When people conform, they conform to what others like and to others' attitudes.
The assistant professor of the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) became the first South Asian woman to receive such an award. She was awarded for her contribution towards education, peace, and ideas for humanity as a team leader.
Fatima thinks that inculcation of tolerant and peaceful narrative in education is inevitable for a harmonised society and believes that the state needs to prioritise such narratives.
Fatima has been serving the IIUI as assistant professor for six years. She has earlier served the government sector for 15 years. She reckons that she is ‘tailor-made’ for her job in higher education.
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The recipient of the award completed her MS and PhD in Political Economy from Germany while she was in the government sector.
“I was told I am a teacher and wasting time outside the ambit,” she says while sharing her story.
The award is for working on humanity, ideas for education other than curriculum and teaching.
Fatima was also invited to White House in 2015 for interfaith harmony huddle among 50 professors from around the world when Barrack Obama was the US president.
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“Our institutions in general and educational institution particularly are working without clarity of purpose as how to live together with peace and harmony,” she says. “For me a successful innovational idea can simply be an intervention that is new to a particular context of society or education system rather than something that has never been thought of before.”
The assistant professor believes that curriculum reforms should emphasise upon knowledge, which is based on understanding and respect for the culture and religion of others at the national and global level.
“We should never forget that we cannot live in isolation… we are global citizens and can’t live without international dimension of our education system,” she insists.
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She remarks that in view of religious and cultural differences, every society may decide which approach to ethical education best suits its cultural context.
Fatima suggests that interfaith studies should be essential for introduction at the university level to examine the multiple dimensions of how individuals and groups who orient around religion differently interact with one another.
“For me an interfaith leader is someone with the framework, knowledge base and skill-set needed to help individuals and communities,” she says, adding that a faith leader is the one who orients around religion differently in civil society and politics to work with diversity for pluralistic society.
Fatima is also the author of two books and several research papers and has been the chairperson of the IIUI’s International Relations department. However, she considers working without bearing the burden of top positions as it makes her feel better.
About the opportunities and possibilities of such society in Pakistan, she says steps like renaming the ‘religious affairs ministry’ with the addition of ‘inter-faith harmony’ show its willingness to take the minorities in the immediate circle of inclusiveness. “I think we can move at a faster pace if state prioritises such narratives,” she maintains.
Fatima reinforces her earlier point that it is a must to develop a curriculum for interfaith harmony. Her idea on interfaith and other social harmony elements stem from religious diversity and world politics and that all boils down to the Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations coined two decades ago.
She believes the takeaway for the world from such idea is that societies need to counter argument which can be developed through ‘alliance of civilization’ rather than the other way round.
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