Senior Pak TV anchor shares poetic thoughts with expats

(MENAFN- Arab News) A literary evening was held here in honor of the visiting pakistan's tv anchor aneeq ahmed drawing a host of jeddah's literary personalities journalists and urdu buffs.

organized by aalami urdu markaz jeddah the function was dedicated to allama iqbal in view of his 76th death anniversary on april 21.

consul general aftab ahmad khokhar took the occasion to appeal to the pakistani expats to remain alert on mers virus though he said there was nothing to panic.

'the government of saudi arabia is taking all necessary steps to contain the virus which is not contagious and hence no reason to panic" khokhar told the audience.

the cg also urged the compatriots not to visit the consulate on sunday for machine readable passports because of some snags in delivering the passports.

aneeq ahmed who is here on umrah visit dwelt on iqbal in relation to his emotional attachment to prophet muhammad (peace be upon him) and underlined the importance of urdu to understand the life of the prophet as also islam in general.

'the nation that disregards its language gets slowed down in terms of progress and dignity" ahmed said.

he however exuded confidence that urdu will never die. 'its journey continues even though the faces of the torchbearers (poets litterateurs) keep changing."

'why urdu is important for the whole ummah is because despite the fact that islam came in hijaz by means of the qur'an in arabic it was extensively understood in the subcontinent" he said and stressed that no amount of work on islam will be found anywhere in the world greater than that in urdu in the subcontinent.

and when it comes to the literary works there is no any greater name in the 20th century than that of allama iqbal he said.

the poet who is still revered all over the world even in saudi arabia is getting a cold shoulder in his own country of pakistan the tv anchor said and attributed the reasons to a few select group of people who he said have vested interest in creating confusion in the masses as regards to the actual vision of iqbal about pakistan. he claimed that his is the only tv channel in pakistan that focuses on iqbal.

aum president athar nafees abbasi welcomed the guests and introduced aneeq ahmed to the audience.

the program which was conducted by hamid islam khan earlier began with qur'an recital by qari asif and followed by a naat presentation by sher afzal.

aamir khurshid set the tone of the function by presenting a paper on 'allama iqbal and his love for prophet muhammad.'

poets who regaled the audience with their literary works included syed mujahid naim bazidpuri naushad usmani anwar ansari mohsin alvi mahmood haidar zamarrud khan saifi faisal and mahtab qadr.

irfan hashmi president majlise iqbal and abu bakr memon also spoke on the occasion.

syed ehsanul haq rohail khan bahjat najmi ghazanfar khan and amanatullah were also present during the function.