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?

Changes are coming upon Islam faster now than in the age of our greatest territorial expansion. Today the changes have to do not with military conquest or the conversion of new peoples to the faith but with the impact upon us of economic, social and technological change, urbanization, population explosions, skyscrapers, automobiles, hotels and airports. Future shock is upon us.

Since all that we see and do resonates on the faith, the aesthetics of the environment we build and the quality of the social interactions that take place within those environments, reverberate on our spiritual life

Islam does not deal in dichotomies but in all encompassing Unity. Spirit and body are one, man and nature are one. What is more, man is answerable to God for what man has created.