ISLAMABAD: Ms. Ayesha Khan, the Country Director Hashoo Foundation and the Vice President Corporate Social Responsibility, Hashoo Group, hosted a thought provoking event entitled “Spiritual Reflections: The Role of Reason in Islam”. She explained the event with a dual purpose: one was to introduce Umeed e Noor as a school for children with disabilities and the second was to introduce the first in the series of conversations that promotes the Message of Islam as based on both types of reason that is the intuitive as well as the intellectual. This Iftar dinner was well attended by intellectuals, religious scholars and notable figures from the private sector and literary circles. The Presentations was followed by an interactive session generating discussions that inspired and challenged everyone’s typical positions pertaining to the interpretation of Islam and the individual’s responsibility to acquire knowledge. All in all it was quite an informative discourse.
The evening began at around 5:30 pm. In her welcoming speech, Ayesha Khan underlined the importance of reflecting as in using our minds or thinking in all our acts and actions. She said that carrying forward Hashoo Foundation’s traditional motto of ‘together we make a difference’’ has been well supplemented by the current Chairman, Mr. Murtaza Hashwani’s additional focus of ‘’knowledge to empower’’. Inspired by the Chairman’s vision, this series of discussions was planned. Among the speakers at the event were Dr. Tanveer Anjum, an academic and expert on Sufi History and Associate Professor at Quaid e Azam University. Ayesha Khan shared her presentation as a student of Islamic scholarship but she showed an impressive knowledge on the subject matter. The whole event was enlivened by the learned Ammar Masood, a well-known TV anchor, intellectual, writer. All the three speakers stimulated interactive sessions enriched by Mr. Ammar Masood’s moderation. The speakers, in a nutshell presented their viewpoints about reason and freewill, special features that God has bestowed upon its people. They highlighted human being’s distinctive place in the universe along with in-born imaginative aptitudes meant to excel in life for themselves and as well as the humanity as a whole while remaining within the boundaries of the religion. The message of the event or session was that for human beings, ‘reason’ translated as investigating and researching are the important tools to obtain divine guidance and real prosperity.
The audience had a wonderful time and benefited from the illuminating evening. The interactive session with the speakers was a great learning. They demanded for more of such events, to which Ayesha Khan assured everyone that this was the first in a series that may lead to projects in interfaith harmony and more tolerance and cultural projects.
Founded in 1988, Hashoo Foundation (HF) is a development organization, dedicated to empowering people through socio-economic interventions across Pakistan. Established under a single vision and unified structure, the Foundation is a progressive, accountable, and impact oriented institution. HF has been the recipient of various international awards such as: BBC’s World Challenge 2008, Clinton Global Initiative and Credit & Enterprise Development.
