Organized by Iran Cultural House in Lahore, Imam Reza (AS) Cultural Artistic Festival is now underway at the center.

Organized by Iran Cultural House in Lahore, Imam Reza (AS) Cultural Artistic Festival is now underway at the center.

The 5-day festival includes the Razavi Exhibition as well as poetry recitation ceremonies.

The opening ceremony which was held on Wednesday, October 20, started with the recitation of a few verses of the Quran followed by eulogies for the Ahl-ul-Bayt (AS) by a number of religious poets from Lahore.

Mehran Eskandarian, cultural expert of Iran Cultural House, also presented his supplication and poems.

Abbas Famuri, Iran’s cultural attaché and head of the country’s cultural house, was the next speaker who, congratulating Imam Reza’s (AS) birth anniversary, said that Imam Reza’s real name and epithet are Ali and Abu-Al-Hassan respectively, while his most well-known title is Reza meaning ‘contentment’.

He further referred to Imam’s ethical and virtuous characteristics adding that he treated all people with respect and kindness in a way that even his enemies stood in awe of him.

Another speaker was Ghahraman Soleimani, head of Persian Language and Literature Development Center, who referred to the extensive cultural relations between Iran and Pakistan noting that Persian speakers do not have much difficulty understanding the words and grammatical structures in Urdu since the two languages have many rules in common.

People of the Subcontinent used to narrate their life stories in poems and that’s why poetry has always been the voice of spirituality especially in Shia communities, he added.

Poetry had also a lofty status at the time of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) when poets had a grand responsibility to serve Islam through their poems, he went on to say.