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

Your Excellency President Rakhmanov
Distinguished Guests
Dear Friends

Today's gathering is a remarkable event. It brings together people from the many parts of Tajikistan, a country that, though small, has a rich and challenging diversity. It brings together representatives of a variety of neighboring and distant countries that wish well to the people of Tajikistan. It brings together religious and secular leaders deeply concerned with the future of Tajikistan’s people.

Your Excellency the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh
Honorable Ministers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies And Gentlemen

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Let me begin by thanking all of you for honoring us by joining in this celebration – at this truly magnificent site. We are most deeply grateful to all who helped to make this site available to our Academy program. Your generosity will be a continuing inspiration to us all.

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellency President Rahmon

Your Excellency President Japarov

Honourable Ministers

Honourable Governors

Chairman Dr Shamsh Kassim-Lakha and Members of the Board of Trustees

Rector, Deans, Faculty and Staff of the University

Parents, supporters, and distinguished guests and Graduates

Honourable Ummy Mwalimu, Honourable Minister of Health of the United Republic of Tanzania,

Ms Stephanie Mouen, Country Director, Agence Française de Développement,

President and Vice Chancellor of AKU and fellow members of AKU Board of Trustees,

Distinguished Guests, Ladies, Gentlemen and Friends,

Jambo and Karibu and Ramadan Kareem

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of His Highness the Aga Khan, I thank the Governments of Germany, Qatar, the United Kingdom, as well as the United Nations, for convening this meeting at a time when so many Afghans are in peril.

Partings are sad, and all the more so when they separate people with a common bond and a united interest. In this particular case, however, I think we can say a revoir, or “till we meet again,” rather than goodbye. I say this because I believe our commitment to the problem of architecture for Muslims is such that our path must cross again.

You have said, Mr. President, some very kind words about my late Grandfather, my late Father and myself. My Grandfather was a most gifted person, and amongst his many qualities, one of them had always particularly impressed me. While the past was a book which he had read and re-read many times, the future was just one more literary work of art into which he used to pour himself with deep thought and concentration. Innumerable people since his death have told me how he used to read in the future, and this certainly was one of his very great strengths.

Extract of speech by Hazar Imam during the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Prince Aly Boys Academy in Karachi, Pakistan:

Let Me say to begin with, how proud I have been to visit the Girls' Academy and to see that what had been my hope and prayer four years ago has actually been realized. Not only is the Academy in a magnificent state of upkeep, but the children look very happy indeed.

Our Chief Guest Mr Peter Kalmus, Climate Scientist, University of California, Los Angeles;
Our Guest of Honour Dr Peter Mathuki, Secretary General of the East African Community;
Chairman Zakir Mahmood and members of the AKU Board of Trustees;
Chairman Moyez Alibhai and members of the AKU Kenya University Council;
President and Vice Chancellor Sulaiman Shahabuddin;
Provosts, deans, faculty, and staff;
Generous donors and friends of AKU around the world;
Parents and family members;
Distinguished guests;
And most importantly, our graduands:

Your Highness Prince Aga Khan, the Provincial Commissioner for Nyanza, Mr. Francis Cherogony, Mrs. Cherogony, The Provincial Commissioner for Western Province, Mr. Nashon Ngugi, Mrs. Ngugi, Members of the Parliament, Justice Scriven, Mrs. Scriven, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen and your Worship.

The assembly to his mind represented all that was best in the Muslims of India. It expressed that awakening sense of their
fallen position after a glorious past; it expressed dissatisfaction with their present intellectual, moral and social position; and it expressed the longing desire to regain the intellectual freedom which Muslims enjoyed during the first two centuries of their era. Pessimism was not the force, said the Aga Khan, that had drawn them there that day. Pessimism in the Muslim world was nothing new:

HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURE

It is many years since I last visited the historic island of Zanzibar, whose name alights all that is romantic in the imagination. It is with eagerness and gratitude that we will enter, even if only for a few days, into the culture and the historic buildings of Tanzania and Zanzibar to learn from them and to equip ourselves for our debate.

It has been for all of us a very challenging experience to come to an island with such a multiplicity of history and to be able to listen to the problems of building in the developing world and how they are dealt with.

Mr President
Ladies and Gentlemen

Shortly after the announcement of our museum in Toronto, the aim of which is to present Islamic art in all its beauty and diversity, I had the immense pleasure of receiving Henri Loyrette’s invitation to stage an exhibition here at the Louvre.

Your Excellency President Guebuza
Your Excellency Madam First Lady
Your Excellency the Prime Minister
Honourable Mayor of Maputo
Honourable Governor of Maputo
Honourable Ministers
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am pleased to express, Mr. President, to you and your guests, and to the people of this country, my profound gratitude for the extraordinary warmth of your welcome.

Your Excellency Vice President Professor Gilbert Bukenya,
The Right Honourable Speaker,
The Right Honourable Prime Minister,
Your Worship the Mayor,
Honourable Ministers,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,

It is a very great joy for me to be here today, and I am most grateful to the Vice President - and all of you - for joining us. This is indeed a special celebration - in a truly magnificent setting.

Chairman
President
Secretary General
Ministers for Foreign Affairs
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

I would like to begin by thanking President Sarkozy and his government for having hosted this conference at such a crucial moment. Much has already been done in Afghanistan over the last six years, but there are major challenges nonetheless to be picked up.

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellencies Foreign Minister Steinmeier, Dr. Belka
and Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner,
State Secretary Erler,
Your Excellencies Ministers from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Adjournment of the Session Speech to the League of Nations

Ladies and gentlemen,

Your work for the time being is at an end. But I have still a duty to perform.

I assumed office as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at the beginning of this year. One of the first tasks to which I had to turn my attention was the problem faced by European governments with regard to the increased number of refugees and asylum-seekers moving into European States. One aspect of this phenomenon has been the fact that, in recent years, the majority of asylum-seekers entering Europe are from non-European countries far away from the region.