Hikmat - Twin Wisdoms

  • Speech: Restored Humayun’s Tomb Gardens Opening Ceremony

    In the troubled times in which we live, it is important to remember, and honour, a vision of a pluralistic society. Tolerance, openness and understanding towards other peoples’ cultures, social structures, values and faiths are now essential to the very survival of an interdependent world. Pluralism… Read more

  • Interview: La Croix Interview

    [Translation] [O]ne must ask oneself the question as to what one wishes to achieve in a post-Saddam Hussain Iraq. Whether the United Nations will agree to become the principal authority for the rebuilding of Iraq? Whether we are moving towards a temporary colonisation by the English and the American… Read more

  • Interview: Spiegel Online Interview (1st) – ‘Only those who help people serve God’

    [Google translation] I do not deny that in some defects in the Muslim world’s political leaders are in. But I refuse, the American model as a panacea to see the democracy that we just prescribe the developing world, and everything will be fine. Government forms carry within them the seeds of failure… Read more

  • Speech: Bishkek Global Mountain Summit Keynote Address

    AKDN’s work in mountain communities has shown that attention to a combination of critical elements at the field level can make a powerful difference. These factors include: working with or creating community organisations that can progressively operate on their own; providing matching funds for comm… Read more

  • Speech: Aga Khan School Opening Ceremony

    I am sure that all of you here today will agree that we live in a time of rapid change — change that is often not predictable, and not always positive. The best way to manage change, whether positive or negative, is to anticipate it and prepare for it…. I have come to the conclusion… Read more

  • Speech: Banquet in Honour of the Governor of Texas

    What we are now witnessing is a clash of ignorance, an ignorance that is mutual, longstanding, and to which the West and the Islamic world have been blind for decades at their great peril. For a number of years I have voiced my concern that the faith of a billion people is not part of… Read more

  • Interview: Pakistan Television Interview

    I think first of all, Pakistan should seek to diversify its economy further, because at a certain stage, whether it is Pakistan or any other country in the world, agricultural productivity as base of the economy is insufficient; you need to have other sources. So that’s the first issue. The second i… Read more

  • Interview: Architectural Record Interview

    There are many, many interpretations of Islam within the wider Islamic community, but I think one on which there is greatest consensus, is the fact that we are trustees of God’s creation, and we are instructed to seek to leave the world a better place than it was when we came into it. Read more

  • Interview: Globe and Mail Interview (3rd)

    I have to tell you this is my own direct experience, many, many of these situations [of conflict] can be avoided [if] addressed in good time. Many of them. And I really assure you that this is the case. These pockets of extreme poverty, of frustration, of fear of some of these minorities, can be… Read more

  • Interview: CNN Interview

    I think there is a much better understanding of the sensitivity of these conflicts and how they become internationalised, how they go far beyond the frontiers of the area. I’m thinking of places like Sri Lanka, and I’m thinking even Northern Ireland. It’s not just the Islamic world. It’s these confl… Read more

Different Decades

Speeches

Interviews

Writings