islamabad - Ambassador of Iran Mehdi-e-Honar Doost yesterday said Pakistan and Iran are two close brother Islamic countries which share cultural, lingual, religious, and traditional values.
Once Persian language was the official language of this part and even Pakistan’s national poet Allam Iqbal’s maximum contribution is in Persian, he said while addressing two-day seminar on “Cultural and Regional commonalities between Iran and Pakistan” co-organised by National University of Modern Languages (NUML) and Iranian Embassy in Pakistan.
The Ambassador said ‘Kashful Mahjoob’ was the first Persian book written by Hazrat Ali Hajveri a saint from the land that later emerged on world map as Pakistan. He mentioned other Sufi saints from Pakistan who played key role to promote Persian in the region.
He was of the view that both the countries have same values, culture, religion and traditions. Eulogising the efforts of organizers of the seminar he said such international seminars can play a key role to understand each other and provide an opportunity to know abot common norms and history in past.
The seminar jointly organized by Persian Department of NUML and Embassy of Iran in Islamabad was also addressed by Dr Ghulam Raza Bhatti, Executive Director Higher Education Commission. Dr Ghualm Raza shared his personal experiences with the participants saying both the countries have strong common cultural, lingual and traditional values.
Rector NUML Major General (Retd) Zia-Ud-Din Najam in his address stressed the need for forging peace and harmony in Muslim world and said this is the right time to bring cultures together. Quoting Allam Iqbal he said “Iqbal’s poetry gives us a message of unity we should get united to face the challenges.”
In the first academic session of the Seminar, Dr Reza Mustafavi Sabzawari, Dr Talib Hussain Sial, Dr Zahida Suleman, Dr Muhammad Iqbal Saqib and Dr Faleeha Zahra Kazmi presented papers on cultural & historic commonalities between Iran and Pakistan. In the second academic session, Prof Dr Sultan Altaf Ali, Dr Muhammad Akhtar Cheema, Dr Ahsan Danish, Dr Hammayun Abbas and Syed Ghayoor Hussain discussed the commonalities in the shared heritage of Tasawaf and Irfan.
While in the third session, Dr Sadia Tahir, Dr Anjum Hameed, Prof Dr Muhammad Iqbal, Dr Arif Noushahi and Muhammad Saleem Mazhar elaborated Mir Syed Ali Hamdani and his contribution in promotion of Islam.
Ambassador of Tajikistan Jononov Sherali, Cultural Counsellor Iran Shahab-ud-Din Daraie, Director General NUML Brig Riaz Ahmed, Director Institute of Persian Studies Islamabad Essa Karim, Head Department of Persian Dr Mahr Noor Muhammad Khan and a large number of students attended the function.