Iran’s top clerics concerned about art

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi called Iran’s modern art a copy of Western art and said, “Today’s art is totally driven by Western theories and is a copy of them.”

Mesbah Yazdi, director of the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, regarded the scope of culture as very broad and continued saying, “All activities of the country must germinate within the Ministry of Culture (and Islamic Guidance).

“If we are going to do something, it must be studied very carefully. We need to have some sort of technical programming.

“The Islamic society of today faces issues that were not even imagined in the time of the shah’s regime. New strategies for planning and analysis need to be developed, and the decision makers and designers need to buy into them.”

He also stressed on social activities saying, “Social issues need to be examined carefully and we can’t simply focus on the short-term.”

The culture minister also met with Ayatollah Javadi Amoli on the same day in which the top cleric asked for the establishment of a university of Islamic art supervised by the culture ministry.

“We must realize that art becomes Islamic when one can really feel it, and thereafter the product will be Islamic cinema and a TV series like “Prophet Joseph (AS).” Directed by Farajollah Salahshur, the TV series details the life of Prophet Joseph (AS) and was aired on Iran’s national TV channel over the past year.

He later pointed to the TV series “Imam Ali (AS)” by director Davud Mir Baqeri as an example of a production not related to Islamic cinema and added, “The TV series ‘Imam Ali (AS)’ is a rozehkhani (narration of tragic events in the history of Islam). It is more like a modern tazieh (passion play).

“Actors who do not pray and do not fast are entangled in fantasy and do not attain wisdom. An artist has a responsibility to play a nurturing role in society,” he remarked.

Ayatollah Javadi Amoli next referred to the role of an artist in the Islamic society and said, “An artist should be able to analyze social issues, so we need to educate those who can understand that as long as the art produced is genuine, it would not be un-Islamic.”

He continued saying that our universities are indebted to Western universities, adding, “The Westerners plagiarized our experimental sciences and wrote them down in their textbooks. We translated the Western texts and then handed them over to our university students to study here. So how can we expect our students to learn how to pray and fast?

“A country can stand up on its own two feet when its people are led by discerning leaders and those leaders are led by an even more discerning individual.

“If you want to stand on your own, treat the discerning ones well and act with the most discerning individual with even greater care,” he concluded.

RM/YAW

END

MNA