Ismailis are Shia Muslims who believe, like all Shias throughout the world, that the successor to the leadership of the Muslim community, after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, was the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and that this leadership, in both spiritual and temporal matters, was to continue by heredity through Ali in the Prophet's family.

In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers

The great British scientist Isaac Newton remarked that if he was able to see further than his predecessors, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Among those giants who made possible the scientific revolution in Europe were Ibn Sina, whose 'Canon of Medicine' was a standard text for five hundred years; al-Idrisi, the geographer;

Well I think the reflection in the media in the Western world of what is called ‘Islam' is perhaps a reflection of a misnomer. Because Islam is the name of a faith, it's not the name of a country or a geographic area or a number of countries, and therefore what goes under the word Islam really should be considered a faith.

And while the notion is one I fully support, democracies don't run themselves - people run them. And my sense is that in many, many countries the sorts of human capabilities that are necessary to make democracies function, in their multiple forms, are not there. There is a tendency to use democracy as a generic term, but it isn't. There are so many different forms of democracy.