His Royal Highness [Aga khan IV] is not only a leader of the Ismaili community but also of the entire Muslim world.

There is the potential in the Islamic heritage to help modern societies cope with the confusions, disillusionments and moral vagaries that afflict them.

For a Muslim university it is appropriate to see learning and knowledge as a continuing acknowledgement of Allah's magnificence.

An institution dedicated to proceeding beyond known limits must be committed to independent thinking. In a university scholars engage both orthodox and unorthodox ideas, seeking truth and understanding wherever they may be found.

The university can be a distinctly powerful institution. By its very design, it brings together the most advanced knowledge and adds to that knowledge. It trains the next generation of leaders of a society.

So the generosity is not to be seen against an expansionist economic time of wealth and prosperity. It is to be seen against the time of concern, instability and worry.

Many centuries ago the non-Muslim world looked to the Muslim world for knowledge and intellectual leadership. And it was shared. It was shared by the Muslim world and its institutions and it was shared willingly and happily and without constraints

Meritocracy does not apply only to the individual. Meritocracy applies to institutions, to countries.

But there is world change, and the role of the Imam of the time, amongst others, is to guide the murids to live in their time, hopefully ahead of their time, prepare future generations to live well in the world as it will be when they grow up.

I am hopeful that, through interventions of this type, our youth will learn to recognize that, whilst true success must be determined largely by merit, meritocracy and competition must not be permitted to erode their traditions of compassion and care for the less fortunate -- for it is those traditions, rooted in our faith and history, that should temper the harshest consequences of free market economics