The Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan, Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, is on an official visit to Turkey (25-26 November) at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and addressed the leaders of the Turkish business community in a press conference today. However, to the surprise of the Pakistani awaam, he broke into impromptu shayeri, and left many feeling a bit awkward.
The meeting included a discussion on the promotion of cooperation in different sectors, particularly trade, investment, education, communication, and culture. The PM also emphasized the importance of solar energy as his main message and said,
Sun shines, like in Turkey. Shines very well in Pakistan in the province of Sindh, in Balochistan, in Punjab, in KP, and other places. And you will get maximum sun rays, which would mean thought your profit would increase because of wonderful availability of sunrays over there.
Switching lanes to the power of the unity of society and nations, he quoted Pakistan’s national poet, Allama Mohammad Iqbal:
Fard Qaim Rabt-e-Millat say hai,Tanha kuch nahinMoj hai darya main,(aur) berun-e-darya kuch nahi.
Tamanna aabroo ki hai agar gulzar-e-hasti meyToo kaanton mey ulajh kar zindagi basar karnay ki khoo kar ley.
Pm Sharif paused several times in between and kept oscillating between the poem and attempting to translate it into English with exaggerated gestures.
Here is the video:
Toward the end of the press conference, he recited a verse from Allama Iqbal’s poem to describe brotherhood and unity and attempted to translate it into English.,
If you want to love with integrity, with honor, and dignity in this garden of the world, then what should you do? This is very important… then live like a flower. A flower is never produced without thorns. Flower has to go through that process of thorny birth. Full of thorns, and then a flower blooms and blossoms. Without that, it is not possible.
So Iqbal says that if you want to live in this garden of the world with dignity and honor, then you have to follow that process of flower which is full of thorns. Without that, you will not get respectable space and living and existence in this cruel world.
PM Sharif further reminded the Muslim ummah that Iqbal said that Muslims were not sent into the world to be like flowers to be plucked and made into garlands or to adorn caps, for “that is not their destiny”. He explained that they have come into the world to lead it like the Ottomans once ruled the world and like Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s difficult task of carving Pakistan out of India.
“It’s the only example in the contemporary history, that through leadership, through hard work, through honesty purpose that Pakistan was carved out of India,” the premier stressed.
Alongside President Erdogan, PM Sharif jointly inaugurated the third of four MILGEM Class Corvette ships for the Pakistan Navy, PNS Khyber, at the Istanbul Shipyard.
The MILGEM project, which is based on joint collaboration between the two countries, represents a significant milestone in the Pakistan-Türkiye strategic partnership that continues to progress on an upward trajectory.
