On the occasion of Teacher’s Day, observed annually on May 1 in Iran on the death anniversary of Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari (1919-1979), the acclaimed Iranian cleric, philosopher, lecturer and politician, six art university professors were honored, including one posthumously, at Arasbaran Cultural Center in Tehran.
Prof. Mehdi Hosseini of Tehran University of Art, Gholamali Hatam, faculty member of art and architecture at Islamic Azad University, Prof. Mohammad-Hossein Halimi of Tehran University of Fine Arts, Prof. Gholamreza Eslami, of the University of Tehran, and Mohammad Khazaei, graphic teacher at Tehran Teacher Training University, were among those honored, Honaronline reported.
Tributes were also paid to the late art professor and former head of Tehran University of Art, Mehrangiz Mazaheri-Tehrani. Several short video clips were shown to commend her valuable contribution in the field of art and a memorial plaque was presented to her husband.
The ceremony opened with a few words by Motahhari’s son, Ali Motahhari, an academic, publisher and politician, who hailed the contribution of teachers and the art faculty.
Tehran City Council member Ahmad Masjed-Jamei, head of Tehran Municipality’s Art and Culture Organization Mamoud Salehi, cinema and photography expert Akbar Alemi, graphic designer Farzad Adibi and a number of art enthusiasts, attended the event.
The ceremony wrapped up with the honorees unveiling and signing a memorial poster designed for the occasion.
Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari was a disciple of Imam Khomeini. He wrote several books on Islam, Iran, and historical topics. His emphasis was on teaching rather than writing. Motahhari opposed what he called groups who “depend on other schools, especially materialistic schools” but who present these “foreign ideas with Islamic emblems”.
In a June 1977 article he wrote to warn “all great Islamic authorities” of the danger of “these external influential ideas under the pretext and banner of Islam.” After his assassination on May 1, 1979 by anti-revolutionaries, some of his students collected his lectures and published them as books. As of mid-2008, Tehran’s ‘Sadra Publishings’ had published more than 60 books of Motahhari. Nearly 30 books were written about Motahhari or quoted from his speeches.
In honor of Motahhari, a major street in the capital has been named after him. The Shahid Morteza Motahhari Street connects Sohrevardi Street and Vali Asr Street, two major avenues in Tehran.
