Iran to inscribe 2 cases in UNESCO lists

Iran has submitted two new cases to UNESCO, expecting to be inscribed in the world heritage lists this year, head of Iranian National Commission for UNESCO said.

Talking to media on Thursday, Sadollah Nasiri-Qeydari said one of the cases is a request for the inclusion of the name of Sheikh Shahab al-Din Suhrewardi into the list of world renowned people.

Suhrewardi was a Persian philosopher and founder of the Iranian school of Illuminationism, an important school in Islamic philosophy and mysticism that drew upon Zoroastrian and Platonic ideas.

The other case is to inscribe Ahwaz Jundishapur University into the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Dating back some 1,750 years ago, Jundishapur was the intellectual center of the Sassanid Empire and the home of the Academy of Jundishapur, founded by Sassanid king Shapur I.

Home to a teaching hospital and a library as well as a center of higher education, it has been identified with extensive ruins in south of Shahabad, a village 14 km southeast of Dezfoul in the present-day province of Khouzestan, southwest Iran.

“Given the fact that the cases have obtained required criteria at UNESCO General Conference in 2017, they are expected to be inscribed in the world heritage list," Nasiri-Qeydari said.

He also noted that Jundishapur University in Ahwaz is far older than Bologna University in Italy or even University of Cambridge in England.

Thus far the names of 33 famous Iranian people and some 20 cultural heritage items, including historical buildings and cultural works as well as 10 intangible heritage items and nine written heritage cases, have been inscribed into the UNESCO list, the official explained.

MG/AI