12 December 2016•Update: 12 December 2016
By Yusuf Hatip
LAHORE
Turkey's top cleric Mehmet Gormez met Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday in the capital Islamabad, where he earlier spoke at a conference on the life of Prophet Muhammad.
He offered his greetings to Sharif and the Pakistani people for Prophet Muhammad's birthday, which is being celebrated in many countries across the Muslim world.
Sharif offered condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey for the deadly terror attacks in Istanbul that killed 44 and injured more than 150 others Saturday.
Prior to his meeting with Pakistani leader, Gormez delivered a speech at the International Seerat-un-Nabi conference at Allama Iqbal Open University.
Gormez said Prophet Muhammad stands at the center of the old and new world.
“He [the prophet] belongs to the old world in the sense of the source of religion he brought but in the context of the message of the religion, he belongs to the future world,” Gormez added.
“We cannot learn from the prophet by constantly going to the past, we should study the prophet for the future,” he said, quoting famed Pakistani Poet Muhammad Iqbal saying “Islam is a way, not a stop or a destination.”
During his tour of Lahore, Gormez also met Sharif's brother, the Punjab state Chief Minister Shabaz Sharif.
The unity of Muslim World
Gormez also underlined that Muslims had no alternative than to unite and solve problems together.
“Our shared characteristics are greater than our differences,” he said.
He pointed out that leaving a good future and livable world for the next generations was the most important duty of human beings.
In his speech, Gormez strongly condemned the Istanbul terror attacks, calling the attackers inhuman and saying murder would be punished in this world and the hereafter.
Gormez also paid a visit to the tomb of poet Muhammad Iqbal, considered the ideological forefather of Pakistan, and performed a special prayer for the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday at the iconic mosque of Badshahi.
