The Annual Spring semester cultural week of our University was
celebrated with much religious and ethnic fervor. The President of Pakistan
His Excellency Mr. Muhammad Rafiq Tarar himself presided over the opening
ceremony on Monday March 30th '98, after which he visited the different
stalls set up by students of ten different nationalities. They were Pakistan,
China, Kazakstan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chechnya, Palestine-Jordan (joint-venture),
Turkey, Iran and Uzbekistan.
The students displayed different cultural items, ethnic food and dresses from their
respective countries. There was a "Best Stall" competition between the students for
these stalls, and China won the 1st prize, Turkey 2nd and Pakistan 3rd. During this
week long celebration, there were also debates, speeches, discussions and islamic
poem and writing competitions amongst the students. The top three in each were given
prizes on the closing ceremony on April 3rd '98.
On the invitation of our University's rector Malik Meraj Khalid, the Arch-Bishop
of Canterbury Rev. George, who was visiting Pakistan. The Arch-Bishop gave a very controversial
speech in the University Auditorioum, regarding having Inter-Faith Dialogues with Muslims,
as well as asking as muslims in Pakistan to increase tolerance levels for Christian minorities in
Pakistan. He gave a comparison to Britain, where he claimed that Christians have a high tolerance
level towards the muslim minorities there. Infact, he claimed that more freedom is being given to
"our muslim neighbors."
The Arch-Bishop even asked the Pakistani authorities to scale down their blasphemy laws, and not to be
too strict against Christian offenders. He also asked upon the validity of the "murtid" law in Islam on
one who goes out of Islam, meaning changes his religion. He indicated towards having more religious freedom
for one who decides to leave Islam and enter other religions, namely Christianity etc. He even requested more
freedom for the Chritian Missionary work going on in Pakistan, in return for the freedom given to Islamic Centers
and Masajids in Britain.
The Bishop's speech was pre-written and handed out to us just before he began to speak, and he refused to answer any
questions from the floor, citing time-restraints. Nor did he allow any of our professors sitting on the panel stage
to rebut to his speech, which contained a lot of controversial elements, regarding Islam. How typical?
The Faculty of Usuluddin's first English-Arabic Quarterly Magazine was launched during this semester.
Plans are underway to bring this magazine's contents on-line also. This magazine is solely operated by a group
of the faculty's students, including finances too. Upon successfull circulation, the committee may even regularise
its publication on a monthly basis. Cheers up!! to Usuluddin students for a job well done.
From the beginning of this spring semester, the IIUI's Women campus completel shifted to a new location,
which is very far from the current Main Campus(being used for men). The new campus has the hostels for ladies as well
as classrooms and canteen, and very soon a separate library for their use. The idea behind it was to segregate the women
studies away from the main campus, and thus provide a healthy studying environment for the ladies, because in the new
campus they don't have much commuting to do. This is because thier hostels is right accross from their classroom buildings.
Now women students, especially overseas ones, can live and study in a nice cozy environment, and don't have to move around
in the city much, as was the case beforehand. Two buildings have been acquired in the Madina-tul-Hujjaj, in the outskirts
of Islamabad, where the women campus is situated. Regular shuttle bus service is also provided for those commuting students
from the Rawalpindi/Islamabad area. Teachers are also transported on class timings from the main campus to the women campus.
The name Madina-tul-Hujjaj, is because the site is a temporary living place for all hajis before they leave Pakistan for Hajj.
Since round the year the premises is un-occupied so its a quiet environ for studying. Only during Hajj season it gets a bit
busy there.However we have yet to hear from our women students, regarding their reaction to this whole issue.
A few British University muslim professors visited the IIUI and took part in a debate/discussion on the topics
of Islam and secularism and socialism, etc. Their views totally confessed their "brain-washing" from the west on these topics,
and they were portraying a negative picture of Islam. Names are not mentioned here to preserve their humiliation, as our University
professors easily won the debate and proved that Islam is superior to all, and also overcame their rebuttals and objections. May Allah
guide those British Muslim professors, and protect Islam from such muslims.
After much solicitation and hustling, pestering the University Administration, there has been constituted a
committee which will look into the service of providing overseas students with on-line application processing
on our web-site. However we neeb your (visitors of web-site) help to accomplish this milestone in our lifetime,
so please see our main page for details on how you can help.
The idea behind this service is to cut all the "red-tape" for overseas students who can apply from around the world,
just via our on-line application, and thus expedite their admission to the University. This service will however
not be available for in-land Pakistani students, who still would have to go thru the regular way of applying to the
University. So all you overseas prospective students, hurry up!! and get yourself a nice free service to get the true
knowledge (ILM).
"SPARK '98" Launched
IIUI Womens Campus moves to new location
British Muslim Professors Visit IIUI
On-Line Application Process for Students
