December 03, 2006	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 11, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 2: We should have scholarly interaction and meaningful dialogue with all civilisations of the world instead of only criticising them. This was stated by Dr Zafar Ishaq Ansari, president International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI), while speaking at a gathering of scholars organised by the Women Institute of Science and Humanities. The theme of the dialogue was “Allama Iqbal and dialogue among civilizations”.

Referring to Allama Iqbal’s approach to inter-civilization dialogue, Dr Ansari said Iqbal was a great critic of the West but at the same time he never felt any difficulty to admire the merits of Western civilization. “We need the same approach to appreciate merits, denounce ills and work hard for making our way forward in today’s complex situation,” he said.

Dialogue and interaction with others is imperative for a civilization to survive, he said. A civilization cannot move forward if it closes its doors for interaction with others.

However, he said, independent thinking, deep study, broad- mindedness and commitment to one’s own history and civilization were the basic requirements for meaningful dialogue among civilizations.

“We are concentrating mostly on defending Islam or criticising the West instead of holding serious and fruitful dialogue with them.

Our study and work on these two highly prioritised civilizations is not of the standard to be proud of.”

Speaking on the occasion, Suhuyl Umer, director of the Iqbal Academy said every age had its intellectual fashions and the intellectual fashion of our age was dialogue among civilizations.

He said all the civilizations of the pre-modernity era had consensus on the importance of divine wisdom in search of the ultimate truth; however, the post-modernity era attempted to replace the divine wisdom with physics and chemistry while the present age was not willing even to consider religion seriously.