TEHRAN -- The 3rd Rain of Ghadir International Literary Meeting opened at Tehran’s Sureh-Mehr Hall on Saturday.
Groups of Iranian and foreign poets and literati attended the opening ceremony of the meeting, which has been organized to promote poems composed on Imam Ali (AS) and Prophet Muhammad (S).
Organized by the Art Bureau of the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization, the meeting runs until October 30. The literati will also visit Mashhad, which is home to the shrine of Imam Reza (AS).
Art Bureau Director Mohsen Momeni-Sharif, meeting sectary Hojjatolislam Mohammadreza Za’eri and several Iranian MPs were in attendance at the opening ceremony.
The Pakistani artist Abid Meher Ali Khan and his ensemble performed qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music popular in South Asia.
The meeting plans to pay tribute to the late Lebanese Christen poet Boulos Salameh, who composed a long poem in praise of Imam Ali (AS).
The last two days of the meeting will be held at the Nur Hall in Mashhad, Mashhad Art Bureau head Seyyed Javad Rafani previously announced in a press release.
Literati from Egypt, India, Pakistan, Lebanon and Tunis have traveled to Iran to attend the programs, he added.
He said that the participants would also visit the mausoleums of Persian poets Omar Khayyam and Attar and some religious and historical sites in the city of Neyshabur near Mashhad.
The meeting aims to discuss and promote inter-religious literature with the central theme of the affection for Prophet Muhammad (S) and Imam Ali (AS) among Shias, non-Shias and non-Muslim people.
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