“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.
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.
November 09 , 2017
Washington D.C
