By NNN-APP,
Islamabad : President Asif Ali Zardari has urged the need for imbibing the teachings of national poet Allama Iqbal and make a forward movement in its philosophical thought to steer the nation out of present crisis.
“One of the most important intellectual challenges faced by us is to move forward according to the changing requirements of time while retaining the fundamentals of our great religion,” the President said in his message on Saturday to the nation on Allama Iqbal’s birth anniversary.
President Zardari said one of the most impressive aspects of Allama Iqbal’s ideas is the stress he lays on the forward movement in human thought.
He said Allama Iqbal’s call for forward movement in philosophical interpretation is most relevant in the present day as extremists and militants selectively quoted scriptures and verses to advance their own political agenda behind the cloak of religion.
Zardari said it is painful that because of this selective and dogmatic interpretation, some people accuse the Muslims as the followers of a religion that preaches war against the rest of mankind.
“When some misguided people take up arms for what they call holy war against any one who disagrees with them, they do a lasting disservice to the religion and its teachings,” he said.
President Zardari said Iqbal believed that the aim of both science and religion was the search for truth.
“He, therefore, thought that just as science cannot claim its pronouncements to be final, there also couldn’t be any final stop in the forward march of human thought,” President Zardari said.
Zardari said Allama Iqbal believed that religion as a living force needed to be interpreted in the light of modern thought, as knowledge advances and fresh avenues of thought are opened, other views and probably sounder views are possible.
He said Allama Iqbal called for carefully watching the progress of human thought and to maintain an independent critical attitude towards it.