KARACHI, Feb 19: Speakers at a meeting of the Hamdard Naunehal Assembly strongly condemned the blasphemous cartoons published in Danish and some other European newspapers.

They urged people to express their anger in a peaceful manner and urged the government to promote literacy in the country as no literate society could afford the way demonstrations were held in Lahore and Peshawar. These demonstrations had resulted in destruction of private and public property worth millions of rupees.

The topic of the meeting was: “Propagation of knowledge and respect of scholar”.

Addressing the meeting as chief guest, Justice (Retd) Majida Rizvi said that Muslims had stopped to acquire knowledge. Subsequently, the Muslim societies have become stagnant.

They have lost their qualities of tolerance, endurance and patience, which was evident from their demonstrations against blasphemous cartoons.

“Whose loss was it?” she questioned. No literate and knowledgeable person can do that, she added.

She said it was the duty of every Muslim man and woman to acquire knowledge according to the teachings of Islam.

“We do not give education to our women. As a result, a mother in our society is not able to educate and train her child, as the child’s first academy is its mother’s lap,” she maintained.

She was of the view that illiteracy produced poverty, poverty produced sense of deprivation and inferiority complex, which then gave birth to anger and anguish and abolished patience and tolerance in people.

Such people, she said start to fight with each other and do not settle their issues with mutual conversations.

Children in schools besides their curricula should be taught to settle their differences through talks and mutual consultation instead of fighting and quarrelling, she suggested and added. “In this way we can minimize the fighting tendency in our society.”

Justice Majida said the respect of a teacher and a man of knowledge was must to acquire education and knowledge. At the same time, full attention of teachers was the right of students, she added.

She said it was the duty of every Muslim to acquire and disseminate knowledge, and “if we should act according to this Islamic teaching, we should reach to the highest position in the comity of nations,” she concluded.

Earlier, addressing the gathering of children, Hamdard Foundation Pakistan’s President, Mrs Sadia Rashid, said all human progress was dictated by the enhancement of education and dissemination of knowledge in human society.

The nations, which were serious in promoting knowledge, have reached the pinnacle of progress and those that careless in this matter remained backward, she said, adding: “In the first verse of the Holy Quran, we are instructed to read and acquire knowledge.”

In the light of importance given by Islam to knowledge no wise Muslim would like to remain illiterate, she said, adding that education and knowledge was a ladder to ascend on the heights of success and progress.

She urged the nation to put all energy and resources in promoting education and knowledge to include Pakistan in the rank of developed nations.

She quoted a saying of Hakim Mohammed Said in which he had stated that a society, which does not pay respect to knowledge and men of knowledge was never able to make any substantial progress. Hakim Mohammed Usman of the foundation also spoke.—APP