KOT MITHAN (Rajanpur), Jan 30: Speakers at the All Pakistan Khwaja Farid National seminar stressed the need for following the teachings of sufis to avert the socio-religious disharmony.

The seminar was organized by Khwaja Farid Foundation Pakistan to commemorate the 162nd birth anniversary of heptalingual Sufi poet Hazrat Khwaja Ghulam Farid at Qasr-i-Farid in Kot Mithan on Thursday.

The chief guest and Vice-Chancellor of the Islamia University, Bahawalpur, Prof Dr Muneer Akhtar, said the university would soon organize a training workshop for the preservation of books on Khwaja Farid and Seraiki literature in private libraries.

The Seraiki department head in Islamia University, Prof Dr Javed Chandio, said that Khwaja Farid had presented religious diversity in his versus. Out of his 271 kafis, he said a number of them were written in Hindi, Sindhi, Urdu and Punjabi. Dr Chandio presented his research paper entitled ‘Multicultural Social Scenario in the Poetry of Khwaja Farid”.

Director Sachhal Chairs at Khairpur University, Prof Dr Altaf Aseem, said a great similarity existed in the lyrics/poetry of Sachhal Sarmast and Khwaja Farid.

If mysticism had been alien to Islam, Sufi poets like Khwaja Farid, Sachhal Sarmast and Shah Latif would have never adopted it. It was the real essence of the religion, he said.

The session was presided over by Ghous Muhammad Gohar, Sajjada Nasheen Darbar Kotari. The others who spoke on the occasion were: Prof Maqbool Gilani, Abdul Jabbar Junejo, Manzoor Ahmed, Aashiq Buzdar, Shoukat Mughal, Sakhi Qubool Muhammad, Sajjada Nasheen Darbar Sachhal Sarmast, Dr Nasrullah Nasir, Faqeer Ibraheem Mallah, Khursheed Nazir, Khwaja Moinuddin Mehboob, Sajjada Nasheen Darbar-i-Farid, Mujahid Jatoi and Khwaja Kaleemuddin Koreja.

Khwaja Moinuddin Mehboob presented shields and awards to Prof Dr Muneer Akhtar, Dr Javed Chandio, Riaz Sindhor, Dr Rao Muhammad Afzal, Dr Iqbal Shahid, Dr Muhammad Akbar Malik, Imtiaz Ahmed, Dr Rana Muhammad Iqbal, Dr Shahid Rizvi, Dr Mian Mushtaq Ahmed, Dr Abdul Zafar, Aashiq Buzdar, Mureed Raz Jatoi, Sardar Jind Wadda, Sakhi Qubool Muhammad Malik, M. Ajmal, Mujahid Jatoi, Shoukat Mughal, Khursheed Nazir.