Payvand - Kourosh Ziabari: About 15 Kilometers far away from Rasht (the capital city of Guilan province), there is a green and calm highway, with its two sides surrounded via rush and pine trees.
Stepping or driving a little forward, you’ll reach an open and wide area decorated with wooden tableaus and billboards including the text “Musee patrimoine rural de Guilan” besides of “UNESCO” and “Aix Du Province University” logos.
That French title remembers the glorious opening ceremony of “Guilan museum of rural heritage” in March 2007 where Prof. Christian Bromberger gave an attractive lecture about the history of Gilak tribe in front of hundreds of attending people those in love of Persian culture.
Guilan museum of rural heritage is a fantastic and unique Ecomuseum that has been constructed in order to show the hidden corners of Guilan people’s culture and lifestyle to the tourists from all around the world.
After paying a very skimpy amount of tax to the incumbent of entrance gate, you will take way into a natural corridor with tall maple trees in the two sides and their foliage acting as roofs, preventing the sun and rain from damaging the traditional cobblestone floor of this narrow rural route.

The artificial wooden fence on the two sides of this corridor extends all around the museum that is designed exactly such as a small village and includes all parts of a real hamlet such as teahouse, playground, municipality, stable and lake.
Mainly, this museum is dedicated to anthropology and is taken into account of a good and reliable source for sociological studies especially to researchers who want to gather more valuable information on Gilak’s life.
Gilak people are a large ethnic group whose main homeland is Guilan province. The history of their habitation in northern parts of Iran dates back to about 300 BC and they are also said to be one of the oldest living tribe in Iran.
The Eco-museum shows the cultural and ethnic diversity of 27 Gilak subgroups in 27 cottages, in each of them there are girls wearing traditional customs, some of them cooking cuisines, foods and some others making handicrafts. It is necessary to know that the total surface area of museum is about 260 hectares.
It is a wondering fact that Guilan is one of the smallest provinces in Iran with less than 2.5 million habitants, though it is consisted of about 30 ethnic clans such as Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Gilaks, Persians, Talishyans, Galeshians and Tabarids.
The people of Gilan are very well-known because of their good manner of hospitality and reception as the types of various foods cooked in Gilan show the serious concerns and efforts of Gilak housewives to provide their guests with the best possible situation of residence and enjoy. 

Also the members of Gilak tribes are said to be the happiest communal groups in Iran and their spirited kind of clothing proves it indeed while their friendly and human behavior is another sign of their tranquil and warm social relations.
Their local wearing models are absolutely harmonious with the peaceful and wholesome Islamic rules of clothing, though they strongly show an ideological independence from the common dressing types used in the other parts of Iran.
For example, the women dressing of Rudsar city in the eastern Guilan have been used in the opening ceremony of Athens 2004 Olympics and you can find the girls and women wearing this colorful outfit in “Guilan museum of rural heritage” as tour-guides.
We traveled to most parts of this eco-museum in our passage but we have not to remain unaware about the live artistic shows which hold in the playground.
The playground is an almost large and wide area flatted with sand soil, encircled with planted shrubs and rounded by enclosed stockade made of mud and adobe.
Such a playground is a suitable place for local shows, games and live music while the most of Guilan villages hold it.
The most interesting of these shows all is the Gilaki traditional rope-dancing performed daily by the members of a noble and ancient family of Lahijan (a large city near Rudsar) whose members involve in local sports and games for many years.
First of all, the father of family who is about 80 years old rides a bicycle on a 3 meters thick rope and then accomplishes some fireworks. He chafes a blaming torch on his head, body and hands without being burnt or hurt.

Thereafter, the major son of the family performs some acrobatics in the height of about 5 meters above the floor on the same thick rope. Afterwards the minor son of family gets help from his senior brother to try some swinging and twisting around the rope and their show finishes with some live local music perform.
This local music is basically played with northern Tymbal, Sorna and Kettledrum but some other instruments have been added during the times.

