About the facilitator


This course is conducted by Khurram Ali Shafique, a renowned scholar of Iqbal Studies and a recipient of the Presidential Iqbal Award.

About the course


The course employs interesting activities, excerpts from rare authentic documents, engaging presentations, and clips from popular movies and songs to take you through the story of Pakistan from its making up to the present times, with a clear insight into the near future.

The approach is blended learning. The sessions will guide you, inform you (and possibly also entertain you), and you will get additional support and guidance for carrying out optional assignments and self-study, should you choose to do so.

The course comprises of 10 contact hours, divided into sessions as per the convenience of the participants.

Course benefits


The course will enable you to look at Pakistan from the perspective of the founding parents of the country, which the existing education of any quality fails to do at all.

This will also show you that you can actively contribute to (a) make Pakistan a leader of South Asia for establishing perpetual peace and justice in the region; (b) eradicate poverty completely from society; and (c) and by making your contribution to these two goals, you can also achieve success in your personal career. This is the least – and not the most – which Allama Iqbal and Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah believed each one of us to be capable of.

It can be said that this is a course for the leaders of today and tomorrow – it offers you what you should know in order to lead this country as a free citizen of a state that has a glorious past and an even more glorious future.

An irony of our national life is that we have forgotten those very things about which we can be truly proud. Many people in the past have claimed that the history we are taught is not accurate, but this course is different because the facts revealed here are positive and useful.

Who should attend


The course is for professionals, students, homemakers and those citizens from any walk of life who want to see the point of view of the founding parents of Pakistan, especially in order to follow them for improving the society. It is offered in English and/or Urdu according to the convenience of the audience (but you may need to check in advance).

Course outline



Section 1: The seven stages of Pakistan
When seen from the point of view of the founding parents of Pakistan, the South Asian Muslim nation appears to be a collective ego, which has been conceiving and achieving its goals.


Section 2: Uniform culture

According to Iqbal, we need to participate in the life of this communal self. This requires us to change our habits of thought and action. The habits of thought need to be transformed through our uniform culture.


Section 3: National organization
Our habits of thought need to be transformed through a desire to seek consensus. Pakistan came into being because this desire got realized in the form of a “national organization”.


Section 4: Conscious evolution
By changing our habits of thought and action, we can participate in the life of our communal self consciously. This means a “conscious evolution”, and can give us a society free from want and fear.


Section 5: National education
Once we begin to see the possibility of a society free from fear and want, we can begin to develop a completely new outlook on the world.


To see the making of Pakistan exclusively from the perspective of its creators can empower you for shaping the collective destiny.


Registration and further details


This is a recurring course. For details, contact khurramsdesk@gmail.com

Feedback from previous sessions


How learners feel about the course

“How are you feeling at the end of today’s session?” This question is asked at the end of each session of the course. Visit the Feelings Page to see the answers given by the participants.

Important learning

“What was the single most important thing you learnt from today’s session (if any)?” This is a question in the feedback forms distributed at the end of each session. Visit the Learning Page to see the replies given by the participants.

FAQs


Visit the FAQ page to see the questions asked by the participants, and their answers.


Suggested readings for the participants


Further readings may include:

  • Highlights of Iqbal’s life, work and the aftermath. This page is richly illustrated and contains some embedded links for further reading (more links are being added periodically, as this is a growing page).
  • Or the series Aazadi on my Urdu website. There are some added advantages of reading these posts online: they are richly illustrated, contain many relevant videos (usually very short) and each episode starts with some extremely popular song by the great Sufi poet of modern times, Fayyaz Hashmi.
  • Or the book Aazadi in hard copy (the book is published by Topline Publishers, and can be purchased at the venue of the course). This might suit you best if you prefer the printed page, or if your interest is primarily academic, because the book contains rich and adequate references in footnotes.
  • Iqbal Ki Manzil, the most detailed and authentic biography of Iqbal covering the period from 1927 to 1946, is also recommended for those who can spare more time.