As a Muslim, one of seven hundred million, I live in daily astonishment about the incomprehension of Islam and its peoples. Some western media have perpetuated misconceptions which stick like shrouds to the bones of historical skeletons, but in most civilizations the dead are buried.

I have worked to build many bridges between the West and the Third World... But in this field of communications, a corner stone of our hopes for world peace, I am afraid that what exists is not a bridge. It is a wall.

"Freedom of the Press" are four of the most commonly used and misused words in the English language.

The old adage that prevention is better than cure was never more true than today, with the cost of curing people who are already sick rising at a frightening pace all over the world.

More than ever before, world agencies for development are reaching consensus that it is investment in men and women, the ability to make every individual in society productive, which enables a country most rapidly to make economic progress.

Speak the truth, even if it were against yourselves (Quran, 4:134)

It (Surah of Light from the Quran) tells us that the oil of the blessed olive tree lights the lamp of understanding, a light that belongs neither to the East nor West. We are to give this light to all. In that spirit, all that we learn will belong to the world and that too is part of the vision I share with you.

Creativity knows no frontiers: it is not of the East nor the West, of the North nor the South, but it sometimes needs awakening, to be set alight, to be shown a purpose. I believe such a time is now.

In Islamic design the basic forms are balanced and ruled by geometry. There is a sense of stability, tranquility and equilibrium. And with serenity goes modesty. There is a lack of domination and pride. The superiority of man-made structures over natural environment is a concept alien to Islamic belief.

Should we allow future generations of Muslims to live without the self-respect of our own cultural and spiritual symbols of power, to practise their faith without also being reminded of that sense of scale in relation to the universe around us which is so particularly ours?