Lahore: A Pakistani university will celebrate ‘Sisters’ Day’ February 14 to promote ‘Islamic traditions’, according to the vice-chancellor Zafar Iqbal Randhawa of the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad. Female students can be gifted scarves and Abayahs (clothes) as decided by the VC, ‘Dawn News TV’ reported.
February 14 is celebrated as Valentine’s Day across the world. On the day, people express their love and affection with greetings and gifts.
While speaking to ‘Dawn News TV’, Randhawa however was apprehensive if his suggestion to celebrate Sisters’ Day ‘would click or not’. He said that although some Muslims have turned Valentine’s Day into a threat, ‘my thinking is that if there is a threat, convert it into an opportunity’.
“Women are at a very high rank for us. Today the era of gender empowerment is here, Western thinking is being promoted. But the best gender empowerment and division of work is in our religion and culture,” the VC said.
He claimed that celebrating Sisters’ Day would allow ‘a soft image to develop’, and that people will realise that this is how much sisters are loved in Pakistan. “Is there a love greater than that between brother and sister? It is even greater than the love between husband and wife,” Randhawa asserted.
Valentine’s Day has been a controversial subject in Muslim-majority Pakistan for years, with some celebrating and others protesting against it.
The Islamabad High Court in 2017 and 2018 had ‘banned’ all Valentine’s Day celebrations, and print and electronic media were warned to ‘stop all Valentine’s Day promotions immediately’.
