By Angelina Bashir
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Interfaith Harmony and Middle East and Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) Chairman Hafiz Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi Tuesday said the thee-day visit of Canterbury’s Archbishop Justin Welby had portrayed the soft image of Pakistan on the globe.
Addressing a presser, he said after holding one on one meeting with state machinery and religious scholars of various schools of thought, the archbishop reached the conclusion that Pakistan firmly believed in interfaith harmony and minorities’ rights were equally enshrined in the Constitution.
Ashrafi said today, before his departure, the archbishop had expressed complete satisfaction on the adequate measures, taken by the government of Pakistan for promoting the interfaith harmony in the country.
He quoted Justin Welby as saying that the government and religious scholars were on the same page and heading towards the right direction on the matter of interfaith harmony.
He said he and his co-host Church of Pakistan President Bishop Azad Marshal had decided to invite Pope Francis to visit Pakistan to further stamp that Pakistan was a land of peace and religious harmony.
He lamented that there were certain anti-state elements who tried to steal peace of the country through interfaith chaos from time to time.
Taking hand in hand of Bishop Marshal, Ashrafi said Marshal was as custodian of the house as he was and both of them had to foil the nefarious designs of the enemy with collective efforts.
He said it was need of the hour to take interfaith harmony and dialogue at the grassroots level in a bid to sensitize the commoners about the significance of co-existence and its role in the development and prosperity of the country.
He further informed that under the auspices of PUC, the ‘Paigham-e-Pakistan Ulema and Mashaikh Conference’ was being organized here at the Convention Center on March 7.
He said in the conference, a strategy would be devised for the whole year to deal with various issues pertaining to minorities’ rights, burgeoning population and other present day challenges being confronted by the nation.
He informed that Paigham-e-Pakistan was the most important document after the Constitution of Pakistan which was signed by a great deal of intersect and interfaith religious scholars unanimously.
The basic goal of this national doctrine was to create religious pluralism in the country, he added.
He said soon after the holy month of Ramazan, the ‘5th Paigham-e-Islam Conference’ would be held here at the Convention Center in which Imam-e-Ka’aba, Mufti-e-Azam Palestine and other well-known personalities of the Islamic world would participate.
Meanwhile, Church of Pakistan President Bishop Azad Marshal said the archbishop of Canterbury’s visit had raised the morale of Pakistan and it had helped counter negative propaganda against it across the world.
Besides eulogizing the unwavering efforts of Tahir Ashrafi for the interfaith harmony, he also appreciated media for extensively covering the foreign religious dignitary.
He expressed the hope that the establishment of two Peace Centers – one adjacent to the Grand Jamea Masjid Bahria Town Lahore and the other one at the All Saints Church located in the Kohati Bazaar Peshawar – would bring people of the two faiths further closer.
