Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 28 October 2011 - On October 20, 2011, over 20,000 people affiliated with AKDN institutions joined millions of other participants in the Great ShakeOut campaign, an annual earthquake drill designed to educate people and organizations on how to prepare and protect themselves at work, school and community centres during an earthquake. The AKDN operates in some of the most ...
Los Angeles, USA, 27 October 2011 - His Highness the Aga Khan, Chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), today received the 2011 Urban Land Institute's (ULI) J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development at the ULI's Annual Fall Meeting and Urban Land Expo in Los Angeles. The ULI J.C. Nichols Prize recognizes an individual, or a person representing ...
Mildred F. Schmertz: You founded the Award twenty years ago, and have sustained it without interruption right up to now. In today's architectural world, new ideas and agendas often have a very short life. At the beginning some observers thought that at best, your architectural award programme would last about six years. Instead, in two decades it has become and remained ...
By Ali Mohammad Rajput Muhammad the prophet of Islam died in Medina on 13th Rabi al-Awwal, 11 AH (8th June 632 CE) after completing his mission successfully as an Apostle and a Law giver. The Muslim majority believed that the Prophet did not leave any clear instructions as to who was to succeed him as the spiritual and political leader of ...
25 October 2011 - "The Arts of Darb al Ahmar", a catalogue showcasing the unique arts of Egyptian craftspeople who work in the district of Darb al-Ahmar, at the heart of Historic Cairo, is now available. The designers and producers featured in the catalogue received support from the First MicroFinance Foundation in Egypt, either through loans or business support services. The ...
"Faith rests on four pillars: patience, certitude, justice, and struggle. "Patience, furthermore, is based on four disciplines: yearning, apprehension, abstinence, and expectation. So one who yearns for Paradise forgets desires, and one who is on guard against Hellfire turns aside from forbidden things. One who is abstinent in this world thinks lightly of misfortunes, and one who expects death hastens to ...
"It is scarcely necessary to say that under my dictatorship compulsory education would be world-wide and kept up till, say, eighteen or twenty years of age. I should give to education a wider meaning than that which it now has in the public mind. The system would include teaching on health, on the laws of sex and parenthood, and on art ...
Tajikistan -- Dushanbe, 22 October 2011 - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Ismaili Centre, Dushanbe today, where she held a town hall meeting to help promote the US-sponsored New Silk Road Initiative. Several hundred people attended the gathering, including various members of Tajikistan's civil society, local and international development organisations, media outlets, representatives of the Aga Khan Development ...
Dushanbe, 22 October 2011 - Speaking at a meeting called the "Town Hall with Women, Youth, and Civil Society", U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton thanked the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) for arranging for the use of the Ismaili Centre for the forum and remarked that the Network was "working so hard to create opportunities for the Tajik people". ...
"I told our [Karachi hospital] architect, who is American and who has specialised in hospital design, that his idiom should reflect the spirit of Islam. How was this to be done? I did not want him to succumb, through nostalgia, to mimicry of the past, adding minarets and domes to his renderings -- the sort of bogus orientalism that has produced ...
United Kingdom -- The Institute of Ismaili Studies will hold a live webcast of the 2011 Graduation for the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities on Saturday, 22 October 2011 at 2:00 PM (London time). Professor David Ford of the University of Cambridge will deliver the Commencement Address. About the Graduate Programme The Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities ...
Horses In Training draft features winners from high-class families. The Aga Khan Studs send a 19-strong consignment of colts and geldings to the forthcoming Goffs Sale of horses in training on 28th October, including a half-brother to champion racehorse Sinndar. All aged either two or three years old, they include both winners and untried youngsters, rich in potential for both the ...
"Against every deviation from or innovation in the authentic framework of Islam which spreads after my demise, intended to weaken the faith, a defender from my descendants will rise to the occasion who will be entrusted to defend the original values of religion. He will speak on behalf of the weak. Therefore, all of you who have eyes be careful and ...
