IPS Research Fellow Dr Ghulam Hussain Sufi delivered a talk on ‘Faith Conversions and Shah Latif’ at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad on June 7, 2022. The talk was attended by PhD students who had opted Shah Latif and interfaith harmony as the requirement for their final semester seminar.
The researcher apprised the students about the cutting-edge research being done on Shah Latif, and shed light on his own research work recently conducted at IPS on faith conversions.
The speaker also informed the students about the history of Sufism in Sindh, the way Shah Latif as an icon of Sufi Sindh emerged in the early 20th century, and was politicized by the Sindhi nationalists. He then connected Shah Latif’s iconography with the recent narrative of ‘forced conversion’, arguing that the claim of Sufi Sindhi contradicts the rhetoric of forced conversion as Sindhi Hindus and Muslims are living with peace and harmony. However, some exceptional cases for minority oppression are inevitable everywhere, based on which the blame cannot be put on the whole society.
He suggested students to take into account all sociological factors including global geopolitics, particularly the rising Islamophobia before concluding their research projects.
