RUSSIA-KORAN FESTIVAL Moscow hosts inaugural edition of international Koran festival

Record ID: 146473

  • Title: RUSSIA-KORAN FESTIVAL Moscow hosts inaugural edition of international Koran festival
  • Date: 16th July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF IRANIAN QARI - KORAN READER - HASSAN DANESH RECITING KORAN MAN FILMING VIDEO WITH SMARTPHONE
  • Embargoed: 31st July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5DQSKWNBD5WC36PPVRQ3N3IRY
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Russia is holding the inaugural edition of an international Koran festival in its capital Moscow.
    The week-long festival is organised by the Council of Muftis of Russia alongside the department of culture at the Iranian embassy in Moscow.
    The festival features exhibitions of Islamic art from around the world, fashion, books and learning resources.
    One of the main attractions at the festival is a silk carpet with verses from the Koran woven into it, which the cultural attaché of Iranian embassy in Moscow, Reza Maleki, says took six people six years to complete.
    The exhibition drew participation from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and India, as well as participants from Russia and Iran.
    Organisers wanted the festival to fall during the holy month of Ramadan, a time of fasting, prayer and reflection for Muslims around the world. The month of Ramadan, according to Islamic doctrine, is when the Koran was first revealed to Prophet Mohammad.
    The launch of the festival in Moscow drew a large crowd from Moscow's Muslim community.
    Head of the Islamic Culture Communications organisation in Iran, Mohammad-Ali Taskhiri, who was a guest at the official opening of the event, addressed attendants.
    "If difficulties become so entangled, like a dark night, the only path to salvation is the Koran," he said.
    Mehdi Sanaei, Iran's ambassador to Moscow, said it was fitting for the festival to be held during the Islamic holy month.
    "The launch of this festival and exhibition falls in the holy month of Ramadan, this is a joyful and blessed time, the month of Ramadan. It is the month of the Koran and the month of honouring the Koran, and this time that has been picked (for this festival) is very fitting,'' he said.
    Organisers said the festival was linked to the development and upcoming September opening of a new mosque in the capital.
    The Council of Muftis of Russia, deputy chairman Rushan Abbyason said such events were a key way of informing the wider public of Islam's message of peace.
    "Undoubtedly this festival bears a very timely and important mission - to open the holy Koran to a wider public from a new angle. Not only to acquaint them with holy wisdom and eternal values that should become the basis of the everyday life of a pious Muslim, but also with the sciences which arose thanks to the holy scripture,'' said Abbyason.
    Around 14 percent of the Russian population is Muslim and Islam is the country's second most widely professed religion.
    A majority of the Muslim population in Russia is concentrated in the North Caucasus republics and among the population of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan residing in the middle of Volga Basin.
    Moscow's Muslim population has grown significantly in recent years with millions of people from post-Soviet Central Asian and Caucasus countries migrating to Russia's traditionally Orthodox Christian and Slavic heartland every year.
    Official statistics put the number of legal immigrants who are given work permits at around one million annually, but Fund Migration XXI Century, a Moscow-based non-governmental organization supported by the World Bank, estimates that 4-8 million people also enter illegally every year to work.
    The festival ends on Friday (July 17).
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