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Annotation
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Relations between Russia and Pakistan have always been comprehensive. They were not limited only to
pragmatic state goals of a material nature, but embraced a wide range of spiritual life inherent in our peoples. In
the practice of international state relations, there are very rare cases of priority establishment of relations between
philosophers. But this is exactly what happened thanks to the initiative of Pakistan philosophers. Two months
before March agreement on the development of bilateral economic ties the Institute of Philosophy of the Acad‑
emy of Sciences of the USSR received an invitation to participate in the work of the Pakistan Congress of Philos‑
ophy (January 11–14, 1961, Karachi). The author of this article was fortunate to be one of the three members of
the delegation. Marietta Stepanyants has been a fellow of the main academic Center of research in philosophy
since 1959. Here she got her academic dissertations, received Ph.D., Professorship, created and chaired during 32
years the Center for Oriental Philosophies Studies. Now at the age 88 she continues her research and teaching as
the principal researcher of the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of sciences.
Prof. Marietta Stepanyants shares her personal experience of meeting Pakistani philosophers and intellec‑
tuals at the Eighth and Twelfth Philosophical Congresses (1965, Lahore), at the celebration of the 100th anniver‑
sary of the famous Lahore Oriental College, at international conferences, congresses and forums in Great Britain,
Greece, Egypt, Iran, Canada, At the same time, two persons are singled out: the founder of the Pakistan Con‑
gress of Philosophy, the creator of the world-famous encyclopedia of Islamic philosophy — Muhammad M. Sharif
and the son of Muhammad Iqbal Senator Javed Iqbal, who received a brilliant philosophical and legal education
(University of Cambridge), a member of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, a member of the Senate (Upper House
of Parliament of Pakistan).
A special place in the article is given to the poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, who was and remains
a “spiritual father” for Pakistanis. Marietta Stepanyants translated in Russian Alama Muhammad lectures “The
Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam” and widely commented them. She argues that the significance
of the project to reconstruct the religious thought of Islam allows to consider him the most Enlightened Muslim
thinker of the twentieth century, whose influence of ideas will continue and will increase in the transforming world
in general and the Muslim world, in particular.
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