Nowadays, Muslim people are the main shapers of international deals and affairs in the fields of culture, literature, science, sports and politics.
Every field of human endeavor which you name, I can give you a prosperous example of a Muslim person who has done lots of efforts and activities to promote and improve it.
It is a proven fact that the more you learn about nature and entire world, the more you find yourself swimming in the endless ocean of morality, ethics and religion.
In the other words, knowledge and information are a gateway toward religious beliefs and values. So the wise and thoughtful persons who spend their time thinking about creatures and the world around are the most faithful believers in God.
Irreligious thoughts and human-made schools such as liberalism, communism and socialism to fight against religion are the natural results of being uneducated and unaware.
So you can not find any well-known scientist and artist who is not a believer in God and his oneness because intellectual people think, learn and study.
Therefore Islam as the latest, most complete and most advanced divine religion provides all the human society members with a clear view of brotherhood, justice, freedom and independence under the flag of “believe in God”.
During times, it has been confirmed that pure religious beliefs guide the humankind through success, happiness and tranquility by repulsing stress and anxiety from him.
This post tries to introduce you some of the thousands of successful Muslim people around the world that you know well, so I categorized them into some fields such as sports, science and politics.
It is necessary to add that the below listed are currently living people and I’ve ignored mentioning the passed away Muslim stars which their number is much to be counted.
The listed below are from France, Brazil, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Venezuela, Egypt, Bangladesh and United Kingdom.

Let’s start with Muslim athletes:
a) Zinedine Zidane: French Muslim football player, former captain of France national football team and FIFA world player of 2006.
b) Ricardo Izecson dos santos liete (Kaka): Brazilian Muslim football player, member of Brazil national football team and FIFA world player of 2007.
c) Hossein Rezazade: Persian weightlifter, two times Olympics Gold medal winner, the strongest man of the world.
d) Ali Daei: Persian footballer, former Iranian national team captain, FIFA top goal scorer of all times, most valuable Asian football player

And continue with Muslim artists:
a) Sami Yusuf: Persian Azeri singer and composer, the most famous Islamic music performer and rock-star.
b) Abbas Kiarostami: Internationally acclaimed Iranian Muslim film director, the holder of honorary doctorate from University of Toulouse, Konrad Wolf prize winner, the winner of Silver Lion from Venice film festival and Cannes film festival winner of Palme d’Or.
c) Pedro Eustache: Venezuelan Muslim creative solo flautist, award-winning member of Yanni Band, having a collection of 600 woodwind instruments from all over the world.
d) Mahmoud Farshchian: Internationally known Persian Muslim painter, miniaturist and calligraphist; having an experience of 50 years of artistic work, the winner of Diploma Maestro Di Pittura, II Seminario d’Arte Moderna prize.

Muslim political personalities and leaders in the way:
a) Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: The leader of Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the Time magazine’s Man of the year in 1979, religious authority of world’s Muslims.
b) Shirin Ebadi: Muslim Iranian peacemaking activist, the first Muslim female winner of any Nobel Prize, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 2003.
c) Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Turkish Muslim leader, a revolutionary Turkey PM who made lots of changes in order to enhance the situation of life for Muslims specially the freedom of religious turban for women and clerics in Turkey.
d) Ilham Aliyev: Muslim President of Azerbaijan Republic, leading one of the most predominant US financial sponsors in the region.

Here is a short list of Muslim writers and poets:
a) Naguib Mahfouz: Egyptian Muslim Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1988. He wrote more than 50 books in the past years.
b) Prof. Abdulkarim Soroush: Leading Iranian Muslim philosopher, thinker and Mevlana scholar, winner of Erasmus Prize (2004) and professor of Harvard University.
c) Yvonne Ridley: Famous British Muslim writer and journalist, former BBC reporter and editor.
d) Ali Paya: The Persian Muslim philosopher and writer, currently teaches analytic philosophy in the Westminster University.

And finally, take a look at Muslim scientists:
a) Anousheh Ansari: The first female space explorer, and the first Iranian Muslim who stepped into the spatial station, founder of Prodea Systems Inc. and the fourth overall self-funded space tourist of all the history.
b) Firouz Naderi: An Iranian Muslim scientist, Associate Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 2005 recipient of Ellis Island Medal of Honor
c) Omid Kordestani: A Persian Muslim IT expert and is the Senior Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Field Operations of Google
d) Jawed Karim: A Muslim Bangladeshi computer scientist and IT analyst, a co-founder of the popular video sharing website YouTube, he is also the lead architect of PayPal website.