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Speech by Princess Zahra Aga Khan at the 2025 AKU convocation
26 February, 2025
Karachi, Pakistan

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim
Chancellor, Chair and members of the AKU Board of Trustees,
President and Vice Chancellor,
Leaders, faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the University,
Family members of the graduates,
And Members of the Class of 2024:

As Salaam–o-Alaikum

August 17th was designated by Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah to Ismailis as Diamond Jubilee Day and to be celebrated as such every year.

Imposing Urdu as a national language on then-East Pakistan actually damaged ‘national unity,’ rather than bolstering it
Dr. Naazir Mahmood, in his book of collected essays Politics Pictures Personalities (2005), highlights some “mistakes” of Pakistan soon after Partition in 1947, suggesting these foreshadowed the “big” mistakes it was to make later.

THE MOST IMPOkfANT PROBLEM

An extroct from a speech of His Highness The Ago Khan given at Ismailia Association of Pakistan

The most important problem for us today is to create students who are capable of going back and of reading the original texts of our history, of reading these texts in Arabic, of reading them in Persian, of reading them in Urdu, of reading them in Gujarati, of reading them in any language in which they have been written.

The largest-ever survey of routine immunisation coverage across Pakistan has found that 76.1 per cent of children under the age of 2 years have received the full course of vaccinations recommended by Pakistan’s government.

Of the remaining children, more than 1 in every 6, or 17.7 per cent, have been partially vaccinated while 5.9 per cent of under 2s have never been vaccinated, according to results from The Third-Party Verification Immunization Coverage Survey, TPVICS.

KARACHI: Efforts to find less-invasive and more affordable cure for two common genetic disorders — beta thalassaemia and sickle cell anaemia — have received a boost with Aga Khan University’s research centre recently winning a competitive research grant of Rs159.60 million.

Currently, Pakistan has an estimated 100,000 transfusion-dependent thalassaemia patients with 5,000 babies born with the disease every year.

On the other hand, sickle-cell disease is one of the well-known causes of anaemia in the country.

The state of Pakistan and its inhabitants owe a debt of gratitude to Aga Khan III for his contributions to its development

667 students in three continents received their degrees and listened to speeches by the Aga Khan and Melinda Gates

The first-ever global convocation ceremony of the Aga Khan University (AKU) was live-streamed to a worldwide audience on Saturday, as 667 students in three continents received their degrees and listened to speeches by the Aga Khan, Chief Guest Melinda French Gates and AKU President Firoz Rasul.

667 students in three continents received their degrees and listened to speeches by the Aga Khan and Melinda Gates

The first-ever global convocation ceremony of the Aga Khan University (AKU) was live-streamed to a worldwide audience on Saturday, as 667 students in three continents received their degrees and listened to speeches by the Aga Khan, Chief Guest Melinda French Gates and AKU President Firoz Rasul.

The Convocation was attended also by Prince Amyn, Princess Zahra, Prince Rahim, Prince Hussain and Prince Aly Muhammad

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Our Chief Guest, Melinda French Gates
Chairman Haile Debas and the Members of the Board of Trustees
President Firoz Rasul
Provost, Deans, Faculty and Staff of the University
Generous donors and well wishers of the University from around the world
Distinguished guests
Parents, family members and Graduates​

It is a great privilege to join you today in recognising and celebrating the Class of 2020.

Hazar Imam attending the 2021 Convocation

Hazar Imam attending the 2021 Convocation

MESSAGE TO THE WORLD OF ISLAM
Aga Khan III IMAM SULTAN MUHAMMAD SHAH 48th Imam of Ismailis
Published by: Centenary Committee His Royal Highness The Aga Khan Ismailia Association for Pakistan 4th Edition 1977

Chapter One: GREETINGS TO PAKISTAN

Be no more hypnotized by the dead glories of the distant past or by the misfortunes of the near past.

FUTURE OF MUSLIM STATES

True Islam was and is dynamic and not static. Do not look to the third century of Islamic History but to the first.

1989, March 19: H.H. The Aga Khan, Mowlana Shah Karim and Prime Minister Mohtarama Benazir Bhutto at the Seminar on the role of an Academic Health Sciences Centre in a Developing Country which was held on March 19, 1989 at the AKU Campus. This seminar was also attended by former Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Halfdan Mahler and other leading health education specialists from throughout the world.

Mowlana Shah Karim with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, His Excellency the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Sahazada Yaqub Khan at a dinner hosted in honor of the donors of the AKU on March 18, 1989. Mowlana Hazar Imam with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, His Excellency the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Sahazada Yaqub Khan at a dinner hosted in honor of the donors of the AKU on March 18, 1989

KARACHI:
Researchers at Aga Khan University are harnessing the power of stem cells to generate new insight into how malnutrition occurs. The 2018 National Nutrition Survey says malnutrition is a major public health problem in the developing world, with four out of ten children under the age of five in Pakistan suffering from stunting while one in three children is underweight.