TEHRAN – Tens of thousands of children and their parents gathered together on Thursday evening at the soccer field of Tehran’s Azadi Sports Complex to perform an anthem entitled “Salam Commander”.

Over the last week, numerous religious eulogists, including Morteza Taheri, Hossein Taheri, Mahmud Karimi, Mehdi Salahshur and Reza Narimani, called on Iranian families to take part in the meeting along with their children.

A number of the eulogists were also in attendance at the huge gathering.

“Salam Commander” was first recorded as a music video featuring eulogist Abuzar Ruhi on vocals along with a choir of 313 children.

The choir named MAH, an abbreviation for a Persian phrase that literally means “We Are the Nation of Imam Hussein (AS)”, a spoken discourse by General Qassem Soleimani, is from the northern Iranian town of Langerud.

“The group was established on the first martyrdom anniversary of Hajji Qassem to train children born over the past decade,” the producer of the music video, Hojjatoleslam Saeid Naimi previously said.

The word “commander” in the lyrics refers to Imam Mahdi (AS), the twelfth Imam of the Shia, as Ruhi said, “In ‘Salam Commander’, the lyrics denote the children’s desire to serve as soldiers among the companions of the Imam.”

In the lyrics, songwriter Mehdi Banihashemi has made allusions to Mirza Kuchak Khan, leader of the early twentieth-century Jangal Movement, General Soleimani and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

The music video was recorded in Jamkaran Mosque in Qom Province and premiered on Channel 1 of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on March 20, just minutes before the turn of the new year in the Iranian calendar.

“Salam Commander” was welcomed by religious and military officials, including IRGC chief Major General Hossein Salami, who called it a “heavenly” song.

Afterwards, public organizations across the country recorded their own editions of the music video.

A group of Kashmiri schoolchildren in Pakistan has performed the anthem in Persian. An Arabic edition has also been recorded in Nigeria.

A band has also performed the anthem in the Azerbaijani language spoken in several provinces in northwest Iran.

In his latest Twitter post published on Friday, Iranian tourism minister Ezatollah Zarghami said that he prefers the Azerbaijani edition.

Photo: A woman holding a picture of the Leader salutes along with tens of thousands of children gathered together at Tehran’s Azadi Sports Complex to perform the anthem “Salam Commander” on May 26, 2022. (IRNA/Asghar Khamseh)

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