TEHRAN-The book “Since the Night the Sun Came” written by Neda Sabeti, which is a play about the life of Italian convert to Shia Islam Edoardo Agnelli, was unveiled at the City Theater in Tehran on November 12.

Published by Amareh Publishing House, the book deals with the dramatic parts of Agnelli’s life, Mehr reported.

During the unveiling ceremony, the Iranian playwrights Saeedeh Ajorbandian and Gholamhossein Dolatabadi delivered speeches and parts of the documentary he had made about the Muslims were also screened. 

Edoardo Agnelli (1954-2000) was the eldest child and only son of Gianni Agnelli, the industrialist patriarch of Fiat and of Marella Agnelli.

Agnelli first converted to Sunni Islam in an Islamic center in New York where he was named “Hisham Aziz”. Later in Iran, he was reported to have converted to Shia Islam and changed his name to Mahdi.

“One day while I was in New York, I was walking in a library and Quran caught my glimpse. I was curious about what was in it. I started reading it in English and I felt that those words were holy words and cannot be the words of men. I was really touched and borrowed the book and studied it further and I felt like I was understanding it and I believed it,” he had once said.

As an adult, Agnelli claimed to be the heir apparent to the Fiat empire, but his father, who had already been unhappy with Edoardo’s conversion to Islam, ensured that he would not inherit it. 

The only official position that the younger Agnelli held in the family businesses was as a director of Juventus F.C. In 1990, he was accused of heroin possession but the charges were later dropped. In mid-November 2000, he was found dead under a bridge on the outskirts of Turin.

SS/SAB