“The
message of Allama Muhammad Iqbal continues to inspire the entire Pakistani
nation”, said Ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry. He was addressing an Embassy
Forum event to commemorate Iqbal Day, at the Pakistan Embassy, Washington DC,
says a press release received here today from Washington DC.
The Ambassador paid rich tribute to
Pakistan’s greatest philosopher, thinker and poet, Allama Iqbal, whose iconic
writings in Urdu and Persian, have attained global acclaim.
Iqbal’s poetry, philosophy and
thoughts galvanized the Muslims of the Indian Sub-Continent to demand a
separate homeland that ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan, within a
decade of Iqbal’s death in 1938.
Narrating the various phases and
events of Iqbal’s life, Dr. Moazzam Siddiqui, a learned scholar on Iqbal, said
that Iqbal’s greatness can be judged by the fact that he reshaped the destiny
of his people through the sheer power of his writings and poetry. He inspired
an awakening or renaissance among the Muslims of South Asia, who had been
suffering at the hands of the British rulers and Hindu majority population of
pre-partition India. Without Iqbal, the dream of Pakistan could never have been
realized.
Renditions of Kalam-e-Iqbal, his
literary works, were read out by famous broadcaster and presenter Mr. Khalid
Hameed. A young Pakistani American, Ms. Ayesha Ali read out an essay recalling
Iqbal’s message to the youth of his generation. This timeless message, she
argued, was just as relevant for the youngsters of today as it was so many
years ago.
The event was widely attended by
members of the Pakistani American community of the Washington tri-state area.