Being responsible as the Imam for this Ismaili community of some 15 million people, I have necessarily become a student of social problems of all kinds. Islam, I should like to underline, is an all-encompassing faith. It gives direction to man's life, urging the individual to achieve a balance between material progress and spiritual well-being.

Islam therefore guides man not only in his spiritual relationship with God, it also guides man in his relationship with his fellow men and his relationship with the material world around him. It encourages enterprise, but warns that enterprise, without a social conscience, is not acceptable. It is in this respect, where Islam's message applies to all aspects of man's life, that he will be judged not just on what he does but the manner in which he does it.

This will be a place of congregation, of order, of peace, of prayer, of hope, of humility, and of brotherhood. From it should come forth those thoughts, those sentiments, those attitudes, which bind men together and which unite. It has been conceived and will exist in a mood of friendship, courtesy, and harmony. It is my hope, a very deep hope, that it will become a symbol of a growing understanding in the West of the real meaning of Islam.

The armies which set out from Saudi Arabia to conquer the various provinces such as Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Persia, North Africa and so forth took with them both the original political biases of Mecca and Medina and in many cases their own favourite leaders. It was difficult for the Khalifs to control the provinces which had been conquered by such armies as these tended to settle down most often in places with older cultures and better chances of agriculture, and the soldiers respected their own generals rather than the central authority.

As the central authority declined, people turned to discussing the nature of Christ, the relationship that existed between the Emperor and Pope, and also the many problems relating to the Trinity. One heresy succeeded another at an extraordinary pace and, although the Church called numerous ecumenical councils, the difficulties remained unsolved. Here were born the Monophysites, the Duophysites, the Nestorians, the Albigentsians, the iconoclasts and many other such heresies.

Your incessant and drenching downpours in Tanganyika which you so happily call 'short rains' will no doubt give you similar worries. I only wish they did not strike everywhere I go. Life gets soggy. I have nicknamed my own private cloud, 'deluge'.

Over-expansion means the inclusion of remote peoples into the framework of a society whose ways of living and ideals are born, guided and sometimes dictated from a focal point, the capital. A concrete example of this is that during the life of the Khalifate, the poor agriculture and the lack of natural resources useable in those times of the focal point, Saudi Arabia, clashed with that which the Muslims found in the more fertile countries such as Persia and Spain.