Global -- Nairobi, 19 October 2011 -- With 2011 designated the International Year of Forests by the United Nations, the Aga Khan Development Network and Lions Clubs International committed to plant 1.5 million trees in Kenya by June 2012. The pledge was made at a tree planting ceremony in Nairobi City Park attended by the Honourable Noah Wekesa, Minister for Forestry ...
Nairobi, Kenya, 19 October 2011 - The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and Lions Clubs International today committed to planting 1.5 million trees in Kenya by June 2012. The United Nations has declared 2011 the International Year of Forests. The pledge was made at a tree planting ceremony in Nairobi City Park attended by Hon. Noah Wekesa, Minister for Forestry and ...
Nairobi, Kenya, 19 October 2011 - During the United Nations' International Year of Forests, AKDN and Lions Clubs International are teaming up to plant 1.5 million trees in Kenya (by June 2012). The pledge was made at a tree planting ceremony in Nairobi City Park attended by Hon. Noah Wekesa, Minister for Forestry and Wildlife, Lions Clubs International President Wing-Kun Tam ...
By Kamaluddin Ali Muhammad Almighty Allah says in the Holy Qur'an: "He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward; and He is Knower of all things." (Holy Qur'an, 57:3) This ayat mentions four attributes of Allah. In it 'the First' and 'the Last' are mutually opposites and so are 'the Manifest' or 'Outward' and the 'Hidden' ...
Global -- On Thursday, 20 October, more than 100 000 Aga Khan Development Network staff and members of the Jamat in locations around the world will DROP to their hands and knees, take COVER and HOLD ON. Together with more than 7.9 million other people around the world, they will be taking part in ShakeOut - a drill that teaches people ...
Son of Dalakhani dominates Prix du Conseil de Paris from the front. Alain de Royer Dupré's talented DALAKHANI colt VADAMAR picked up a well-deserved Group victory on Sunday at Longchamp when lifting the Gr 2 Prix du Conseil de Paris in a brave front-running performance. Traditionally considered as a consolation prize for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, this Group 2 ...
"A believer approached Imam Zainul Abideen (p) and asked certain questions. The Imam answered every question. The believer came again and asked similar questions. The Imam then said: 'It is written in the Injeel (Bible): "Do not seek knowledge of what you do not know until you have acted on what you have already learnt, because the knowledge which is not ...
"Once Hadrat Ali took Kumail ibn Ziyad to a graveyard; when it was deserted, he heaved a deep sigh and said, 'Kumail, these hearts are containers, and the best of them are the most heedful of them. So remember what I am going to tell you. There are three kinds of people. One is the learned one who is godly, another ...
Healthy Hints Use the leanest meat you can afford -- this will help to cut the total fat and saturated fats. Keep the skin on the potatoes for added fibre, or use 200 grams of peas instead. The spices and lemon juice add flavour, which helps you to use less salt. 3 tbsp olive oil 2 medium onion, finely chopped 2 ...
Times of India: Architecture in the Muslim world is both enriched by the past and in some ways burdened by it. A bit like being the child of a famous parent. Aga Khan: The past cannot be repeated. By copying it, it proves that one cannot do better. By repeating the past, by designing the same thing is not the solution. ...
Afghanistan -- Sparks Academy in Kabul is a catalyst for community development and learning opportunities for people of all ages. When Tahmina Shayan began volunteering with a community-based early childhood development programme of the Ismaili Council for Afghanistan that was supported by the school, she discovered new opportunities for herself and an avenue to make a difference in the lives of ...
Tanzania -- Lifelong educator Roshan Hemani has been hard at work on the site of the new campus of the Aga Khan University in Arusha. But instead of moulding young minds she is re-forming the landscape - Hemani and a team of gardeners are on a mission to plant 150 000 trees in the area. And the plant nursery she has ...
"In the past I had a brother in God: the insignificance of the world in his eyes made him great in my eyes. He was not ruled by his stomach, he did not wish for what he did not have, and he did not seek more of what he did have. He used to keep silent much of the time, and ...
"There is one last topic about which I would like to say a few words. Building capacity for moral reasoning and moral judgement is a goal that appears in the foundation documents of many of the world's oldest and most prestigious universities. For a number of reasons, I worry that insufficient attention is being paid to the development of these important ...
By Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din (1909-2005), also known as Martin Lings By proof, I do not mean logical proof, but a fact which establishes a state of certainty in the soul. The facts which will be mentioned here may not all have occurred to everyone who is present as proofs of Islam. But they are all known, I think, to each ...
"God does not approve the action of any one without his insight and mere insight means nothing without action. Insight leads a person to proper action. Insight means nothing without proper action. Lo, the conviction of one interacts with the conviction of the other." -- Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (p) Usul al-Kafi, Book 2, Chapter 12, Tradition 2 "Knowledge goes with action. ...
News story -- Dr Nuha al-Shaar, a Research Associate in the Institute's Qur'anic Studies Unit, presented a paper at the 25th Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants (UEAI), held at the Università di Napoli "l'Orientale" in Naples from 8-12 September, 2010. Her study focused on the development of ethical discourse, especially the concept of birr (virtue), in selected second ...
This week's selection is His Highness the Aga Khan's 2005 Paris Match interview, his fourth with the magazine. In the interview, the Aga Khan extensively discusses the Imamat covering his role as Imam, Imamat resources and his involvement in saving the Prince de Condé's Chantilly estate. Click for this NanoWisdoms' Suggested Reading: POSSIBLY RELATED READINGS (GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY) ...
News story -- Dr Najam Abbas, of the Central Asian Studies Unit at the IIS, presented a paper at an interdisciplinary conference, entitled Travel in the Nineteenth Century: Narratives, Histories and Collections, organised by the University of Lincoln, UK. Scholars from across Europe, North America and Africa were in attendance. Dr Abbas' paper, entitled Analysing Accounts of British Explorers Visiting North Western ...
"Whoever acts on the basis of faulty conclusions (in religious matters) is doomed and brings others to their doom and whoever issues a prescript (an edict) without any knowledge of the abrogated verses (of the Noble Quran) and of those verses that have abrogated them and without any knowledge of those verses which are precise in meaning and of (those that ...
Article adapted from Ahlul'l-Kitab* by Alwaez Sadruddin Fattoum Ahlul-Kitab, 'the people of the Book', are two Arabic words Ahl and Kitab put together. Ahl by itself means relative, folk, family, kin, kinsfolk, wife, people, members, followers, adherents, etc. Ahl with these meanings is mentioned thirty-one times in the Holy Qur'an, viz. Ahlul'l-Qura, 'the people of the villages'; Ahlul'l Nar, 'people of ...
"If people knew the worth of acquiring knowledge, they would have done so even at the cost of a bleeding heart and by diving in stormy waves. Verily, God, the Glorious and the Elevated One, revealed to Prophet Daniyal (Daniel) (p): 'The most detestable of My servants is the ignorant one, who underrates the learned men and ceases to follow their ...
"My words are the words of my father and the words of my father are the words of my grandfather, and the words of my grandfather are the words of my great-grandfathers, Imam al-Hasan (p) and Imam al-Husayn (p), and their words are the words of Imam Ali (p), and the words of Imam Ali are the words of Prophet Muhammad ...
Rajsaman lifts Longchamp Gr 2, while Mourayan secures ticket for Melbourne Cup with Listed win. RAJSAMAN and MOURAYAN were both in the winners' enclosure over the weekend for new connections, advertising once again the quality of Aga Khan Studs bloodstock offered for public or private sale. The victories came on the same weekend as three further graduates of the breeding operation ...
Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, 5 October 2011 - The Kyrgyz Küüs: Analysis, Thoughts, and Opinions, Volumes I and II (Kïrgïz küülörü: Iliktöölör, oylor, pikirler, 1-2 kitep) published by the University of Central Asia, was launched yesterday evening at Bishkek's Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. The launch brought together over 300 prominent representatives of the academic and cultural community, Government officials and Parliamentarians, ...
"In this seminar, the Award strives to look to the fountainhead of inspiration on which Muslims and non-Muslims draw to create the spaces and buildings we admire. What aspects of the social or religious backgrounds transpire into their creation? Is it their interpretation of their faith? Is it the ethic of their faith? Is it the rules of social conduct of ...
