The yearly seminar was held as usual on Saturday the 9th. November 2013, being the birthday of Iqbal, at Copenhagen. It was arranged jointly by Iqbal Academy Scandinavia, Islamic-Christian Study Centre. The function was whole day affair. It was held at Skt. Johannesgården, Copenhagen. The theme of the day was ‘Iqbal and Democracy.’ The main organizer of the event was the highly learned and well known Lady Dr.theol. Lissi Rasmussen. She has been personally organizing all yearly Iqbal Day functions of November for the past several years in consultation with Dr. Safet Bectovic and Dr. Jørgen S. Nielsen. There were two parts of the events. The moderator of first part, from 10.30 to 1330 hrs, was Dr. Lissi Rasmussen. The second part was conducted by Dr. Safet Bectovic.
The first part was started at 10.30, which was conducted by Lissi Rasmussen. She invited Ghulam Sabir to open the seminar. He welcomed all the guest speakers and audience who were present in the hall. The main guest speaker was Professor M. Sharif Baqa from London. In his highly learned way of addressing a mix gathering of audience including intellectuals and common people Prof Baqa made an interesting speech on “Introduction to Iqbal’s view of society”. This was followed by a warm discussion in which the audience put up so many questions which were replied by Prof. Baqa elaborately. This followed with a coffee break of fifteen minutes. The theme of the next sitting was “Moral, ethical and spiritual aspects”. The speakers were Dr. Iram Khawaja, postdoc. At the Department of Education (DPU) and Uzma Rehman from Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, who spoke on the meaning of religiosity in the everyday life of Muslims. After the two speeches the lunch was offered to all the speakers and guests.
The second part started at 13.30, which was conducted by Dr. Safet Bectovic. The subject for this part was “Iqbal and Democracy today” (The relevance of Iqbal’s ideals today).
After that a panel consisting of Tarek Hussein, Law student and Bashy Qureshi, Secretary Gneral Emico (European Muslim Initiative for social cohesion expressed their respective views on the topic. Then the coffee break was announced by Dr. Safet Bectovic.
After the coffee break there was another warm discussion among the audience and the speakers till the end of the function declared by the Moderator Dr. Safet Bectovic.
The video of entire function is being loaded on internet and will be available to view within due course.
This function was extremely logical, interesting, useful and to the need of today.
G. Sabir
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