Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has launched a year-long programme of national and international events marking the 150th birth anniversary of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, beginning on Iqbal Day and running until 9 November next year. Today marks the national poet’s 149th birth anniversary, observed as a public holiday across the country.
The programme will feature international conferences, academic and research seminars, literary festivals, exhibitions, educational competitions and cultural activities, all aimed at promoting Iqbal’s intellectual legacy and passing it on to future generations.
In his message on Iqbal Day, the prime minister paid tribute to the Poet of the East, saying Iqbal awakened political consciousness among the Muslims of the Subcontinent and inspired them to recognise their distinct national identity, a consciousness that played a pivotal role in the struggle for an independent homeland.
He said the government was firmly committed to keeping Iqbal’s thought a living part of educational institutions, national discourse and development priorities, with intellectual awakening, character building and collective renewal among the country’s national objectives.
President Asif Ali Zardari, in a separate message, urged young people to draw inspiration from Iqbal’s poetry to develop critical thinking and a spirit of inquiry. He said Iqbal’s words awakened people to their dignity, their rights and their power to shape their own destiny, and praised his vision of a society in which wealth, privilege and inherited status would no longer determine a person’s worth.
Both leaders highlighted Iqbal’s enduring legacy as a philosopher and poet whose work spoke to a wider human struggle for freedom, equality and a life of self-respect.
