Posts tagged : "Persian culture"

Kourosh Ziabari: A prominent Canadian Iranologist says that Iranian people have historically attached high importance to love and beauty, which have existed at the center of their spirituality and subtle culture. Responding to a question on why some American people do not know too much about Iran and the Iranian culture and civilization, Prof. Richars Foltz said, “According to studies I’ve seen, most Americans cannot even locate America on a world map. The United States is a very insular society; it is a large and relatively uniform country culturally speaking, which means that it is easy for Americans to believe that what they know is the general standard.” “Unfortunately, the wide admiration for American popular culture...

Kourosh Ziabari: Iranians across the world have just celebrated the arrival of the Persian New Year, the beginning of spring and the ancient Nowruz festival. Many of the Central and West Asia and Middle East nations as well as people from different countries and cultures have joined the Iranians in observing the Nowruz, an ancient festival that marks the commencement of the solar year. The German citizens had the opportunity this year to attend a Nowruz festival organized by the Ethnologisches Museum of Berlin with the cooperation of the embassies of 11 countries celebrating Nowruz, including Iran. Dr. Ingrid Schidlbeck, the curator and organizer of the Nowruz ceremonies in Berlin says that this ancient festival is respected because of...

Kourosh Ziabari: Prof. Sheila Blair, a prominent Islamic arts scholar, says the sense of hospitality is what makes the Iranian people distinctive in their deportment and demeanor than the other nations of the world. Prof. Sheila Blair, who is a Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at the Fine Arts Department of the Boston College, says that Iranians have always been creative and innovative people and that is why the Iranian arts are so unique, subtle and delicate. “Since Iran was often the bridge from regions further east to Arabia and beyond, Iranians quickly learned of the latest in artistic and technological innovations elsewhere, and people elsewhere learned of those things that had developed in...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The Persian New Year, which coincided with the commencement of the Vernal Equinox, has arrived and people across Iran and in parts of Central and West Asia and the Middle East are celebrating this ancient festival, which marks the beginning of the new solar year. Nowruz, meaning the “New Day,” refers to a set of festivities and rites that mark the arrival of spring and the Persian New Year. It is not simply an ordinary event of celebration and rejoicing or a national custom. Rather it is an historical and interregional tradition which dates back to some 3,000 years ago and connects people of different ethnic, lingual and national backgrounds and promotes regional peace and...

Kourosh Ziabari - The Guinness Book of World Records is being challenged with the efforts of a determined Iranian journalist. A new rival is slated to take the place of Guinness World Records in the near future. Sayyed Mortaza Mirseradji, Iranian researcher, journalist, and essayist, has registered a plan in the Islamic Republic of Iran Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance to publish a book containing cultural, spiritual and moral records called “Al-Khayrat.” According to Mirseradji, Al-Khayrat which means “good and decent deeds” in Arabic will be an all-encompassing enterprise including encyclopedic books, movies, and cultural organizations which are aimed at spreading cultural and moral records in the world. Some examples of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Some people say that it’s the 5774th time that Iranians across the world are celebrating the ancient Persian New Year festival, Nowruz. However, some history experts believe that Nowruz has been enshrined and observed for more than 15,000 years, even before the official establishment of the Persian Empire. Like Christmas, Nowruz is a pleasurable, elaborate and delicate festival which brings millions of people together, but it seems that there are certain elements in Nowruz which make it a distinctive, matchless and everlasting tradition, and one of these important elements is its historicity. Cyrus the Great, the first king of the Persian Empire, came to throne in 550 BC, but since almost 2000 years before him when...

  Kourosh Ziabari - The Persian New Year has just started and Iranians across the world as well as people from such countries as Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Armenia and Iraq will be celebrating the festivities marking the commencement of the New Year and arrival of the vernal equinox. Nowruz (meaning “new day” in Persian) is a set of rituals and customs that inaugurate the Persian New Year. There are diverse viewpoints regarding the origins and roots of Nowruz. Some scholars believe that Nowruz first emerged 7,000 years ago, and some others put the number at 15,000. However, what is clear is that Nowruz is an ancient festival with delicate and subtle cultural ramifications and is...

 Kourosh Ziabari - Christian Bromberger is globally renowned as a prolific and outstanding orientalist who has dedicated almost three decades of his life to research and study on the culture and civilization of the Near and Middle East.Fluent in English, Persian, Russian, Italian, Greek, and French, he has served several years as the Director of French Association of Iranology in Paris and currently holds the Professorship of Ethnology at the University of Aix En Provence.His latest research titled “the Interrelation of Crafts and Cultures in Guilan or the Exploration of a Society Through the Arts and Crafts”, which reveals some anthropological facts on the lifestyle of people at the North Iranian Province of Guilan, is...

Kourosh Ziabari - May 18 is dedicated to the commemoration of Omar Khayyam in the Iranian solar calendar; the calendar which Khayyam has invented himself. To the Western world which has always been enchanted by the magnificence and glory of oriental culture, Omar Khayyam is a venerable and honored figure who brings to mind the delicacy and gracefulness of ancient Persian civilization. The Iranian polymath, astronomer, philosopher and poet is internationally known for his insightful rubaiyyat (quatrains) which the influential British poet Edward FitzGerland translated from Persian into English 150 years ago. Omar Khayyam constitutes an inseparable part of Iran’s impressive history of literature and science. He is associated with the...

Kourosh Ziabari - American journalist and photographer Nile Bowie believes that the reality of Iran is absolutely different from what the Western mainstream media portray of it. "I would stress that Iran is an extremely safe country to travel through, and anyone who visits will certainly leave with more accurate perceptions than what Western media attempts to depict," he said in an interview with Tehran Times. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nile Bowie writes for the Canadian Center for Research on Globalization. Last week, Bowie and a group of American tourists traveled to Iran to visit the country's different cities, historical villages and cultural sites. He took numerous pictures of Iran and provided us with some of them for...