Iran hosts conference on ‘Shams’s Encounter with Mowlavi’

Iran has held an international literary conference on the 13th century Persian poet, mystic and theologian Mowlavi in the capital city of Tehran.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad along with a number of the country’s and international officials and scholars attended the one-day conference held in Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on January 24, 2013.

The conference titled Shams’s Encounter with Mowlavi reviewed the poet’s literary works as well as his life particularly the period when he was deeply influenced by his spiritual instructor Shams-e Tabrizi.

“Mowlavi is a great universal man who belongs to Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Asia, Europe, Africa, America, and the entire world,” Ahmadinejad said during the ceremony.

As Mowlavi was born in Balkh in present-day Afghanistan, and he was buried in Konya in southern Turkey, Afghanistan and Turkey have made claims that the Persian poet belongs to them over the past decade.

The renowned Iranian-Armenian composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian’s last work ‘Shams Opera’ was performed at the event.

Iranian director Hossein Mosafer Astaneh’s play Love Resurrection was also performed by a theater ensemble led by Nader Rajabpour. The play had earlier been staged at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris for the 800th birth anniversary of the great poet in 2007.

Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi (Mowlavi) who is also known as Rumi in Western countries, was born in Balkh (now part of Afghanistan) and passed away in Konya, Turkey, where he was laid to rest.

Mowlavi is better known for his six-volume poem Masnavi which is considered by many to be one of the greatest works of both Islamic mysticism and Persian literature.

The collection’s each volume is comprised of 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines.