Dr Ashraf Siddiqui, chairman of the Trustee Board of Nazrul Institute presided over the seminar.

State minister, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Begum Selima Rahman was present as the chief guest while Mohammed Beheshti Monfared, the ambassador of The Islamic Republic of Iran was present as the special guest and participated in the discussion. Abdus Sabur Khan, assistant professor of the department of Persian and Urdu, Dhaka University presented the keynote paper on Nazrul and Omar Khayyam. Nasim Ahmed recited from Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat at the event.

Iranian ambassador, Monfared, said,"The Persian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam's fame as a scientist was greatly eclipsed in the West by the popularity of his Rubaiyat. Based on several prior discussions about Nazrul, it is my observation that his poetic prowess was as powerful as Khayyam's. Despite Nazrul's limited institutional education, he gained mastery over Persian and came up with his superb translation of about 200 works of Khayyam. The fact is that Khayyam and Nazrul were more than just poets. In the case of Khayyam, beyond Rubaiyat and in the case of Nazrul, beyond his poetry and songs, very few of us have read the prose and essays by either of them.

"But it is in these prose and essays where their thoughts are more definitively articulated against all social injustice or with a call for confronting tyranny, exploitation and discrimination. And, to better and properly understand them, studying the prose and essays is indispensable. From my perspective our real aspiration and identity should not stop on the basis of language and culture. Everyone should be familiar with the works and philosophies of Khayyam and Nazrul."