The story entiled ''God's Own Painting'' has now been published in Persian, English, Hindi and Urdu by Mehrak, a major publisher of children's books at Sureh-Mehr, the publishing house of the Art Bureau of the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization.

Qazveh met the seven-year-old Indian girl named Narges shortly after the assassination of Soleimani when he was the director of the Persian Language Research Center of the Iranian Cultural Center in New Delhi.

''Her father is a  Persian language expert and my friend and his family love Iran and Hajji Qassem dearly,'' Qazveh said in a press release on Sunday.

Their grandfather is a famous cleric who lived in the Iranian city of Qom for several years in the 1980s, visiting the frontlines during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

''Following the martyrdom of General Soleimani, Narges saw her family mourning for him. She also saw him on TV, receiving a flower from a boy and stroking him tenderly. Subsequently, his loving interactions with children led Narges to be interested in Hajji Qassem,'' Qazveh said.

“Since then, she asked her parents to tell her a story about Soleimani every night so that it became difficult for her to fall into sleep if she couldn’t listen to a story about him,” he added.

One night, Narges failed to find someone to tell her a story since her father was away from home and her mother had gone to bed early due to an illness. She had no choice but to go to sleep without a story. Remarkably, she dreamed of General Soleimani telling her a story.

“I heard about the story from her father, and I asked him to arrange a meeting with her,” Qazveh explained. “When I met her, I learned that she spoke English, Persian and Urdu. She told me about her dream and I became interested in fictionalizing the story.”

Narges’ family accompanied Qazveh on his return to Iran, and he took them to Kerman to visit Soleimani’s grave. They also met Soleimani’s family during their visit to Iran.  

The book carrying illustrations by Marjan Toranj has been translated into Urdu and English by the Indian scholars, Sarvesh Tripathi and Balram Shukla.

Source:Tehran Times