DUSHANBE, July 28, 2008, Asia-Plus – An international meeting to commemorate Abu Abdulo Jafar Ibn Mohammad Roudaki, founder of Tajik-Persian classical literature, will be held in Tehran on October 13-14.

At the meeting, the life of Roudaki and his works will be up for discussion.

The event is organized by the Research Center of Iran''s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism Organization.

Meanwhile, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has approved commemoration ceremonies for Imam Mohammad Ghazali and Roudaki, respectively in 2008 and 2009.

UNESCO regularly commemorates scientific and literary dignitaries of various countries to promote international understanding and encourage more cultural relations among nations as well as to support international peace.

Therefore, the world body will ask member countries every two years to announce centennials or millennia of their cultural, scientific or arts dignitaries to be registered by UNESCO so that conferences and commemorations can be arranged for them.

Thus far, nine Iranian personalities have been introduced to UNESCO. Commemoration of the 950th birthday of Imam Mohammad Ghazali will be marked by Iran in 2008 while 1150th birthday of the Iranian poet, Roudaki, will be marked in 2009 in cooperation with Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan.

Roudaki is regarded as the first great literary genius of modern Persian language, who composed poems in the Perso-Arabic alphabet or ''New Persian'' script.  Roudaki is considered a founder of Tajik-Persian classical literature.  He was born in 858 in Roudak (Panjrud), a village then in Khorasan, and now located in Panjakent, Tajikistan. Most of his biographers assert that he was completely blind, but his accurate knowledge of colors, as evident in his poetry, renders this assertion very doubtful.  He was the court poet to the Samanid ruler Nasr II (914-943) in Bukhara, although he eventually fell out of favor; his life ended in poverty.