How to strengthen cultural ties between
Pakistan and Iran
By Syed Ali Hassan
Iran Daily’s correspondent in Pakistan
Pakistan and Iran are basically countries with a common cultural and political heritage, an agreement was signed between Pakistan and Iran on March 9, 1956, the basis of which was to establish cultural centers in each other's country. And more than four cultural centers were established in the provincial capitals, which work under the Ministry of Islamic Guidance of Iran. There is a spacious building of Islamic culture centers of Iran in Karachi, but it has not yet been used to increase the cultural relations between Pakistan and Iran. They have not performed any remarkable valuable services, so far nothing has been done to bring Urdu and Persian language closer, the proximity of Urdu language to Persian can be estimated from the fact that the national anthem of Pakistan is in Persian and Urdu poetry has many verses that Persian speakers can understand with full meaning without any translation.
Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and one of the seven official state languages of India. And has been under the influence of literature and its civilization, since the Persian language belongs to the family of Indo-Iranian languages, therefore, a natural relationship is established between Urdu and Persian, an Iranian scholar, Khawaja Mir Ali Tabrizi formed a new script which was invented by combining the two forms of writing Nashq and Taaliq of Arabic, which is called Nastaleeq, this is the popular script for Urdu today and it has become its own script of Urdu.
If the capital spent on Culture Center buildings was spent on bringing Persian and Urdu closer, the political and social conditions of the regions would have been different. Pakistan and Iran are neighboring countries. It is true that there is no longer Persian poetry here or it is not of a quality that can be mentioned, the use of Persian words in Urdu poetry is disappearing while English and Hindi words are being included. Instead of looking for common ground in India, attention should be focused on the near neighbor Pakistan, which will give extraordinary boost to mutual relations.
at times, every poet of Urdu language used to adapt his words in Persian language, but he used to judge his poetic excellence by speaking in Persian language and his competitors also evaluated his merit by this skill, just like famous poets wrote ghazals in Persian language. It has been said that the Persian language is not being appropriated today, for understanding the Urdu language and literature as well as the classical heritage, it was indispensable to get familiar with the Persian language and literature, the poet of the East and the national poet of Pakistan Dr Allama Iqbal has left many diwans of Persian, Israr-e-Khudi is his first collection of Persian poetry, Allama Muhammad Iqbal also realized that the scope of Persian language and literature is a bit wider than Urdu language and literature. Also, this Persian language can be helpful for the work they want to do with language and literature.
The Islamic Republic of Iran can do a lot of work on Allama Iqbal's Persian language, it should be systematically translated and Urdu translation should be included in the educational curriculum of Pakistan along with the Persian language. It is worth noting that even now in common parlance, Persian words are used with great fluency, forexample
بهشت،نماز، پنج سوره، پنج تن،مشت،هفته، دوشنبه، بریانی، دسترخوان، باورچی خانه، غسل خانه، نعمت خانه، میز پوش، سفید پوش، پان دان، سُرمه دانی، صراحی،بُت، سخن، دندان،ابرو، عارض، گیسو، نماز پنجگانه، جائی نماز، نیم جان، نیم گرم، نیم حکیم،نا بینا اور پر نور، شادی
in this way more or less 6041 Persian words are a part of Urdu, along with the poetic and prose capital of Urdu, Persian language and literature also have deep influences on common speech. It is obvious that Persian has been used as the official language of Great India for three or four hundred years and the entire region has been under the influence of its culture and civilization. , collaboration of both Urdu and Persian for advancement in scientific sciences can be beneficial for scientific evolution in the region.
In addition to cooperation in Persian and Urdu, the governments of Pakistan and Iran can do a lot in other fields of arts, exchange of artists, joint production of dramas and films, Iran is a very suitable country for shooting Pakistani dramas, where naturally There are excellent locations where there are opportunities for tourism and drama but here it is also inevitable to mention the sad situation that baseless stories related to Iran have been planted in Pakistan. They cannot ignore the negligence and shortcomings of both governments and certain elements. Basically, it was the work of the Iranian diplomatic missions and families in Pakistan to present the real progressive face of Iran to Pakistanis, belonging to those sections of the society. With those who can accurately portray Iran, who can describe the developed cities like Tehran, Tabriz and Isfahan, Yazd, Mashhad and Gilan and Kish, there is still time to develop cultural relations between Pakistan and Iran on a real level. Which is the most influential on the overall relations of the two countries.