The ceremony took place at Sepid Tower in Mashhad on the eve of the birthday anniversary of Imam Reza (AS), the eighth Imam of the Shia Muslims.
The Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Abbas Salehi and the director of the Imam Reza (AS) International Art and Cultural Foundation, Mahmudreza Barazesh, attended the closing ceremony.
Former Astan Quds Razavi officials Ali Karimi-Qoddusi and Ali-Mohammad Baradaran-Rafiei and poet Jafar Mahsorkh were among the honorees.
Also included were writers Faezeh Azimzadeh Ardebili and Mohammad-Ali Mojahedi, actor Dariush Arjmand and calligrapher Qassem Tavakkoli.
The secretaries of different sections of the festival were also honored at the ceremony.
The 17th edition of the Imam Reza (AS) International Festival opened with the birthday celebration of Hazrat Masumeh (SA), the sister of the Imam (AS), at her holy shrine in Qom on July 4.
The ten-day festival offered a wide variety of programs in different Iranian provinces.
The programs included theater performances, book fairs, art exhibitions and cultural seminars. Exhibitions of rare Persian and Arabic manuscripts and documents were also organized.
Cities in the provinces of Hamedan, Bushehr, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, North Khorasan, Kohkiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, and Markazi hosted sessions on religious poems.
The Razavi Theater Festival, an event dedicated to plays on religious themes, was held during the festival in East Azarbaijan Province.
A number of musical performances were also held in Tehran while several calligraphy exhibits were organized in South Khorasan Province.
Sistan-Baluchestan hosted an exhibition of graphic designs, and Isfahan showcased a collection of book illustrations in an exhibit during the festival.
The festival was also held in several countries in collaboration with Iran’s Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, the Ahl-ul-Bait World Assembly, and several other organizations.
A large collection of cultural products were put on display at the Razavi Permanent Exhibit in Mashhad, where the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) is situated.
- source : Tehrantimes
