By NNN-APP,
Islamabad : Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani said life and teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) are a foundation to achieve peace and security and lead Muslims to a new phase of progress and prosperity.
Addressing the inaugural session of annual National Seerat Conference here at the Convention Centre on Saturday, he said life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) will be a source of cure for the miseries of humans as they will make advances in science and technology and the world will achieve more progress.
The theme of this year’s conference was “strategy for call and preaching in the light of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)”.
Gilani said, “We should know that life of Holy Prophet (PBUH) is like an open book whose no page is hidden from anybody and its every aspect is unblemished.”
The Prime Minister said Pakistan is faced with challenges and difficulties but it is still the centre of hopes for the Muslims of the world.
He assured that the government would accept every practicable suggestion for the promotion of teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Gilani said Islam teaches that everybody should be kind to each other without any discrimination and the basis of spreading of message of Islam is kindness and welfare of others and equality among all nations of the world.
He mentioned that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) showed that first teachings of the religion should be adopted by an individual in his home, then in his city and then it should be extended to the whole of humanity.
Islam urges its followers that they should invite others to goodness and stop them from bad acts and keep on making the struggle to lighten their path and that of others, he added.
The Prime Minister said main objective of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was peace and security in the world and complete protection of the human race.
Through a comprehensive message, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ushered in a revolution which closed for forever the path of killings, violence and chaos, he added.
He said it is a matter of concern that despite the fact that mosques, seminaries, shrines and religious parties are propagating the message of Islam, still there is presence of extremism and chaos in society.
He invited the participants of the conference to ponder whether their efforts were moving in the right direction, mistakes were being made or not and how faults could be removed.
Islam did not spread through sword but with the zeal of sufis and pious men who took Islam to places like Indonesia, Malaysia and Central Africa, he added.
He said the light of Islam spread to the land of Arabs during the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) but in his life too followers of Christians and Judaism were living among them.
During the 1500 year rule of Muslims, no one tried to forcibly make these people Muslims and today more than 18 million Christians and Jews are living in the Arabian Peninsula, he observed adding Muslims ruled the Indian sub-continent for 1000 years but in the region, majority of the population is still non-Muslim and this was not due to lack of love of Muslim rulers for their religion.
But the real reason was that Islam did not spread through force but people accepted it due to the personal character, decency, humanity and love shown by the sufis and religious scholars who kept burning light of Islam in the face of all kinds of difficulties, he added.
The Prime Minister distributed cash prizes among scholars for their books on the life and teachings of Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
The Prime Minister expressed the hope that the scholars who attained prizes for working on various aspects of the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would continue their good work.
He said the personality of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was everlasting fountain of guidance and efforts by religious scholars and researchers to shed light on life of the last Prophet will continue for all times to come.
Prime Minister Gilani announced that the government would arrange for marriages of 5000 women this year with the money provided by Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal.
Managing Director Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal Zumard Khan in his remarks told that his organisation provided funds for marriages of 2500 women last year on the directions of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Dr. Nisar Ahmed, Dr. Fazal Elahi, Dr. Abdur Rauf Zafar, Tazeen Ansari, Musrat Kalanchvi, Mushtaq Kalhora, Manzar Ali Syed, Irshad Hussain, Ghulam Rasool, Laiqzada Laiq, Maulana Muhammad Naqibullah, Muhammad Yaseen, Nadir Shahwani, Dr. Nigar Sajjad Zaheer, Dr. Talat Siddiqui and Dr. Zainab Haroon were among the prize winners.
Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi and religious scholars coming from all parts of the country attended the conference.