The head of historical research at the Iranian Education Ministry
has announced plans to eliminate monarchs and military leaders from the country's high-school textbooks in an effort to "civilize" them.
Yaghoub Tavakoli is quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying that the likes of Genghis Khan, Mohammad Shah, and other rulers will be eliminated. Instead, more attention will be paid to figures like philosopher-scholars Avicennes and Zakaria Razi.
Tavakoli said it will take years to implement the new "cultural and pro-civilization" approach and change all historical texts.
An Iranian expert on education issues, Shirzad Abdollahi, described Tavakoli's comments as "strange" but said it's not the first time that officials from the Education Ministry have mentioned such plans. Abdollahi calls the approach unworkable.
-- Golnaz Esfandiari