Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters

True regime change occurs when liberty is guaranteed by a people free to create or support institutions of their own choosing. True regime change occurs when that strength and that freedom are defined by the depth, breadth and quality of education shared across the society in question.

His Highness the Aga Khan is a tireless humanist whose views and beliefs are employed for the service of people and in the true expression of humanity. In pursuit of his vision, His Highness has drawn upon the views and thoughts of the great scholar and poet of Afghanistan, Nasir Khosraw Balkhi, as much as he has been influenced by the humanist philosophers of Europe

Certainly one of the lessons we have learned in recent years is that the world of Islam and the Western world need to work together much more effectively at building mutual understanding – especially as these cultures interact and intermingle more actively. We hope that this exhibition - and the museum which it anticipates - will contribute to a better Western understanding of the peoples of Islam: in all of their religious, ethnic, linguistic and social diversity.

Certainly one of the lessons we have learned in recent years is that the world of Islam and the Western world need to work together much more effectively at building mutual understanding – especially as these cultures interact and intermingle more actively. We hope that this exhibition - and the museum which it anticipates - will contribute to a better Western understanding of the peoples of Islam: in all of their religious, ethnic, linguistic and social diversity.

The risk is that when hope fades, extremist ideologies feed on the despair that is born from limitless poverty. Thus, a recent UN Development Programme study in Latin America reports that a majority of people surveyed would support authoritarian rule if it delivered economic progress.

My hope is that society as a whole will not only accept the fact of its plurality, but, as a consequence, will undertake, as a solemn responsibility, to preserve and enhance it as one of its fundamental values, and an inescapable condition for world peace and further human development.

I would go even further and 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 have witnessed. Perhaps the most common of these ingredients has been the failure of those involved to recognise the fact that human society is essentially pluralist

In the troubled times in which we live, it is important to remember, and honour, a vision of a pluralistic society. Tolerance, openness and understanding towards other peoples' cultures, social structures, values and faiths are now essential to the very survival of an interdependent world. Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development, it is vital to our existence.

The Fatimids, after all, prided themselves on a broadly inclusive approach to knowledge. What they founded here would become a truly global city – to use contemporary parlance. Pluralism was indeed the hallmark of a Golden Age of the City Victorious 1000 years ago. I am happy that I can feel in this time also, like during the time of my predecessors, that there is true pluralist consensus surrounding our endeavours – all of us working together - to revive the Islamic city.

In our excavations and our historical investigations, I constantly have been reminded that we were touching the very foundations of my ancestors, the Fatimids, and the pluralistic history and intellectual profile of this city and this country to which they contributed so profoundly. I am very humbled by the opportunity to return to Cairo, founded over a thousand years ago by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Muiz, to build on that history.

In the years ahead, should we not expect a student at an IB school in Atlanta to know as much about Jomo Kenyatta or Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a student in Mombasa or Lahore knows about Atlanta's great son, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.? Should a Bangladeshi IB student reading the poems of Tagore at the Aga Khan Academy in Dhaka not also encounter the works of other Nobel Laureates in Literature such as the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk or America's William Faulkner or Toni Morrison?

But in an age of accelerating change, when even the most sophisticated skills are quickly outdated, we will find many allies in the developing world who are coming to understand that the most important skill anyone can learn is the ability to go on learning.

The temptation to inculcate rather than to educate is understandably strong among long frustrated populations. In many such places, public emotions fluctuate between bitter impatience and indifferent skepticism - and neither impatience nor indifference are favorable atmospheres for encouraging reasoned thought.

But those days of abundance are long gone… We are no longer certain all those keystone and flagship species are doing alright. Forests and oceans, glaciers and migration routes are being cut down, dying, melting, and being disjointed. Suffering from overexploitation, warming, pollution, lack of protection and neglect. Polar bears are as good as gone now. Tigers, too. African Elephants have 10 years left if poaching continues at the present rate – 36 thousand elephants a year or one killed every 15 minutes.

The term "Enabling Environment" reminds us that the full context of interacting forces must be brought together if sustainable development is to be achieved. The term also recognizes that even the right environment is still only an enabling condition -- not a sufficient one. In the end, human progress must grow out of human inspiration and endeavour.

The term "Enabling Environment" reminds us that the full context of interacting forces must be brought together if sustainable development is to be achieved. The term also recognizes that even the right environment is still only an enabling condition -- not a sufficient one. In the end, human progress must grow out of human inspiration and endeavour.

The term "Enabling Environment" reminds us that the full context of interacting forces must be brought together if sustainable development is to be achieved. The term also recognizes that even the right environment is still only an enabling condition -- not a sufficient one. In the end, human progress must grow out of human inspiration and endeavour.

What we face in Central Asia is a race against frustration -- which means a race against time and mediocrity. Alternative scenarios, often utopian and extremist, beckon on every hand -- and people will not be patient with pragmatic scenarios unless the work in practice is effective. The EU rightly emphasizes the need for greater “continuity” in these efforts -- so that each experience, successful or unsuccessful, becomes a building block for the future.

I believe we must recognize the difference between the circumstances of today’s refugees and asylum-seekers and those which existed when the 1951 Refugee Convention was drawn up. While the 1951 Convention was primarily attuned to the situation of refugees who came from “classical persecution situations”, today’s refugees and asylum-seekers are leaving their countries largely to avoid situations of danger to their lives or freedom emanating from wars and other violent conflicts.