TEHRAN -- UNESCO's Executive Board ratified on Oct. 13 the striking of an honorary medal of 13th Persian mystic poet Molana Jalal al-Din Rumi.

This item has been included in the provisional agenda of the 175th session of the Executive Board at the request of Afghanistan and Egypt, supported by the following members of the Executive Board: Algeria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Congo, Fiji, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Togo, United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland, the United States, and Yemen.

This initiative has been favorably welcomed by Albania, Congo, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kenya and Turkey.

The prominent Persian-language poet, thinker, and spiritual master Rumi was born in 1207 in Balkh (presently Afghanistan), a land in Iran in that era.

He lived almost all of his life in Konya, presently Turkey, and died there in 1273.

He remains one of the greatest thinkers and scholars of Islamic civilization.

Nonetheless, the peoples of Afghanistan and Turkey consider him to be their own poet.