A Study on the Interaction of Religious Literature for Children and Adolescents with Illustration in Iran

The formation of the Islamic Revolution in the early sixties and its rise in the fifties has caused major changes and developments in the cultural structures of Iran. These changes emerged in the political economic and social – cultural areas in the framework of Islamicrevolutionary utopian ideas. In the Pahlavi era, religious literature for children was less considered due to the low attention of the governing regime. Although the forties is considered as the decade of children’s book illustrations but the religious literature for children and its illustration were less considered. With the beginning of the revolutionary activities, some Persian writers decided to make children familiar with spiritual and religious atmospheres by creating works with a focus on Islam. The prevailing hypothesis of this paper is that an interaction was established between religious literature for children and children’s book illustration after the emergence of religious thoughts in children’s stories. Here, the claim is proved that the social needs and the interaction of religious literature with children’s book illustrations led to the emergence of a branch called religious illustration. The methodology of this study is descriptive-analytical. Data collection method is collecting documents and library resources.


Introduction
In the study and review of the history of children's literature, the years 1961-1978 are considered as an impressive period.One of the most important features of this period is the rapid and accelerating change in Iran's social and cultural structures.Although the Pahlavi government in this decade helped the modernization of the social-economic structure, but it chose a way to rely on the oil revenues of the country instead of opening up the doors of politics to the social forces with various bases and creating a link between government and traditional classes and finally understanding their needs.This neglect led to the separation of the people from the government of the day.At that time, the Iranian culture consisted of men and women who did not have state and culture budget but relied on their own personal power.The formation of the Islamic Revolution in the early sixties and its continuity until 1978 has left a phenomenal impact on all aspects of the society.Without a doubt, a revolutionary mindset and the demands of Islam were the most important elements of thinking in the society.This revolutionary-Islamic mentality entered not only into the regional assemblies, universities and nongovernmental organizations but also the literature in a short time.In these years, the second Pahlavi government made considerable efforts in the field of culture and cultural policy-related issues, but it failed to recognize the hidden layers of the society in assessing the cultural foundations of Iran.In other words, it did not pay attention to the ideological issues of people; the people who were away from Western ideas and had set Islam as the first priority in their actions and lives.In the field of religious literature for children at this time, a large number of authors remained loyal to the Islamic -religious thoughts and made efforts to promote the idealistic spirit in their works.The most important authors in the field of religious literature for children were the clergymen who had broken traditions in the category of religious literature.Many of them were afraid of the spread of Western culture in the country and the beginning of evolutionary movements for them was as a new life in restoring the religion.This group of authors, above all, believed that the Iranian children must be acquainted with the Qur'an before everything because this method is able to create a firm faith in them.They attempted to publish religious stories for children and send the children to Islamic spaces and stability to the revolutionary ideals.However, the social changes and chaotic status of the country at that time gave the opportunity to our writers, intellectuals and artists.One of the main objections to the religious literature for children over these years was the lack of recognizing the audience or children.The authors were not aware of the recognition of the age group of the audience which was dependent on the recognition of children's mental needs.For this reason, a few published books were belonged to the age group of pre-school among the large volume of books and sometimes the authors forgot the age of audience in their works.Most of the written books during this period were about fiction and religious epics and we were less faced with poetry books for children.But it should be noted that the religious literature for children with all its defects recognized its place in the society very soon and it made considerable progress by taking benefits of child psychology.
The research question of this study is: What factors caused the emergence of a branch of illustration called religious illustration?In the conducted studies, three major factors were evaluated: 1.The effect of the political and revolutionary situation on the writers of children's books.2. The study of the relationship between children's literature and illustration of children's books.3. The rise of religious illustration.

Literature Review
In recent years, considerable research studies have been conducted on religious literature for children and the religious illustrations of children's books.Journals and monthly magazines such as Ketab-e-Mah and Roshanan expressed the views of children's authors and illustrators and raised several interviews and articles on the influence of religious literature and illustration and its impact on the growth and development of children and adolescents' character.Some of the most complete collections of literature include a series of books on children's history of literature by Zohre Ghayini and Muhammad Mehdi Hadi, the foundations of children's literature by Mahmoud Hakimi and Mehdi Kamous, history of religious literature by Seyyed Ali Kashefi Khansari.And in the field of children's book illustration, the series of children's book and illustration by Jamal al Din Akrami are among the most complete studies.

