithraic chants and rituals of the zourkhāneh.
He attempted to revive the tradition and practiced it himself, and during his reign, the last national competitions were held. Reza Shah's son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took a different approach, emphasizing Iran's ancient Persian roots as an alternative to the heavily Islam-based identity of less developed nations in the Middle East. The sport declined following the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty in the 1920s and the subsequent modernisation campaigns of Reza Shah, who saw the sport as a relic of Qajarite ritual. Every 21 March on Nowruz (the Iranian new year), competitions would be held in the shah's court, and the shah himself would present the champion with an armlet ( bazoo-band). Varzesh-e bastani was particularly popular in the 19th century, during the reign of the Qajar king Nāser al-Din Shāh Qājār (1848–1896). Religious hymns were incorporated into training, and the first Shi'ite imam Ali was adopted as the zourkhāneh patron. Following the spread of Shia Islam, and particularly after the development of Sufism in the eighth century, varzesh-e pahlavani absorbed philosophical and spiritual components from it. Invaders repeatedly targeted the houses of strength to discourage rebels, but new ones would always be organized in a different location. When the Arabs invaded Persia around 637 CE, the zourkhānehs served as secret meeting places where knights would train and keep alive a spirit of solidarity and patriotism. The zourkhaneh system of training is what is now known as varzesh-e bastani, and its particular form of wrestling was called koshti pahlevani, after the Parthian word pahlevan meaning hero. The Mithrāic design and rituals of these academies bear testament to its Parthian origin (132 BCE – 226 CE). The original purpose of these institutions was to train men as warriors and instill them with a sense of national pride in anticipation for the coming battles. While folk styles were practiced for sport by every ethnic group in various provinces, grappling for combat was considered the particular specialty of the zourkhāneh. Traditional Iranian wrestling ( koshti) dates back to ancient Persia and was said to have been practiced by Rustam, mythological Iranian hero of the Shahnameh epic. Practiced in a domed structure called the zurkhāneh, training sessions consist mainly of ritual gymnastic movements and climax with the core of combat practice, a form of submission-grappling called koshti pahlavāni. It contains elements of pre-Islamic and post-Islamic culture of Iran (particularly Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Gnosticism) with the spirituality of Persian Shia Islam and Sufism. It combines martial arts, calisthenics, strength training and music. Outside Iran, zoorkhanehs can now also be found in Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan, and were introduced into Iraq in the mid-19th century by the Iranian immigrants, where they seem to have existed until the 1980s before disappearing. Pahlevani and zourkhaneh rituals is the name inscribed by UNESCO for varzesh-e pahlavāni ( Persian: آیین پهلوانی و زورخانهای, "heroic sport") or varzesh-e bāstāni ( ورزش باستانی varzeš-e bāstānī, "ancient sport"), a traditional system of athletics and a form of martial arts originally used to train warriors in Iran ( Persia), and first appearing under this name and form in the Safavid era, with similarities to systems in adjacent lands under other names.
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