Islamabad:
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged the nation to follow the teachings and thoughts of Allama Muhammad Iqbal to make Pakistan a country that exercises social and economic justice to all its citizens.
In a message on the anniversary of the death of Allama Iqbal on April 21, the president said: “Today we observe the anniversary of the death of the East poet and the thinker of Pakistan Allama Muhammad Iqbal.”
“Today, we pay tribute to his political and intellectual contributions,” he added.
He said: “The thoughts, the philosophy and the poetry of Allama Iqbal are a lighthouse of light for us, and we must follow the message of Iqbal in our individual capacity and our national life.”
Allama Iqbal was not only a poet, but also a thinker and a reformer who felt the anxiety of the fall of the Islamic Oummy and used his thoughts and his verses as a means to awaken the Ummah, he continued.
The president said that Iqbal’s poetry revolves around the concepts of individuality, reform, divine love, freedom of thought and the rebirth of Oummée.
According to Iqbal, the salvation of the Muslim Ummah not only in political freedom, but was also achievable by an intellectual and spiritual awakening, he added.
He said that the philosopher poet called Muslims to knowledge, wisdom, self -confidence and the message of true religion.
The president noted that the role of Allama Iqbal was not only limited to his thoughts and his poetry, but also played an essential role in the implementation of the political leadership of Muslims in the subcontinent.
He stressed that Allama Iqbal was an active leader of the Muslim League All India and, in his speech in Allahabad, in 1930, he presented the concept of a separate state for the Muslims of the subcontinent.
“His political thought reflects the distinct identity of Muslims,” he noted.
“Today, we are faced with many social, economic and intellectual challenges, we must therefore adopt the teachings of Iqbal as a lighthouse of light.”
“Let us expand to follow the teachings and thoughts of Allama Iqbal and will make Pakistan a country where all citizens have equal chances of social and economic justice and progress,” he added.
Furthermore, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on the nation to embrace the principles of Allama Iqbal in an individual and collective life to build Pakistan as a strong, sovereign and developed country.
“Today, on the occasion of his anniversary of death, we pay tribute to the ideological manufacturer of Pakistan, the great thinker and poet of Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal,” the Prime Minister said in a statement.
Iqbal was not only a poet, but was a leader in the spotlight who presented the concept of a separate country for the Muslims of the subcontinent, he added.
Shehbaz said that the philosophy of Iqbal’s individuality and its poetry not only provided an ideological basis for the Pakistan movement, but also breathed a new spirit in the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent.
The Prime Minister said that Allama Iqbal was the first thinker who, in his 1930 speech in Allahabad, presented a clear concept of a separate state for the Muslims of the subcontinent.
