TEHRAN -- The new director of the Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel has been invited to the unveiling ceremony of “Al-Babtain’s Encyclopedia of Arab Poets in the 19th and 20th Centuries” in Kuwait on Monday.

Scholars from all over the world of Islam will be taking part in the ceremony, which will take place on the sidelines of the three-day cultural session on Arab history beginning on Monday.
“The 25-volume encyclopedia is the result of 11 years of dedicated hard work that includes biographies and poems of 8,039 poets,” Samir Arshadi, a member of the Syria-based Arab Authors Union and professor of Persian language in Kuwait University told the Persian service of IRNA.
“This encyclopedia is a great work that required monumental efforts to compile. More than five hundred researchers together with an impressive team of administrators, linguists and technicians were dispatched to all the Islamic and European countries. In addition, about 70 Iranian poets who had composed works in Arabic were also recognized in Iran and their works were collected,” he explained.
“The Iranian pieces by Mohieddin Elahi-Qomshei, Adib al-Mamalek Farahani, and Badiozzaman Foruzanfar along with their photos and biographies are also included in the masterpiece,” he remarked.
Two associated symposiums also have been organized during the session. “The World Today: Cultures and Interests” concerns issues of dialogue among civilizations and living among diverse religions. The other symposium is entitled “Arabic Poetry in the 19th and 20th Centuries.”