ISLAMABAD: The two-day conference titled “National Conference on Persian Language: Challenges and Future Prospects” organised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) at the HEC secretariat concluded on Thursday.
The conference was held in collaboration with the Iran Cultural Consulate, Iranian Embassy, National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamic Culture and Relations Organisation, and Iran-Pakistan Institute of Persian Studies.
Federal Education and Professional Training Minister Engineer Baligh-ur-Rehman was the chief guest of the closing ceremony, while other participants included HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali, Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan Mehdi Honardoost, Iranian Embassy Cultural Consular Shahaboddin Daraei, Tajik Ambassador to Pakistan Jononov Sherali, HEC Consultant Dr Mahmood ul Hasan Butt and faculty members and scholars from across the country.
Addressing the conference, Baligh-ur-Rehman shed light on the significance of Persian language with regard to promotion of cultural harmony. “Learning multiple languages cast positive impact on critical and analytical thinking and enrich the canvas of thought,” he underlined. He said that Persian held a vital status in regional as well as religious perspectives, adding that a huge treasure of knowledge and wisdom was preserved in Persian.
He further said that Pakistan accorded great importance to its relations with Iran, since the two countries shared historic, religious and cultural bonds. “Our bilateral relations demand an emphasis on promotion of Persian,” he stressed.
Appreciating the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for launching the “Avicenna prize for ethics in science”, the minister said that such initiatives encouraged literati and scholars to excel in their fields of interest and to come up with productive work.
He further informed the audience that the government has set up a “national curriculum council”, which is developing curricula for various levels. “The curricula focus on character building of students apart from enhancing their academic skills,” he said.
In his remarks, HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed stressed the need for reading history to know how the ancestors of Muslims spread knowledge across the world through their research and theoretical findings.
“Today, we need to learn from our history and strive to revive it,” he said. “It is high time to understand the ideology of our forefathers by learning their languages which we have relinquished.”
He emphasised that universities’ faculty had a great role to play in encouraging students to take interest in history and languages like Persian.
Dr Mukhtar further said that Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey and other Muslim countries would soon start working on collaborative programmes focused on the prosperity of the Muslim world. He said that HEC paid great importance to social sciences for the significant role it plays in defining the moral and cultural directions of societies.
HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali said that the importance of languages, especially Persian, cannot be denied particularly in developing countries. He said that Persian language had its own significance, as it had a role to play in the understanding of Islam. He added that HEC would ensure all possible support to all efforts of promoting Persian in the country. “We will consider awarding a big number of Masters and PhD scholarships to Pakistani students to study in Iranian universities,” he said.
Dr Mahmood-ul-Hasan Butt informed the conference participants that HEC would soon lay foundations of a “council for arts, humanities and social sciences”. He said that Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia have decided to start a student exchange programme and award fully-funded scholarships to Muslim students.
On this occasion, Mehdi Honardoost, Shahaboddin Daraei, Jononov Sherali, Iftikhar Arif and other notables also expressed their views on the importance of Persian language. They paid tribute to Allama Iqbal and Sheikh Saadi for producing remarkable Persian literature which is a worthwhile source of guidance for the entire Muslim Ummah.
Dr Iqbal Saqib presented the communique agreed upon by the conference participants. The communique emphasised joint efforts to promote Persian language and use it as a tool to further strengthen relations between Pakistan and Iran. It also stressed the need for academic measures to facilitate Persian students and scholars. It termed government patronage of joint research on Persian a need of the hour. It urged the Persian teachers to extend their services for promotion of academic relations between the two countries.
At the end, Saadi-Iqbal Awards 2017 were distributed among the honourable teachers of Persian language who devoted their lives to the promotion of Persian language. The awardees included Dr Arif Noshahi, Dr Mehr Noor Muhammad Khan, Dr Rabia Kiyani, Zakia, Bint-ul-Huda, and Dr Hakim Dastari.