The History of Illustration for Religious Literature in Iran
The emergence of religious beliefs and thoughts in the field of illustration using the symbols and signs has an old history.Artworks with their cultural mission in history have been sometimes in the form of inscriptions and sometimes in the form of a painting.Religious paintings and manuscripts of the ancient Iran from Achaemenid to Sasanian are an illustrated narration of history and culture of this land; the land that has had a combination of faith and religion beside its art.In the study of ancient manuscripts and illustrated books in the ancient Iran Avesta, the Zoroastrian holy book, should be considered as the first Iranian literary treasures (Akrami, 2004).It has been written on skin adorned with pearls and gold for several times and has indicated the religious beliefs and valuable place of religious books among the Iranians.Mani (the prophet), the painter of Sassanid era, is considered as one of the first prominent illustrators of religious history.He had found the need to engage religious concepts and illustration in his book "Arjang" but unfortunately none of these treasures is available today.After the ancient times and with the advent of painting in the school of Iraq its spread in the school of Herat, Shiraz, Tabriz and Isfahan, the artists created valuable works related to the ancient Persian religious texts.And And Kamal al-Din Behzad and Reza Abbasi illustrated valuable works of religious texts.The tendency of Safavid kings to the European painting replaced the book painting to illustrated paintings, go away from literature and illustration and finally lose its Persian identity.In the Qajar era, the first pictures given to the students in schools before the arrival of printing industry to Iran and publishing the first children's books were the Basma printed on paper with wooden frames and the school owners gave them as Nowruz gifts to children.That is why these pictures were called "Eydi Sazi" (Mehrdadfar, 2011).But the arrival of the printing industry opened a new chapter on the art of illustration and after the arrival of printing press and the acquaintance of the Iranians with printing industry, children's books were published and the field for publishing children's books developed with the establishment of Iran's first public and private printing.Darol Fonun printing office that began working since the late (1268 AH / 1230 SH) was one of the printing offices that published many children's books with good quality."Hassanein book" 1246 AH -Tdib Al Atfal Meftah Al Molk Illustrated by: Muhammad Naghash Isfahani/ 1293 AH -Khaleh Sooskeh, Nazem Al Ashar, Molla Abdollah/ 1307 AH/1309 -Moosh va Gorbeh 1298 AH and Hekayate Roobah 1301 AH are the examples that can be considered as the children's books.(ibid.38) Over time with the development of lithography in Iranian society, ordinary people and even rural households faced with a number of illustrated books which were not available to the public until that time; Works with the subjects of Shia principles and beliefs, history of prophets' lives, jurisprudence, Tazieh, ancient Persian poems, legends and folk tales.The conducted studies show that that most publications in the field of Iran's lithography have been devoted to the illustration of ancient texts especially religious texts.In the Qajar era, religious literature was known as soaz and naming these religious stories refer to the book "Rozatol Shohada" by Hussein Ibn Vaez Kashefi in public meetings.These stories referred to the Taziye and disasters of Karbala and    s, the f the government.Promoting the western culture by government agencies, regardless of the religious beliefs of the people led to the creation of literary and artistic works which were far from the religious principles and beliefs of people.But with the onset of the Islamic Revolution, a large number of our thinkers and writers decided to create works with religious themes and a revolutionary-ideal mentality.The necessity of the society entered not only in the field of adult literature, but also in the field of children religious literature.The aim of the creators of these works was to make the children familiar with the religious thoughts and bring up a generation familiar with the ideals of the revolution.Religious literature for children and adolescents taught the concepts such as peace, humanity and religion in the light of God and most of the written works before the revolution were children's religious stories.They can be described as follows.1.General historical.2. Religious historical.3. Pseudo-story.4. Historical myths and legends.After the publication and spread of religious stories for children in the community and the conscious arrival of religious elements, children's book illustration entered a new era of its life.The interaction of religious literature and children's book illustration led to the emergence of a branch in Persian illustration that can be named as religious illustration for children and adolescents.In this type of illustration, the manipulation of illustrator in the text is small and the element of fantasy and imagination is largely limited, because the artist is required to follow and illustrate the climate, geographical, and coverage conditions used in the story.The artists' task is to illustrate part of the history of religious history that includes the life and history of the prophets and imams.Three branches of implementation used by Persian illustrators are: 1. decorative-Islamic.2. Realistic.3. Abstract.In the previous studies, the realistic style has had the most use in the religious illustration of Iran.The abstract style used by our artists is more semi-abstract rather than absolute abstraction.And the active illustrators working in this field are Ali Akbar Sadeghi, Noorodin ZarrinKelk, Farshid Mesghali, Bahram Khaef, Bahman Dadkhah, Parviz Heidarzadeh and Manouchehr Safarzadeh.

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Figure 9.A Figure 1