"Let us then study the duties of man, as the great majority interpret them, according to the verses of the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet.... The healthy human body is the temple in which the flame of the Holy Spirit burns, and thus it deserves the respect of scrupulous cleanliness and personal hygiene. Prayer is a daily necessity, a ...
Aftab Ahmad Khan: How would you comment on the notion popularised by Western critics that scientific and technological progress is incompatible with the practice of Islam? Aga Khan: I think that's one of the most offensive things that can be said about Islam and I take issue with it in every way. In the first place, to say that science in ...
"Meanwhile, the way we communicate with one another has been revolutionised. But more communication has not meant more cooperation. More information has also meant more mis-information: more superficial snapshots, more shards of stray information taken out of context. And it has also meant more wilful dis-information, not only differences of opinion, but distortions of fact. A wide-open Internet allows divisive information ...
"I shall talk today about encounters. Encounters. When two people meet. Or two particles. Or two cultures. In that crucial moment of interaction the results of an encounter are determined. In the simplest of encounters -- say, with two billiard balls -- the outcome is a predictable result of position, velocity and mass. But the encounters that interest me most are ...
Nicholas Tomalin: Could you explain the Muslim attitude to drink? Isn't that, perhaps, puritanical? Aga Khan: Our belief is that the thing which separates man from the animals is his power of thought. Anything that impedes this process is wrong. Therefore alcohol is forbidden. I have never touched alcohol. But this, to me, is not a puritan prohibition. I don't want ...
Rajiv Mehrotra: Your interests are diverse, I think many of us are familiar with your initiatives in development support, but you also breed thoroughbreds, you have interests in tourism -- a whole range of interests. Isn't that a sort of an unlikely profile for an Imam? Aga Khan: I think that may come from a non-Muslim perception rather than a Muslim ...
"I would like to speak initially about the logic behind the Aga Khan Academies programme -- to look at its philosophical underpinnings. For unless those foundations are sound, whatever we build will be inherently vulnerable. We are taking our time in laying those foundations. We are designing for the long-range future and we have thought long and hard about our goals ...
Pakistan Television: You have known the best of the Occident and the orient -- such has been your background, your education and upbringing. What have you discovered to be the best in the field of education? Aga Khan: I think in terms of, let us say, the philosophical environment in which an individual lives, there is no doubt that the faith ...
"Let me turn to another aspect of Islamic society: our intellectual elite. In the past, much of the dynamism of Muslim society was born from the leaders of the faith: the Imams, the Pirs and Mullahs. This identity between the leaders of the faith and the empire's intellectual elite was a continuous source of strength both to the faith and those ...
Do not give credence to gossip and slander without verifying it and do not repeat that of which you have no knowledge. O ye who believe! If an evil liver bring you tidings, verify it, lest ye smite some folk in ignorance and afterward repent of what ye did. (49:6) Why did they [the believers] not produce four witnesses? Since they ...
The Aga Khan explains that in Islam, the objective of poverty-alleviation programmes, and, more generally, all forms of generosity, is to help individuals enjoy the dignity of self-sufficiency and independence. "[Charity] is a word that we do not like. Islam has a very clear message about the different forms of generosity. There is that with regard to the poor, which takes ...
"Let me mention just five of the most important ways in which the School, we hope, will be truly distinctive.... "In the first place, the School will work on the newest frontiers of media technology, with state-of-the-art equipment and innovative pedagogies ... This does not mean that we will ignore old skills and values. Our core concern must always be the ...
"The real question that Islam asks an individual is not whether he is rich but 'If you have the resources, what are you doing with them?' And the answer lies not in what one owns but, according to the ethics of Islam, how one uses it. The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan (who died in July 2000) provided a worthy example. ...
Rajiv Mehrotra: Have you come up against any sort of, against any resistance or obstacles not just in India, but in your work, the fact that you represent a faith in which you are an Imam? Aga Khan: Oh I am sure there are visions of "who I am" and "what I do" which are not always favourable, but I think ...
"Much of the world's attention is periodically focused on the phenomenon of so-called failed states. But of the global threats that face us today, apart from nuclear war or HIV/AIDS, the most preoccupying is not failed states. It is the failure of democracy. The global picture at the beginning of the 21st century is a story of failed democracies in the ...
"The Institute of Islamic Civilisations in London will give expression to our University's Islamic character, in an international context. Its programmes are quite distinctive. IIC will create an index of published works on Islamic civilisations in various languages, write abstracts and translate them into the major scholarly languages, and distribute the abstracts globally on the World Wide Web. This unique facility, ...
"Usually when we comment on buildings, we criticise the architect and design team for the result. We seldom take into account the role the private patron, government body, or planning authority has played in the realisation of that project. Thus it is not only the design professional who must be encouraged, but also the other decision makers who must seek contemporary ...
Javed Jabber: As the unique international personality of our times, you have been able to visit different countries in the Third World. You are able to gain a special insight into different aspects of development that face the Third World. Of all the problems that confront us in Asia and Africa, such as medical care, nutrition, literacy, education, employment, would you ...
Don Cayo: You mentioned standing up for Canadian values, and I think certainly your own agency stands up for the values that are important to your religion. It strikes me that sometimes these conflict with local cultures and values. Take the position of women -- a lot of societies in various parts of the world have historically marginalised women. The development ...
"I would now like to shift to another area of great importance for higher education in the developing world. Here I refer to the rapid advances in communications and information technology of the last ten to fifteen years that have opened up the prospect of dramatically expanding international linkages and the reach of educational programmes in both spatial and temporal terms. ...
