WEBVTT

00:00.000 --> 00:16.500
first of all thank you for coming and talking to me I'm so happy to be in Turkey it's my

00:16.500 --> 00:23.460
favorite country and sitting here on the bank of Bosporus in this great wonderful hotel it makes me

00:23.460 --> 00:30.480
it gives me this feeling of at home my name is Bashar Qureshi I am originally from Pakistan but I live

00:30.480 --> 00:38.400
in Denmark and I work with NGOs for the last 32 years working with Islamophobia anti-semitism

00:38.400 --> 00:47.400
discrimination racism all those issues which ethnic minorities both religious and ethnic are facing in

00:47.400 --> 00:54.360
European continent Jewish people and Christian people are people of the book in Quran this they

00:54.360 --> 00:59.520
are called elected up we can marry with them we can have business with them we can eat with them we can

00:59.520 --> 01:05.640
have beautiful relationship with them and we had it for thousands hundreds of years so what you are

01:05.640 --> 01:12.120
telling me is against Islam it is against Islamic teaching and it's again our own history because

01:12.120 --> 01:20.220
if you look at the Ottoman Empire they have been in Europe half of Europe under them and they they

01:20.220 --> 01:28.200
showed them most of the time beautiful way of ruling the countries and then we say no no no Islam in this

01:28.200 --> 01:34.680
if somebody insults Quran or insults Prophet we should kill him Islam does not allow that so I think we have

01:34.680 --> 01:44.340
to unify the Muslim communities and present a picture which actually tallies with what Islam teaches yes

01:44.340 --> 01:54.780
if there is another hadith from Prophet that to attain knowledge is every Muslims duty from cradle to the grave you

01:54.780 --> 02:02.580
should never stop educating yourself you should never stop learning new things and Muslims should be proud

02:02.580 --> 02:11.340
that they have a past where they have created amazing scientific development scientific discoveries but

02:11.340 --> 02:18.900
again as long as the Muslims who are thinking rationally and thinking scientifically they were developing all the

02:18.900 --> 02:27.960
time but no sooner this stopped and and started using culture and religion the aggregation came so my

02:27.960 --> 02:36.120
request to the Muslim brothers and sisters is go back to the scriptures go back to the knowledge of Quran

02:36.120 --> 02:44.160
go back what Islam teaches you so that first you become a better in son a better human being then you become

02:44.160 --> 02:49.920
a better husband or a wife you can become a better neighbor you can become a better sports person in

02:49.920 --> 02:58.680
every which way you will develop and this should be our aim 1960s there was a very nice a socio-economical

02:58.680 --> 03:05.640
political cooperation between Pakistan Turkey and Iran it was called regional cooperation development

03:05.640 --> 03:15.120
let's start there again look can you imagine that Pakistan Iran and Turkey get together not as a

03:15.120 --> 03:22.380
country but as a federation or lose federation you have oil you have atomic power you have all the

03:22.380 --> 03:30.840
industry in in in Turkey you have men huge manpower almost you know 400 million it will be just like

03:30.840 --> 03:38.160
European Union and then once you have made these three different countries together and then other

03:38.160 --> 03:43.620
countries can join it definitely immediately if because in Pakistan comes together other countries

03:43.620 --> 03:50.220
will follow exactly and why I'm saying that in European Union they started with two countries they

03:50.220 --> 03:55.900
started with France and Germany who after second world war were tired of killing each other so say

03:55.900 --> 04:05.040
let's sit down and compete against each other so they made the first agreement was about iron iron and

04:05.040 --> 04:11.400
coal coal and look where European Union why can't we look we we do we can do much better actually

04:11.400 --> 04:19.980
there's an economic union exactly Muslim countries control 70% of the world energy resources they have

04:19.980 --> 04:27.000
1.7 billion people they have scientists Pakistan have the fifth largest reservoir of scientists and

04:27.000 --> 04:34.920
engineers Turkey has huge reservoir of young people so let's start there this is this is my wish and I

04:34.920 --> 04:42.240
hope one day and Turkey should take and take a lead in that yeah I have requested yes thank you very

04:42.240 --> 04:46.140
very much it was a great pleasure and honor thank you thank you very much thank you for into thank you

