Literary festival draws crowds

The 11th edition of the Faisalabad Literary Festival (FLF) attracted large audiences eager to engage in high-quality debates and dialogues.

The two-day event, hosted at the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Auditorium under the auspices of the Lyallpur Literary Council (LTC), featured renowned literary figures, scholars, and artists from across Pakistan.

Musaddaq Zulqarnain, Patron-in-Chief of the LTC, welcomed a host of literary giants to the festival and announced several ambitious initiatives in his keynote address.

He revealed plans to digitise and catalogue the collections of Faisalabad's coronation and municipal libraries, in collaboration with Canada's University of British Columbia.

The effort aims to preserve and promote art, culture, and history. Zulqarnain also announced the inaugural Punjabi Suleikh Festival, scheduled for February 2025, dedicated to celebrating Punjabi culture and folklore.

Renowned scholar and playwright Asghar Nadeem Sayyid, delivering the inaugural address, lauded the literary enthusiasm of the people of Sandal Bar, who attended the festival in large numbers despite economic hardships.

He praised their resilience as inheritors of the values espoused by poets and scholars like Khawaja Moeen-ud-Din Chishti, Bulleh Shah, Hazrat Sultan Bahu, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, and Waris Shah, whose messages of tolerance and inclusivity continue to inspire.

Sayyid also condemned Israeli actions against Palestinian civilians, calling on global forums to end the violence.

He warned of the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, which he argued risks eroding local wisdom and critical thinking. Encouraging optimism, he urged scholars to counter these threats and uphold the intellectual and cultural heritage of the region.

Scholars highlighted the misuse of religion by vested interests to divide natural neighbourhoods, underscoring the resilience of communities that resisted colonial and post-colonial adversities.