Culture

Dr. Raheen’s Appeals On Preservation Of Afghanistan’s Historic Monuments

Monday, March 12, 2012
Kabul (BNA) Dr. Sayed Makhdoom Raheen, Minister of Information and culture issued the following appeal in a TV interview in relation to preservation of the Afghan historic monuments: 
Our country Afghanistan in the course of its several years of history has given birth to several civilizations a part of which is the product of material and moral efforts of our forefathers and a part of them were brought in from other territories and generally these civilizations are divided into two parts: 
The part before Islam and after Islam, The part before Islam were the culture of Zardashti, Buddhism, Gandahara called by the name of Kushanid and every art and culture that had remained on the course of silk route like pre-Islamic works of Qalae Feridoun in Farah, Takhte Rustam in Samangan and the Hadda works in Jalalabad etc. 
However, the works of Islamic era is more than the pre-Islamic era like mosques, shrines, palaces, Khaneqah which have found their place in our territories from different culture and Islamic civilizations like Gunbed mosque that is the first Islamic features of Islamic masonry in Khurasan. 
Jami Masjid of Herat that from the viewpoints of Islamic masonry is unique in the world and date back to 750 years. To sum up, throughout the country there are 1200 historic monuments and almost 90% of them relate to the Islamic era and the remaining date back to pre-Islamic era. 
It should be stated that these monuments are the product of thinking and artistic talents of our nation which unfortunately are on the verge of demolition. 
The department of historical monuments of the Ministry of information and culture has only 10 engineers for all Afghanistan and the ministry has no possibility for payment of salaries of these engineers as well or to employ more of them. 
Presently these 10 engineers are busy in Afghanistan including Ghazni province and the annual budget of the ministry allocated for repairing and protection of the historic monuments is inadequate and often the work of repairing of the monuments remains from to another year as these activities are time consuming and need delicacies. 
Concerns exist that the historic monuments with the passage of time these monuments witnessing long time natural calamities may ultimately destroy. 
If these are annihilated, in reality a part of the human civilization in this part of the world will vanish. 
The Ministry of Information and Culture in a gathering of some ambassadors of friendly countries had warned that may be will be witness to annihilation of part of human civilization in this region, some of our foreign friends had taken part in repairing of some of the monuments which we appreciate while there many other monuments and we hope that these will attract the attention of our foreign friends and our traders. 
It should be said that all these require huge resources for instance the shrine of Wazir Akbar Khan and Sher Ali Khan needs more than USD35, 000 and the Herat congregational mosque needs USD 900, 000. 
We are hopeful that our international friends and national traders every one assist according to their abilities and share in protection of the civilization of their forefathers. 
You can contact the following number:  0202101302—070295150—0702010394.

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