Importance of religious institutions highlighted

Punjab University's Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre, in collaboration with Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Islamabad, arranged a roundtable seminar on 'Journalism and Research in Religious Institutes: Present Situation and Future Strategy' here on Wednesday.
Dr Muhammad Ikram and former Dean Dr Zahoor Ahmad Azhar were the chief guests, while Advisor South Asian Studies Centre Dr Rafique Ahmad chaired the seminar.
Concluding the discussion, Dr Rafique Ahmad while emphasising the importance of religious institutions said that these must be upgraded so as to enable them to meet the present day challenges.
The civil society and government should take care of the administrative, financial and educational matters to strengthen the role of such institutions, he added.
Dr Mughees-ud-Din Shaikh, in his keynote address, gave an account of the types of religious journalism in practice at present. He stressed upon the need for simplifying the language of religious magazines to facilitate the readers who have less comprehension of Arabic and Persian languages. He said that bias publication of research articles should be avoided.
Abdur Rehman Madni spoke on tradition of research in Madaris, historical perspective and briefed the seminar on different phases of research in religious institutions of subcontinent and Pakistan.
Presenting his paper 'Contemporary Religious Journalism,' Dr Ahsan Akhtar Naz narrated the facts and figures about the present journalistic publications on religious subject, which have been increased to 120 during last two decades.
Zahid ur Rashidi shared his point of view on 'analytical study of research methods,' presently used in Madaris.
Most of the religious journals are being published on different subjects including ethics, belief, Islamic customs and traditions and common problems, but there is a lot of opposition in different schools of thought which must not be encouraged, he added.Dr Khalid Rehman from IPS, Dr Miskeen Ali Hijazi, Abdul Qayyum Qureshi, Javaid Iqbal, also spoke on the occasion.