Even goldsmiths were taken aback as huge crowds gathered outside their shops on Sunday, eager to purchase anything from small pieces to expensive gold jewelry. The sudden 'gold rush' was not driven by changes in prices.

Photos and videos posted on social media showed big crowds outside jewelry shops in many areas of Tehran and other cities from the early business hours of Sunday.

The 'gold rush' was triggered by a religious superstition encouraged by some influencers online, who urged people to buy some gold for attracting wealth, or symbols of other big items such as cars that they wish to have.

Mohammad Kashtiaray, Deputy Chairman of Goldsmiths and Jewelers’ Union, says he had never seen such a rush to buy gold in his 64 years of trade. According to Kashtiaray, the rush to buy gold pushed up the prices of gold and gold coins although international prices had remained the same.

He also said most people had purchased very tiny items weighing one gram or less and pointed out the role of social media in forming people’s beliefs and behavior.

There is still no information on the amount of gold sold on Sunday, but prices on Monday were somehow higher than in the past few days.

In a post on X, a gold shop in an arcade in northwest Tehran said they had to stop selling gold coins, which many Iranians buy as an investment, to meet the demand for the gold jewelry on display.

Many people who rushed to buy gold said this was because there was some religious wisdom about purchasing gold on this day.

Some netizens say people were also buying keychains in the hope of being able to purchase homes and cars, or dolls to have children.

“Dream sellers sold dreams to a society whose purchasing power has shrunk… Such happenings are not strange where [economic] development is lacking,” journalist Zahra Ali-Akbari contended in an article published by the moderate Khabar Online news website.

Sunday was the 13th of the Islamic month of Safar in the unofficial lunar Islamic calendar that many Iranians who keep up with religious feasts and other occasions are quite familiar with.

Netizens say the unprecedented rush to buy gold this year was spurred by social media posts claiming the sixth Shia Imam, Imam Ja’far Sadiq (702-765 CE), recommended buying gold on this day to become prosperous. The quote from the Imam, some others say, is not substantiated by any authoritative religious source. 

The Instagram and Telegram posts that attributed the recommendation to the sixth Imam were posted by both gold sellers and jewelry businesses and influencers. Whether this was a coordinated campaign by goldsmiths or importers or only spurred by superstition is difficult to gauge.

“Did they really write in Instagram that buying gold on the 13th of Safar is auspicious and people went and did that? Didn’t they think why nobody had heard of this before? Didn’t they think it may have been a marketing campaign by goldsmiths to make up for the slow business in the months of Moharram and Safar?” Iranian journalist Yeganeh Khodami took to X to ask.

In Shia Iran, some businesses, including gold and jewelry shops, experience a setback in these months as many prepare to partake in religious mourning ceremonies.

Another Iranian journalist, Maryam Shokrani, also took to X to comment on the ‘gold rush’. “This degree of superstition is unbelievable!” she wrote.