Ayatollah Khamenei on Monday evening received a group of poets, literary and cultural experts on the eve of the auspicious birth anniversary of a generous member of Prophet Muhammad’s (blessings of God upon him and his progeny) household, Imam Hassan al-Mujtaba (peace be upon him).

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Noting that the trends and progress of the revolutionary poetry are promising, the leader pointed that there are other poetic flows in Iran for sure, but it is the revolutionary poetry which has been remarkably advanced in terms of content, novelty, innovation.

“Safeguarding the identity of the nation is of significance because a nation that loses its identity will be lost in a handful of foreigners,” Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized.

In another part of their speech, Leader of the Islamic Revolution expressed concern about the Persian language saying: “I’m really worried about the language because it is generally eroding.

Expressing discontent over the Islamic Republic of Iranian Broadcasting (IRIB) activities, the leader of the Islamic Revolution added: “The national media sometimes propagates the unidentified, misconceptions language, and worst of all, promotes foreign terms instead of promoting standard, well-understood, polished Persian language.”

The Supreme Leader described devoting poetry to monotheistic teachings, the virtues of the Ahlulbait, the revolution and different important evens of the country and the world of Islam as enhancing and elevating poetry and added: Depict in your poetry the beautiful gestures by the nation, like the magnificent epic of people’s selfless volunteering in providing relief for the victims of the flood; because this makes your poetry a flag of the nation’s identity.

His Eminence went on to say,“ It is very important to safeguard a nation’s identity because once a nation loses its identity, they melt in the palm of enemies and perish.”

In another part of his speech, Ayatollah Khamenei expressed concerns for the Persian language and asserted,“I am truly concerned about the Persian language, because in the public sphere, Persian language is eroding.”

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution elaborated, “ I am upset with the IRIB for they sometimes, instead of promoting an enhanced form of correct, standard and polished version of the language, promote an identity-less version with faulty expressions and worse—with foreign expressions.”

He further slammed frequent use of foreign words in the media and addressed authorities by saying,” Do not allow the Persian language to be afflicted with erosion and destruction.”

Ayatollah Khamenei also criticized poor and low wordings of some songs broadcast by the IRIB through TV series and held, “The Persian language has been protected by great poets for centuries and the vigorous and eloquent version has been passed on to us; therefore, we should protect the language and do not allow that, out of ignorance and negligence, a naïve songwriter ruin the wordings and then his/her songs be broadcast by IRIB or other governmental and non-governmental media, using public money.”

In this meeting, 29 young and veteran poets read out their poems to the Supreme Leader and the audience.