RAWALPINDI: A three-day workshop aimed at exploring the potential of religious music as a tool for interfaith understanding and harmony concluded on Sunday evening with a colourful ceremony featuring performances of artists from various parts of the country and belonging to different religious communities.

The groundbreaking three-day Creativity Workshop had been organised by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in collaboration with the European Union at the Rawalpindi’s Christian Study Centre (CSC).

The closing performances at the small CSC auditorium showcased devotional music from each community, featuring interfaith participation, including Church hymns, Hindu Bhajan singers, Sikh Kirtan worship, and traditional Kalasha musical expressions.

Besides this, solo performances by renowned Sufi singer Arieb Azhar, Emmanuel Shafquat, Karishma, and Sameer Robin added to the richness of the event.

CSJ Executive Director Peter Jacob thanked the participants and expressed a desire to study the Loris, (lullabies) in Pakistani languages besides other activities that would help collectively advance our shared objectives of peaceful coexistence with mutual understanding.

Mr Jacob was of the view that promotion of such religious music could help create tolerance and peace in the society. He said if such activities were highlighted and promoted there would be no room for extremism and terrorism in the country.

The workshop was a part of a larger ongoing effort to promote peace-building through creative and culturally rooted expressions under the project “Together for Tolerance: Strengthening Minority Rights and Inclusion.”

The workshop brought together musicians, worshippers, composers, and scholars from across Pakistan’s diverse faith communities to celebrate the spiritual richness and shared cultural threads of religious music of the Kalasha community, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims and others.

Over the course of three-days, the participants from the Christian, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Kalasha communities came together to share, learn, and reflect on their musical traditions.

The workshop featured live demonstrations, dialogue sessions, creative group work, while Arieb Azhar, Brian Bassanio Paul, Shaza Kaleem Usmani and Peter Jacob as facilitators offered personal reflections on the theme of faith and music.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2025