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I referred at the beginning of this speech to the dangers of polarisation in the world today, between rich and poor nations, between political philosophies and within faiths. These dangers are acerbated by recession. I hope it is only a passing phase.

One of the first and greatest research centres, the Bayt al-Hikmah established in Baghdad in 830, led Islam in translating philosophical and scientific works from Greek, Roman, Persian and Indian classics. By the art of translation, learning was assimilated from other civilizations.

The West has won the freedom to enjoy, and at times often slips into the licence of abusing, the pursuits of leisure and culture. They have won this freedom, not for a privileged few, but for the great mass of their people.

It has always been my firm belief that the efficient management of a hospital, a school or a housing estate is as important as it is to a business enterprise. The objective of efficient management in this casse, however, is not to make money but to spend what is available in the most effective manner.

More than ever before, world agencies for development are reaching consensus that it is investment in men and women, the ability to make every individual in society productive, which enables a country most rapidly to make economic progress.

a relatively small community, acting in accordance with the social conscience of Islam, can exercise an influence for the benefit of mankind out of proportion to its numbers for the reason that its members are able to pool their knowledge and to collaborate.

Above all, following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the ummah

It must never be said generations hence that in our greed for the material goods of the rich West we have forsaken our responsibilities to the poor, to the orphans, to the traveller, to the single woman.

our ability to communicate in several tongues sometimes impedes our expressing ourselves clearly in any one of them. If our command over several languages can erode our precision of expression, I wonder how much more quickly our eyes lose their ability to discern the integrity of a visual language.

The old adage that prevention is better than cure was never more true than today, with the cost of curing people who are already sick rising at a frightening pace all over the world.

I believe the Ismaili community and its Imamat's commitment to the brotherhood of man and the quality of his life can contribute to countering the dangerous polarisation of our world and of our times.

It is no exaggeration to say that the original Christian universities of Latin West, at Paris, Bologna and Oxford, indeed the whole European renaissance, received a vital influx of new knowledge from Islam -- an influx from which the later western colleges and universities, including those of North Africa, were to benefit in turn.

The day we no longer know how, nor have the time nor the faith, to bow in prayer to Allah because the human soul that He has told us is eternal, is no longer of sufficient importance to us to be worthy of an hour of our daily working, profit seeking time, will be a sunless day of despair.

Our history is firmly rooted, our culture evolving and our faith strong and permanent; surely these have an impact on our modern lives and sensibilities.

"Freedom of the Press" are four of the most commonly used and misused words in the English language.

Our purpose is to learn, to understand and to explain, to find the new paths that would also be the age-old ways; to identify, in everything surrounding us and in everything being created around us, the forms, the mental attitudes, the exact techniques and the hopes that, on one hand, enable us to define ourselves and, on the other hand, offer us models to be adopted elsewhere.

Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation.

If our historic buildings used red stone, tile and marble, must we really now only use concrete and glass? Must we abandon the remarkable wooden and stone carved trellis work that is so typical of our artistic heritage? And what of the fountains that have been so intimately connected with Muslim architecture at all times and in all parts of the world? Are we powerless to build a fountain as a decoration to our most imposing buildings. Is it really beyond our powers to revive traditional concepts of landscaping?

All cultures naturally influence each other to a greater or lesser degree; the strongest are those in which the dominant elements remain dominant and refuse to be overwhelmed by external forces. They become stronger still when they retain the ability to select, to absorb that which invigorates and enriches and to reject that which is inimicable.

I have worked to build many bridges between the West and the Third World... But in this field of communications, a corner stone of our hopes for world peace, I am afraid that what exists is not a bridge. It is a wall.