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SEVERSON: It is very rare for the Aga Khan to grant interviews. We caught up with him in Toronto:

(speaking to the Aga Khan): You are a spiritual leader, a businessman, treated like a head of state. I think you were just with the prime minister yesterday. Which of those hats are most important to you?

AGA KHAN: The institutional hat, which is the hat I inherited from my grandfather.

SEVERSON: As a spiritual leader?

AGA KHAN: As the imam of the Ismaili community, by far.

SEVERSON: That is why the AKDN is at work in some of the poorest regions of the world, places, the Aga Khan says, that are ripe for violence and terrorism.

AGA KHAN: Not only does it come from poverty, but frankly in many areas it's predictable. The question is, when did that become explosive, and how do you stop it from becoming explosive?

SEVERSON: How do you?

AGA KHAN: Preempting it. Changing the basics of the quality of life and giving people, replacing despair by hope. People are driven by hope.

SEVERSON: And in his view, hope begins with education, one reason his network operates academies and schools for both boys and girls, like this one in Mombasa, [Kenya].

SEVERSON: The AKDN oversees projects ranging from a cardiac surgery and cancer center in Nairobi and a hydropower plant in Uganda. The Ismailis are renowned for their contribution to the arts and Islamic culture, like the new Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the first art museum in North America devoted to Islamic art and culture.

AGA KHAN: The empires which functioned best, you had intellectual pluralism, not only ethnic pluralism. You had intellectual pluralism. That is, the best qualified people in society, in medicine, in law, in space sciences, whatever it may be, they came together for the benefit of the community.

SEVERSON: The Aga Khan Trust for Culture creates jobs by restoring ancient holy places, like the Blue Mosque in Cairo and Humayun’s tomb in Delhi.

Aga Khan Award for Architecture Video: "Founded by His Highness the Aga Kahn in 1977, the award has established a reputation as one of the most prestigious and coveted prizes in its field..."

SEVERSON: The Aga Khan offers a million-dollar prize for revitalizing architecture. The AKDN helped transform the Al Azhar Park in Cairo from a 500-year-old garbage dump to an oasis of beauty. The Aga Khan says the ethics of his faith guides everything he does.

AGA KHAN: Islam says that we as Muslims have to leave the environment in a better condition than we found it, when we were born. In other words, Allah has entrusted to the human race the duty to improve, work with his creation. And that's why the Aga Khan Trust for Culture is called a Trust, and that's how the ethic of the faith comes into the way you work.

SEVERSON: Are you generally optimistic?

AGA KHAN: No, frankly. No. I would hope that we would see a greater tolerance and greater acceptance of the divisions in society, because I think we are seeing forms of polarization which are very, very unhealthy, indeed.

SEVERSON: That's why the Aga Khan, who is 78 this year, travels the globe, doing his best to alleviate poverty and practice tolerance.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly I'm Lucky Severson

Full TV program and transcript available on pbs.org link

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2015/07/31/aga-khan-ismaili-mu...