Secretary General of the Iranian commission Mohammadreza Saeidabadi said here on Monday that the commission has proposed two international awards, one for Ferdowsi and the other for Sheikh Bahai, and that UNESCO is currently studying the two cases.
“The Ferdowsi international award would cover the scope of cultural heritage while the Sheikh Bahai award would focus on entrepreneurship,” he remarked.
If approved, the awards would be held every two years, he added.
He also regarded as ineffective the efforts by some Western countries in hindering the process of Iranian cultural heritage registration.
“Iran enjoys a rich culture and we hope to register more of it on UNESCO’s list every year,” he mentioned.
Ferdowsi (935-1020) is author of the Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”), the Persian national epic, to which he gave its final and enduring form, although he based his poem mainly on an earlier prose version.
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh millennium was registered on UNESCO’s calendar of events for 2010.
Sheikh Bahai (1546-1622) was an Iranian theologian, mathematician, jurist, and astronomer who was a major figure in the cultural revival of Safavid Iran.
RM/YAW
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MNA
