Mohammad Reza Shajarian: The Legend of Iranian Traditional Singing has passed...

The funeral of the late Iranian musician and singer, Muhammad Reza Shajarian, took place on Friday morning at the Behesht Zahra Cemetery in Tehran, and his body was transported by plane to the city of Mashhad to be buried near the tomb of Ferdowsi, the epic poet and author of the Shahnameh epic, which is a basic reference for the modern Persian language, based on his will.

The Iranian singer, who enjoys legendary fame in his country and is described by the title of “professor” in contemporary Persian music and is called by some as the voice of the people, died Thursday after a struggle with illness at the age of eighty years.

Despite the ban on broadcasting Shajarian’s songs on the state radio in recent years, his funeral received high official participation and was mourned by a number of senior Iranian officials, including Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

His funeral was banned by the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, responsible for the oversight body for artistic and cultural works, in a clear message from the official authorities not to convert the funeral of the famous singer into a message opposing it.

During the funeral, the prominent composer, Hussein Ali Zada, addressed Shajarian’s body, saying, “You will forever and never be forgotten.”

Crowds of arboreal art lovers attended the cemetery, but they were prevented from entering the hall in which the prayer ceremony was conducted on his body, and his son Humayun Shajarian, who in turn is a famous singer in Iran, addressed the crowd in front of the cemetery, saying: His family had promised to conduct a public funeral for him, A huge funeral will be held in the city of Mashhad, taking into account health measures to prevent the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

A huge crowd of fans of the artist gathered in front of the Jam Hospital in Tehran the moment the death was announced Thursday night, and some of them clashed with the security forces who came to the scene.

Social media was flooded with obituaries, condolences, photos and clips of songs from millions of Iranians for the departure of their beloved singer, including many artistic, cultural and political personalities.

President Rouhani wrote an obituary in a tweet on Twitter, in which he described Shajarian that he was a prominent artistic face and one of the most wonderful and immortalized Iranian voices and that he left a great legacy behind him.

Shajarian was born in Mashhad, eastern Iran, in 1940, and he learned the intonation of the Qur’an at the hands of his father.

In 1968, he moved to Tehran. He first entered the Institute of Teachers and worked in the field of teaching, before he devoted himself to music.

Shajarian continued his musical education in Tehran at the hands of the most traditional Iranian singing and music artists, who together with a number of them formed a “Music Preservation and Dissemination Center” that preserved much of the traditional and folk music heritage in Iran.

Shajarian was famous for singing the poems of great poets and mystical Sufis such as Hafez and Saadi Shirazi, and was known for his distinctive tunes for them.

Iranian Radio and Television began broadcasting songs as well as performing religious supplications and muwashahat during the month of Ramadan.

Although Shajarian has devoted his life to reviving and performing traditional singing and music in Iran, it was not without positions and political clashes. During the reign of the late Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, he decided to cancel a concert scheduled in Moscow to protest the crackdown on demonstrators in his country during the mass protests against the Shah’s rule.

After the Iranian revolution, Shajarian continued his singing and musical career and holding concerts inside and outside Iran, and he was subjected to harassment from time to time.

He clashed with the official apparatus because of the use of songs for the regime’s propaganda purposes. He protested against the state TV re-cutting one of his songs and using them for propaganda purposes in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war.

This clash reached its climax when he stood by the popular protest movement that emerged in 2009 against the election results after the announcement of the failure of the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the victory of President Muhammad Ahmadinejad.

Shajarian declared his support for what was known as the “Green Movement”, and presented the song “The Language of Fire” as his contribution to the protests and the popular opposition movement. He also raised a protest letter against the state television’s use of songs for the regime’s propaganda purposes.

This situation led to Shajarian’s official boycott of his songs, banning him from broadcasting his songs on state television, and banning his concerts inside Iran.

Shajarian’s fame was not limited to the Iranian interior, but extended to Persian speakers in Central Asia and to the world, where he held many concerts abroad, with his band accompanied by his son Humayun, the musician and composer Hossein Ali Zadeh and the walnut player Kayhan Kalhor, two of the most prominent Iranian musicians.

In 1999, UNESCO awarded him the Picasso Prize and crowned him with the Mozat Medal in 2006, in honor of his lyrical and musical achievement.

In addition to music, Shajarian was also known for his interest in calligraphy and his practice of activities and charitable work.