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

Your Excellency,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Mr President, Ministers, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to welcome you here this evening and to be able to reciprocate the generous and warm hospitality which you, Mr President, extended yesterday; I would also like to express my appreciation for the welcome given to us by CCM and Government Leaders and officials since our arrival. Both my wife, Begum Salimah and my brother, Prince Amyn, join me in these sentiments.

A little more than a year ago, the Sixth Seminar organised by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture met in China -- first in Peking, where experts from throughout the world talked about rural architecture and such important questions as the role of the experts, financial and otherwise, in the creation of rural living environments suitable for the men and women there who produce the raw materials that are essential to our community life -- and then in Urumqi, Turfan, Kashgar, cities bearing witness to the thrust of Islam eastwards.

Your Excellency The President, Your Excellency the Vice-President, Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is with great pleasure that I rise to welcome His Excellency President Daniel arap Moi this evening and to have the opportunity of returning his kind hospitality.

Mr Talbot, Ladies and Gentlemen, honoured guests and members of the Asia Society

By the Islamic calendar we will in just a few months enter the 1400th year of our faith. In the Christian accounting of time, we stand on the brink of the 21st century. It seems fitting to reflect, to consider what Islam has been and what it is to become in this new age. It is a time to speak about hazards and about visions.

Mr Chairman, Your Excellencies, Commissioners of the Corporation, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am proud indeed to be your guest today and to be the honoured recipient of the key to the city of Dacca. Since I last visited Dacca nearly eight years ago, your city has visibly grown in stature, in beauty and in cleanliness. I congratulate the Municipal Authorities for the work they are doing and I would like to express my particular thanks to them and to the Police for making it possible to travel so easily to the outskirts of the city and through the busiest streets.

May I thank you first for the honour you have done Me in inviting My wife and Myself to this luncheon and asking Me to speak on a subject which is of great concern to us all. I must say, after such a plentiful luncheon, it is somewhat an arduous task but we are all used to it in the Jute Industry. I am particularly grateful for the generous references you have made to the work of My father and My grandfather for the cause of Pakistan.

Thank you President Vest for your very generous words of introduction and thank you all for the very warm welcome. It is an honour to be invited to address such a distinguished assemblage of educators. If IQ could be converted into kilowatts, I have no doubt that the quantum massed here tonight would meet the world's energy requirements for at least a decade.

I would wish to begin my closing remarks by first of all expressing my sincere thanks and deep feeling of gratitude on behalf of everyone connected to the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and from myself to the President of the Republic of Syria and to the Prime Minister and his Government for the most generous, thoughtful and constructive way in which they have enabled the Aga Khan Award for Architecture to hold its prize-giving ceremony and related events here in Aleppo.

Mr. Chairman,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Madam Prime Minister,
Your Excellencies,
Your Worship the Mayor,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a very great pleasure for us to welcome you, Madam Prime Minister, and so distinguished a gathering for a ceremony which is a most significant one for the Ismaili community: significant because this is the first cultural and religious centre in the Western world to have been built specifically for the community's requirements.

I would like to begin by expressing the Award’s gratitude to His Majesty the King and the Government of Morocco for having welcomed the Award to have its third Prize giving Ceremony here in Marrakech. I would also like to thank most warmly the Cabinet Ministers of the various countries who have done the Award and the profession and the winning projects. The honour of having come from their countries to participate in these ceremonies and to testify thereby their interest in the work that is being done within their own countries to develop a better environment for the people who live there.

(During the visit to the Philippines, the Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Protempore Salipada Pendatun held a banquet in honour of His Royal Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan on 23rd November 1963. While proposing a toast to the guest of honour, he praised His Royal Highness’ educational efforts all over the world.

Following is the reply made by Prince Aga Khan)

(On his way to the Philippines, His Royal Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan stopped at Karachi on 21st November 1963.

On 22nd September 1962 at Calcutta (India) an address of welcome was presented to Mowlana Hazar Imam Shah Karim Al-Hussaini Aga Khan by Shri Keshab Chandra Basu, the speaker of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly.

All Nations Club of Calcutta (India) gave a Dinner in Honour of His Royal Highness Prince Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan on 22nd of September 1962.

His Excellency Shri Shanker Das Banarji, the Finance Minister of West Bengal (India) welcoming His Royal Highness, paid glowing tributes and said, “Your position, therefore, is that of a world citizen, who can make a large contribution towards creating goodwill among men, understanding and co-operation among nations.

His Royal Highness in his reply said, :

“Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Your Excellency, members of Kamar Education Trust:

Let me begin by saying how very happy I am to be amongst you today and how honoured I am that you should have invited me to lay the Foundation Stone of this Hostel. The kind words which you have spoken about my late Grandfather have touched me deeply as he was not only a great Muslim but the revered head of my family for over three quarters of a century.

(On 9th September 1962 His Royal Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan laid the foundation of a school enormous in size and most modern in concept, being constructed at the grounds of Aga Khan Gymkhana, Karachi, under the aegis of HRH. Prince Aga Khan’s Central Education Board for Pakistan. The project when completed would cost about Rs. 63 lacs, a major portion of which will be donated by His Royal Highness.)

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentelmen,

(The Ismailia Youth Services Karachi have initiated many projects for the advancement of the community. In Karachi one of these has been the Muhammedi Girls’Academy. Recently a magnificent building has been constructed in the lush green surroundings at Malir on the Karachi-Hyderabad highway.

Never in the history of Mankind has the speed of change been so great. Until some years ago, only the philosophers and astronomers had thought of the other worlds. All our children will have to think of them, for our boys and girls will certainly have the occasion to visit them.

This extraordinary widening of the horizons of mankind is something for which we must prepare our children and if the aim of education is to equip our young generations with the weapons with which to meet the future, then surely your institute is doing the most noble service.