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Graduates Urged to Find Values in Encounters
(Following is the text of the Commencement Address presented by His Highness the Aga Khan at MIT's graduation exercises on Friday, May 27.)

President Vest, Members of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, distinguished members of the faculty, Mayor Reeves, happy graduates, even happier parents and others gathered here today: I am pleased and honored to be with you this morning.

A Housing and Urbanization Unit has been established by Mawlana Hazar Imam in Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.
The new Unit, set up with a gift of $500,000, is an integral part of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Diwan Sir Eboo, President of the National Council, Members of the National Council, President of the Regional Council and generous donors, there was a moment this evening when I thought there was going to be a highly embarassing situation when the head table had been served and nobody else had been served! It looked to Me as though we were going to be eating lobster bisque and you would be eating bread and water! And I thought this would not be the right way for our Jamat to welcome our most generous donors.

Diwan Sir Eboo, President of the National Council, Presidents and Members of My Councils in the United States, office bearers of the numerous institutions here this evening,

At the occasion of a special address to the The United Nations Development Programme December 11, 1980
Mr. Morse, Mr. Secretary-General, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentleman: It is a great honour for me to stand before you at the United Nations-the symbol of man's hope for the future and man's belief in the primacy of reason and peace-to discuss the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

The invitation to the gala event came out of the blue, from a woman I had never met, belonging to a group I had never heard of, part of a religious sect I knew nothing about.Naturally, I accepted.

Your Highness the Aga Khan, Ambassador Muasher, Congressman Leach, distinguished colleagues and friends,

VIDEO at: https://www.c-span.org/video/?160824-1/conference-culture-diplomacy

Look 32 minutes into the video for the Aga Khan's comments

welcome to the State Department.

There's no better place, certainly in this building, to discuss culture than a room named for Thomas Jefferson, who was only a great architect, writer and diplomat, but also spent so much time in France.

The AGA Khan Awards for Architecture, presented Nov. 6 in Aleppo, Syria, contrast with the image of a monolithic and isolationist Islamic culture currently being flashed across the world's television screens.

President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright today convened the first White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy.His Highness the Aga Khan, Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, was among distinguished panellists invited to advise President Clinton and Secretary Albright on the role of culture in foreign policy.

With all the erratic moves in foreign policy around the world, when everything seems to change dramatically from moment to moment, one searches for answers to the conflicts that appear to be closing in on us from all sides. We hope for long-term, realistic answers that could start stitching the world together instead of tearing it apart.Well, I think I have found one.

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, 70, a philanthropist and environmentalist who served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees and was the uncle of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the current leader of the 20 million Shiite Ismaili Muslims, died Monday in Boston.
He died in a hospital after a short illness, his office in Geneva announced. No cause of death was given.
For nearly 40 years, Prince Sadruddin was closely associated with the work of the United Nations, specializing in disaster relief work.

Ismaili Muslims are planning to build a community center on 6 acres off Five Forks Trickum Road near Snellville.Plans are still fluid for the center at Five Forks and Arnold Road, said Sajida Shroff, a community volunteer with the Aga Khan Foundation USA, which owns the land.
It will offer youth and educational programs such as SAT preparatory classes, healthy living sessions, economics classes and sporting activities, Shroff said.
'Potentially, there will be an area for contemplative prayer,' she said. 'That's one of the things being decided.'

NetAid, in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation, recently announced a new Afghanistan initiative that will help reconstruct that country?s ailing educational system. The Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A., with the support of The Rob Lloyd Family and Cisco Systems, works with Afghan communities to train teachers, rehabilitate schools, and put children in school. These services are vital in Afghanistan, where years of war and hardship have deprived most children of access to basic education.Girls?

Thank you Mr. President.

It is an honour to be associated with this distinguished panel in a discussion of a topic which I have long felt has received too little attention, particularly at the policy level. Thank you for the invitation.I offer my comments this morning from the perspective of someone who has been a long-standing observer of cultural evolution in the developing world of Africa and Asia, and from more than twenty-years of experience with activities such as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture that have attempted to make a positive contribution to that process.

As the nation's attention focuses on war with Iraq, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (the triennial equivalent of the Pritzker Prize) helps to build a deeper appreciation of large and small structures from the Islamic world.

The Smithsonian Institution's National Building Museum will present its annual Vincent Scully Prize to Aga Khan IV, the Ismaili

Muslim leader.The Aga Khan is being cited for his contributions promoting design excellence and improving the building environment in the Islamic world, it was announced Tuesday.

The National Building Museum's fifth Vincent Scully Prize will be presented on January 25, 2005 to His Highness The Aga Khan, in recognition of his contributions to promoting design excellence and improving the built environment in the Muslim world.
The Vincent Scully Prize was established in 1999 to recognize exemplary practice, scholarship or criticism in architecture, historic preservation and urban design.

The National Building Museum's fifth Vincent Scully Prize will be presented on January 25, 2005 to His Highness The Aga Khan, in recognition of his contributions to promoting design excellence and improving the built environment in the Muslim world.
The Vincent Scully Prize was established in 1999 to recognize exemplary practice, scholarship or criticism in architecture, historic preservation and urban design.

The President Was Saddened to Hear of the Death of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan on May 13, 2003. Prince Sadruddin was a great humanitarian, philanthropist, and international civil servant.As UN High Commissioner for Refugees for over a decade starting in the mid-1960s, Prince Sadruddin led international efforts to help refugees from Bangladesh and Burundi, assist Southeast Asians fleeing conflict, and find new homes for thousands of Asians expelled from Uganda by then-President Idi Amin.