"Today in the Occident, the Muslim world is deeply misunderstood by most. The West knows little about its diversity, about the religion or the principles which unite it, about its brilliant past or its recent trajectory through history. The Muslim world is noted in the West, North America and Europe, more for the violence of certain minorities than for the peacefulness ...
Imam Jafar as-Sadiq commenting on the verse: 'Who hear advice and follow the best thereof,' (Q, 39:18) said: It is the person who hears the tradition and conveys it to others without tampering with it. -- Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (p) Usul al-Kafi, Book 2, Chapter 17, Tradition 1 Imam Jafar as-Sadiq was told by a narrator of tradition: May I elaborate ...
[Enabling Environments have] been a central theme of my Imamat; (2) that many developing countries of Africa and Asia could one day become countries of opportunity ... is precisely the objective that I have been pursuing during the past 50 years. (3) The [Enabling Environment] concept [grew] out of my impatience with overly simple myths about how development really works. The ...
"[W]hat we must seek and share is what I have called 'a cosmopolitan ethic,' a readiness to accept the complexity of human society. It is an ethic which balances rights and duties. It is an ethic for all peoples. It will not surprise you to have me say that such an ethic can grow with enormous power out of the spiritual ...
"Academic discussions among my servants are a means of enlivening the hearts provided their aim is to understand my commandments." -- Holy Prophet (p) Usul al Kafi, Book 2, Chapter 9, Tradition 6 "Get together and advise each other and hold discussions. Such discussions refine your hearts. Hearts become rusted like swords and their refinement lies in academic religious discussions." -- ...
"In a world where quality of life is increasingly measured in material terms there is risk that the essential value system of Islam will be eroded, or even threatened with disappearance. Political situations with a theological overlay are also causing disaffection or antagonism between communities of the same faith, and even more so amongst different faiths. "At the centre of this ...
A believer asked Prophet Muhammad: O Prophet of God, what is knowledge? The Prophet: Silence (refraining from unnecessary gossip). The Believer: Then what? The Prophet: To listen (to the learned). The Believer: Then what? The Prophet said: To memorize (what he has heard). The Believer: Then what? The Prophet: Act on it. The Believer: Then what? The Prophet: To disseminate it. ...
"A man may have performed prayers, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage and all other religious duties, but he will be rewarded only in proportion to the common sense, which he employed." -- Holy Prophet (p) Marmaduke Pickthall, 1927 Madras lecture on Islamic Culture. "The ink of scholar is more holy than the blood of martyr." -- Holy Prophet (p) Marmaduke Pickthall, 1927 Madras ...
"[I]f there has been violent reaction against the West in some of the Muslim countries, the reason is to be found in the attitude and behaviour of the Westerners, their ignorance and want of respect for the faith and culture of Islam, of which the reference to that faith in your leading article is a typical and usual example.... [I]f the ...
"God has not given to His servants anything better than the intelligence. The slumber of an intelligent person is better than the wakefulness of an ignorant one and the staying of a wise person at one place is better than the journeying of an ignorant one. God has not raised any Prophet or Apostle without perfecting his intelligence so that it ...
"The year that my father died, he was having remarkable success with the racing operation. As a young man who knew nothing, I found this success daunting. There were a large number of people who had devoted a great deal of time to this activity, people who had been very loyal to my father and my grandfather. My father only owned ...
"Although [the Aga Khan University] is new, it will draw inspiration from the great traditions of Islamic civilisation and learning to which Your Excellency has referred. At the height of this civilisation, academies of higher learning reached from Spain to India, from North Africa to Afghanistan. One of the first and greatest research centres, the Bayt al-Hikmah established in Baghdad in ...
"We have been working in Pakistan for many years and Pakistan, fortunately, like many other developing countries, is moving to what we call a merit-based educational system. This is good for the country. But we found that the children from Northern Areas were being increasingly marginalised in a merit-based educational system, because the quality of teaching throughout the Northern Areas was ...
Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation: Your Highness, at the end of this conversation, if we want to summarise your entire mission on earth, how can you say it in two words? First, are you preaching your religion where you are? Or you do not have a precise goal concerning that religious mission? Aga Khan: But of course! Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation: You do preach ...
"I accept the "United We Care" Award with much gratitude, and still greater humility. The credit for it belongs to many. I am fortunate to lead an international community with a strong social conscience. Bridging North and South, East and West, the Ismailis have a long tradition of philanthropy, self-reliance and voluntary service. Wherever they live, they faithfully abide by the ...
Don Cayo: When I look at the Western perceptions of freedom, which we value highly, I sometimes think we interpret it as the whole world should be free to be like us. Is that how we are seen from the other perspectives? Aga Khan: I think that's certainly one aspect -- the feeling that the societies of the industrialised world are ...
The term "Enabling Environment" has two implications which I would underscore today. First, it reminds us that the conditions which enable progress can be extremely complex, that an entire "environment" of interacting forces must come together if development is truly to take root -- and to take off. Second -- the term recognises that even the right environment is still only ...
"I am also concerned there is still too little attention being paid to design for communities to protect residents from the effects of earthquakes, many of them in remote rural areas. Two million people died as a result of earthquakes in the last century and 100 million were severely affected. There are vast populations that live in seismic-sensitive high-mountain areas where ...
"I would ... say that the inability of human society to recognise pluralism as a fundamental value constitutes a real handicap for its development and a serious danger for our future. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of factors appear to have been common and significant ingredients, if not the primary cause, of many of the conflicts we ...
"Lo! men who surrender unto Allah, and women who surrender, and men who believe and women who believe, and men who obey and women who obey, and men who speak the truth and women who speak the truth, and men who persevere (in righteousness) and women who persevere, and men who are humble and women who are humble, and men who ...
