TEHRAN – A short text message sent by an afghan father in desperate search for his child at Kabul University after the ISIS terrorist attack on the university in November 2020 has inspired a Persian poetry collection.

“My Beloved, Where Are You?” has been released by Sureh-Mehr, a major publishing house affiliated with the Art Bureau of the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization. 

The collection carries 115 works by various poets, selected by Zahra Hosseinzadeh. 

Several gunmen attacked Kabul University, shooting at students in their classrooms and clashing with security forces for hours on November 2, 2020. 

At least 22 people were killed and 22 others wounded when gunmen stormed the university in a brutal assault.

Some of the students had calls from their mothers and fathers. One of the victims had 142 missed calls, and there was a final text message that read, “My beloved, where are you?”

The brutal attack has been strongly condemned around the world.

The message was also the theme of the Afghanistan Art Week organized by the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO in Tehran in December 2020.

Iranian artists have always shown a reaction to the oppression of Afghan people in various periods of history.

In May, Oscar-nominated Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi strongly criticized the world for not speaking out against the bomb attack outside the Sayed Al-Shuhada School in Afghanistan in the Afghan capital of Kabul that claimed the lives of over 60 people including schoolgirls. 

“I regret having to live in a time when justice is a meaningless word in this age of futility… I wish we had died and not seen the death of justice and humanity, and we would not have witnessed such tragic silence over the sad martyrdom of dozens of oppressed girls from the Afghan Hazara community,” he wrote in a statement.

In addition, Iranian pianist Bardia Sadrenoori released a single titled “Afghan Child” in memory of the children killed in the terrorist attack on the school.

Photo: Cover of the poetry collection “My Beloved, Where Are You?”. 

MMS