The book, which also contains photos of the restorations and refurbishments carried out on the religious site in 2020, has been published by the Astan Qods Razavi, the organizational custodian of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS).

The commendation was unveiled on Thursday during a ceremony organized by the Astan Qods Razavi to acknowledge those involved in the restoration project and writing the book.

“I have seen the pictorial book, ‘The Sun’s House’. The idea for the refurbishment project along with the extensive planning required for it, followed by the research for those places in need of restoration, and finally, the hundreds of intricate artistic and technical tasks performed by the skilled hands of those who were inspired by the power of love and affection, all of this work and those involved deserve hundreds of words of praise. Thanks and greetings to those skilled hands and those creative minds,” the Leader wrote in the commendation.

Speaking at the ceremony, Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Marvi, the custodian for the Astan Qods Razavi, said that the Leader had praised the book in a meeting with him a few weeks ago, during which he also promised to write a praise note for the book.

Ayatollah Khamenei has written commendations for many books before.

“Evenings of Keriskan” written by Kianush Golzar-Ragheb is one of the latest book hailed by the Leader.

It is the memoirs of Amir Saeidzadeh, a Kurdish Iranian soldier who was held captive by members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a separatist group, for 5 years.

The writer was a cellmate of Saeidzadeh who earlier had written about his story in another book titled “Shonam”.

Keriskan is the name of an area in Koy Sanjaq, a town and district in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. The area was home to a camp for Iranian captives during the separatist civil war in the Iranian Kordestan region in the early 1980s.

Saeidzadeh is one of the few survivors of the camp. Most of his cellmates were executed by the separatists without any trial.

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He received the Razavi Scholar Award from the Iranian cultural attache in Tokyo, Hossein Divsalar, Iran’s Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) announced on Monday.

Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance gives the honor to an international scholar with outstanding research about Imam Reza (AS) during the Imam Reza (AS) International Festival, whose 19th edition is currently underway in the country.

The festival is organized every year with contributions from the Imam Reza (AS) International Foundation for Culture and Arts, and Astan-e Quds Razavi.

“Japanese Iranologists, Islam experts and Iranian experts on Japanese studies have played a key role in the development of a mutual understanding between the great nations of Iran and Japan, therefore it is our duty to appreciate them,” Divsalar said after handing over the award to Sugiyama at his office.

Sugiyama, a junior researcher of the Organization for Islamic Area Studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, also said, “It’s a great honor for me to receive this award from Iran, in particular, from the Imam Reza (AS) International Foundation for Culture and Arts.”

“I will do my best more than before to do research on Imam Reza (AS), Mashhad and Astan-e Qods Razavi,” he added.

As a frequent visitor to Iran, Sugiyama said that he spent most of his time from 2004 to 2006 at the Astan-e Qods Razavi Museum and Library in Mashhad doing research on the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS).

He called the library and museum a treasure trove, and expressed his thanks to the staff for their help and support.

“The Mausoleum of Imam Reza under the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Administration and Activities of the Twelver Shiite Imamate Mausoleum in Iran” is one of Sugiyama’s articles published by Waseda University.

“This paper aims to examine the current state of the Imam Reza mausoleum, which exists as the only Twelver Shiite Imamate mausoleum in Iran, primarily by examining official press releases and publications related to this site,” he wrote in an introduction to the article.

Another of his articles is “The Mausoleum of Imam Reza during the Afsharid Period: A Consideration of its Organization and Administration in the 18th Century Based on the Tumar-e Alishahi (Scroll of Ali Shah)”.

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