Tehran Times Social Desk

@T= KHORRAMABAD -- People from 30 countries from around the world have expressed interest in participating in the International Congress of Successful Muslim Women Who Wear Hijab, the director of the art and cultural center of Lorestan Province announced in Khorramabad on Tuesday.
Organized by the province’s culture and Islamic guidance department, with the cooperation of the art and culture center, the congress is being held to promote the culture of hijab and virtue, Leila Bigdelu said.
Muslim women from France, Romania, Lebanon, Tanzania, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Thailand, and China are among the participants of the event, Bigdelu added.
A website on Muslim women will also be launched during the one-day congress, she stated.
Khorramabad, the capital of the western province of Lorestan, is to host the congress on January 6, which is Iran’s National Hijab Day.
The early 20th century Iranian ruler Reza Shah banned all variations of the headscarf in 1935. He ordered the police to arrest women who wore the hijab and to remove their headscarves by force. This policy outraged pious Muslim women, so they gathered at the Goharshad Mosque in Mashhad wearing headscarves to protest against the hijab ban on January 6, 1936. That day is now observed as National Hijab Day in Iran.