Islamabad: Universal Interfaith Peace Mission (UIPM) is going to oganise a Pre-Parliament of World Religions (PPOWR) event in Islamabad tomorrow (Saturday), to promote the message of interfaith harmony, says a press release. Addressing a press conference, UIPM Chairman Dr Allama GR Chishti said that he took the inspiration of holding a pre Parliament of World Religions event in Islamabad after attending an interfaith meeting sponsored by UN Habitat with the partnership of Parliament of World Religions, in Singapore last month. “The purpose of the high-level gathering was to bring faith based thinkers and UN-Habitat together for promotion of oneness of language, law of land and interfaith harmony, for which PPOWR is working diligently since 1893,” he added. He pointed out that other partners of the Singapore conference were World Urban Campaign, the Urban Thinkers Campus, the Singapore Centre for Global Missions, World Evangelical Alliance Creation Care Task Force, Urban Shalom Project, ARC, and the International Society for Urban Mission. “Dr Mary Nelson, Executive Consultant of Parliament of World Religions, Head Office, Chicago, US, hosted a reception on behalf of the Parliament for all the visiting dignitaries. Dr Mary highlighted the purpose of forthcoming ‘Parliament of the World Religions which is going to be held from 1-7 November in Toronto, Canada,” Dr Chishti added. Our delegation, Dr Chishti said was accorded a warm welcome where I was allowed to express my views on the topic in which I announced to organise an event in Pakistan to provide more information about the Parliament of World Religions to people in Pakistan. Therefore, he said we will be organising third ‘Meelad-un-Nabiyyain’ -- the birth of the two prophets of Allah Almighty i.e. ‘Meelad-e-Mustafa’ and Christmas as in past three years, both these event are coinciding in December and UIPM has been celebrating them, as we believe that it is a divine sign of Almighty Allah to make the followers of the two great religions come together. “Our message is also the essence of Parliament of World Religion, therefore we have dedicated this sacred programme to PPOWR which has been working for promotion of interfaith harmony since 1893,” he added. He announced that UIPM has set-up an advisory desk and its workers are taking information from various religious organisation based in Pakistan which are interested to participate in the forthcoming Parliament of the World Religions 2018. This information would be shared with POWR head office in Chicago, Dr Chishti added. UIPM chairman said that the chief guest of the first session will likely be State Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Pir Syed Ameen ul Hasanat Shah while in the second session Minister for Human Rights Mumtaz Ahmed Tarar and First Secretary of International Affairs of Canadian High Commission to Pakistan James Clark, Ambassador of the European Union Jean Francois Cautain and Mayor Islamabad Sheih Anser Aziz, Emmanuel Gulzar, Sardar Manmohan Singh, Bishop Aftab and Pastor Adil Gill would be among the distinguished guests. The event is being organised in collaboration with URI MCC Islamabad, Common Word Pakistan, Minority Coverage Foundation, and Guru Nanak Khalsa Foundation.
