سی

The most famous use of si in Iranian culture is سی و سه پل (Si-o-se Pol), the Thirty-Three Bridge in Isfahan, a Safavid-era stone arched bridge with thirty-three arches spanning the Zayanderud River. Built in 1602 under Shah Abbas I, it's one of the most photographed monuments in Iran and the heart of Isfahani evening life. Couples walk across it, students sit under its arches reciting poetry, and tea sellers set up by the water. The number si also recurs in Sufi and mystical literature through the legendary سیمرغ (simorgh), the mythical bird whose name combines si (thirty) and morgh (bird), "thirty birds." In Attar's Conference of the Birds, thirty birds undertake a quest to find the Simorgh, only to discover at the end that they themselves are the Simorgh, the thirty-bird, a Persian-language pun and one of the most cherished metaphors in Iranian literature. سی روز (si ruz), "thirty days," is the standard length of an Iranian month and of the Ramadan fast.