The 4th Shams and Rumi National Festival has started in the tomb of Shams Tabrizi in Khoy city of West Azerbaijan province, northwest of Iran.
The Festival started on Tuesday night at Shams Tabrizi Tomb with the performance of about 60 magnificent traditional music of Iranian songs.
Music bands from the provinces of West and East Azerbaijan, Tehran, Fars, Isfahan, Lorestan, Khorasan Razavi, Hamedan and Sistan and Baluchestan will perform in the 4th Shams and Rumi National Festival.
Naser Khodayari, Director General of Department of Culture and Islamic Guidance of West Azerbaijan said at the opening ceremony of the Festival that Shams Tabrizi is a great national, cultural and regional capital.
Khodayari stated that the power of Shams Tabrizi’s cultural diplomacy is an opportunity to strengthen ties between nations and to spread peace and establish cultural ties in the region.
In 2007, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named 2007 as the year of Mowlavi in honor of the Persian poet’s outstanding achievements.
Shams-e Tabrizi (1185–1248) was the spiritual instructor of Mowlana Jalal al-Din Balkhi (Rumi) and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi’s poetic collection in particular ‘Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi’ (‘The Works of Shams of Tabriz’).
Tradition holds that Shams taught Rumi in seclusion in Konya for a period of forty days before fleeing for Damascus. The tomb of Shams was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
September 29th and 30th in Iran are named as the day of commemoration of Shams Tabrizi and Rumi, respectively.
