TEHRAN, Sept. 27--The 23rd International Qur’an Competition began here on Tuesday in a ceremony attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Islamic Summit Conference Hall.
Some 40 countries are represented at the event which will continue for one week. Participants will be competing in various sections including memorization of the entire holy Qur’an, reciting ten or twenty verses from the holy book, its concept and interpretation, reported IRIB News.
Iran will be represented by Kashefi in the field of reciting the holy Qur’an, Aghaei in memorizing the entire holy book and Khaleqi in the field of Qur’anic concepts.
The contest is to be judged by a panel of jury made up of seven experts from Egypt, Indonesia, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Lebanon
The competitions are held every night from 20:00 hrs to 23:00 hrs and the event is open to all.
Earlier, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei here Tuesday evening called on Iranian society to become more familiar with the holy Qur’an.
Addressing an international group of top-notch reciters and memorizers of the holy Qur’an, the Supreme Leader said that a society that has strong links with the holy Qur’an will give greater value to the achievements and blessings of Islam. Reciters from over 40 countries participating in the 23rd International Qur’an Competition attended the meeting.

TEHRAN, Sept. 27--Members of board of directors of Union of Islamic Manuscripts will visit Iran to participate in the seventh commemoration ceremony for patrons of handwritten copies which is due to be held in November.
According to Mehr, they will also attend a meeting to discuss the establishment of a representative office in Iran.
The ceremony will honor prominent figures in the field of bibliography, restoration of manuscripts and amending texts.
The event will also provide the members of the union with the opportunity to exchange views with Iranian researchers and become familiar with the activities of Iranian elites.
During their visit, they will also get acquainted with the country’s capacities in the maintenance, restoration and digitizing handwritten copies.
In meetings arranged by the union, the two sides will seek to boost cooperation between the union and Iran and utilize global facilities to systematize Iranian manuscripts.
Head of Majlis Library Seyyed Mohammad Ali Ahmadi-Abhari said that the members of the board of directors of the Union of Islamic Manuscripts were invited to the country to discuss the union’s presence in Iran.
He further said that the union has good facilities and experience, which can be helpful in safeguarding manuscripts.
During their stay in Iran, they will also visit great and important libraries which maintain handwritten copies, he said.
Union of Islamic Manuscripts includes a board of directors with six members from England, the US, Egypt, Turkey (one from each) and two from Iran, namely Mandana Berkeshli and Mohammad Ali Ahmadi-Abhari.
The union also has several sub-committees.
Its Bibliography Committee was formed with the aim of identifying handwritten copies throughout the world and teaching correct methods of bibliography.
Manuscripts Restoration Committee seeks to impart courses on the proper way of restoring handwritten copies and expedite the process while the Committee for Digitizing Manuscripts aims to conduct courses on scientific methods of digitizing handwritten texts and libraries containing manuscripts as well as publishing them.

A view of the 14th QurÕan Exhibition in Tehran

TEHRAN, Sept. 27--Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi said here Tuesday that failure to read the Qur’an which has been written and designed in the best possible manner is tantamount to being disloyal to the holy book, ILNA said.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 14th Qur’an Exhibition, which opened here at Imam Khomeini Prayer Grounds with the motto of developing Qur’anic concepts, he said, “We thank God that we are able to hold another round of the event with His blessings.“
The exhibition heralds the time for taking advantage of Qur’an in a season where nostalgia dominates due to the shedding of leaves, he said, adding that the concurrence of the event with the mellowing of nature clears hearts of sorrow and leads them to the illuminated message of God.
The minister also hailed the coincidence of the Qur’an exhibition and the spring of resistance (the Sacred Defense Week which marks the anniversary of the 1980-1988 Iraq-imposed war).
“In my opinion, the best educated people in Qur’anic school are those who have materialized Qur’anic concepts during the eight-year imposed war,“ he said.
“Since I took office, I decided to pave the way for further studies on the holy book, in addition to respecting Qur’anic traditions,“ Safar-Harandi noted.
The minister underlined that the Qur’an should not be viewed as a peripheral section to other disciplines including theater and cinema; rather all cultural activities should be based on Qur’anic teachings.
Meanwhile, Head of Qur’an Exhibition Policymaking Council Mohammad Ali Khajeh-Piri presented a report on the development of the event.
He said that the international section will feature research works by elites from Islamic countries while some 500 field representations inspired by Qur’anic concepts will be undertaken in the performance section throughout the city.

TEHRAN, Sept. 27--Iran’s national music museum will be built in the capital with the aim of introducing and identifying all Iranian musical instruments, CHN reported.
Announcing this, Director General of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization’s Museum Department Masoud Nosrati said, “Given the significance and history of music in Iran, we have placed the establishment of such a museum on our agenda.“
Establishment of national music museum is currently under review, he noted.
Noting that the collection of Iranian musical instruments is one of the main objectives of the first phase of the specialized project to set up a music museum, Nosrati said that nearly 401 musical instruments pertaining to different Iranian cultures and subcultures will be identified and collected at a cost of more than 400 million rials.
Following the identification of the instruments, precise identification cards will be drawn up for all the instruments, he said.
Stating that procurement of more than 3,000 pictures of devotional ceremonies is also one of the priorities, he said that a section of the museum will be devoted to a databank about Iranian music traditions.
Based on the outlines of the plan, the best venue for the museum is Tehran, he said. “Of course, in terms of diversity, other provinces such Khorasan and Kurdestan have an edge over the metropolis, but Tehran has all the capacity to house such a museum. However, an expert session will be held to discuss which other cities apart from Tehran can serve as the venue for the museum,“ he concluded.

TEHRAN, Sept. 27--Director of Khorasan Poetry Society, Hadi Monavari, has said that one of the reasons that poetry pertaining to the Sacred Defense Era has become eternal is the humility and innocence of the Iranian youth who fought the Baathist enemy during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
He told Mehr that none of the events, particularly the heroic resistance in which many young people sacrificed their lives, will be forgotten.
Commenting on the influence of Sacred Defense poetry on youth and young adults, Monavari rejected predictions by some sociologists that the youth have distanced themselves from religion and sacred defense values. “We have gained satisfactory result by investing in sacred defense literature,“ he added.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

OTTAWA, Canada, Sept. 27--Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman immortalized in Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said on Tuesday.
According to Reuters, the discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared and three-dimensional technology to peer through hitherto impenetrable paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre museum in Paris.
Bruno Mottin of the French Museums’ Center for Research and Restoration said that on very close examination of the painting it became clear that the Mona Lisa’s dress was covered in a thin transparent gauze veil.
“This type of gauze dress ... was typical of the kind worn in early 16th century Italy by women who were pregnant or who had just given birth. This is something that had never been seen up to now because the painting was always judged to be dark and difficult to examine,“ he told a news conference.
“We can now say that this painting by Leonardo da Vinci was painted to commemorate the birth of the second son of the Mona Lisa, which helps us to date it more precisely to around 1503.“
The young woman with the ambiguous half smile has been identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco de Giocondo. She had five children. Mottin also said that, contrary to popular belief, the subject had not let her hair hang freely but in fact wore a bonnet from which only a few curls managed to escape.
“People always wrote that the Mona Lisa had allowed her hair to hang freely over her shoulders. This greatly surprised historians because letting your hair hang freely during the Renaissance was typical of young girls and women of poor virtue,“ he said.
Experts from Canada’s National Research Council said the painting was in fragile condition but should not suffer too much damage if taken care of properly.