Date: May 31, 2019 | Location: Edmonton, Canada
The garden has for many centuries served as a central element in Muslim culture. The Holy Qur’an portrays the garden as a central symbol of a spiritual ideal — a place where human creativity and Divine majesty are fused, where the ingenuity of humanity and the beauty of nature are productively connected. Gardens are a place where the ephemeral meets the eternal, and where the eternal meets the hand of man….
On the 150th anniversary of Canada, it is appropriate that we are celebrating a Mughal-style garden which echoes the great contributions that Muslims have made to world heritage. The Mughals built the Taj Mahal and Humayun’s Tomb and the gardens around them, so the university’s embrace of this project is an inherently pluralistic act.
Indeed, the tradition of Islamic gardens places an emphasis on human stewardship, on our responsibility to nature and the protection of the natural world. We see that principle expressed in the disciplined use of geometric form — framing the power and mystery of nature. But, today, the real requirement — the sine qua non — is building a constituency for sustainability, including an engaged local community.
In June 2008, I had the privilege to visit Edmonton and the University of Alberta, which was then celebrating its 100th anniversary. At that time, I was marking my own Golden Jubilee year as the Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, and in order to express my profound gratitude and to celebrate growing partnerships, I presented a gift that reflects both my Islamic heritage and the traditions of the University of Alberta. It was decided that a parcel of land within the University of Alberta Botanic Garden would become a garden inspired by traditional Islamic gardens, as well as a setting for learning about Muslim culture and civilisations, and a place for relaxation, contemplation and reflection. After nearly a decade of planning and 18 months of construction, the Aga Khan Garden in Edmonton opened to the public on June 29, 2018.
Too often in recent years, urban architecture — under pressure from urbanising rural populations, greater human longevity and shrinking budgets — has neglected the importance of open spaces in a healthy city landscape…. This is why the creation and restoration of beautiful green spaces has become a primary goal of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture
The garden has for many centuries served as a central element in Muslim culture. The Holy Qur’an portrays the garden as a central symbol of a spiritual ideal — a place where human creativity and Divine majesty are fused, where the ingenuity of humanity and the beauty of nature are productively connected. Gardens are a place where the ephemeral meets the eternal, and where the eternal meets the hand of man. Too often in recent years, urban architecture — under pressure from urbanising rural populations, greater human longevity and shrinking budgets — has neglected the importance of open spaces in a healthy city landscape. We keep crowding more buildings into dense concentrations while short changing the enormous impact that well designed open spaces — green spaces — can have on the quality of urban life. This is why the creation and restoration of beautiful green spaces has become a primary goal of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, with notable projects in Cairo, Zanzibar, Delhi, Kabul, Dushanbe and Bamako, and now with the Aga Khan Garden in Edmonton.
It is a happy conjuncture that allowed us, with the opening of the Aga Khan Garden, to celebrate both the 150th anniversary of Canada and my Diamond Jubilee, which marks 60 years since I became the 49th Hereditary Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims. Our connections with Canada have been both numerous and fruitful: One of our earliest collaborations was to establish the first private nursing school in Pakistan, in cooperation with McMaster University and the Canadian International Development Agency of that time. It was the first component of what was to become the Aga Khan University — the establishment of the first private university in that country. Canada was also one of the first donors to the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme in northern Pakistan, which has tripled incomes in this remote, marginalised region. We have also maintained close ties with Canadian universities, such as McMaster, McGill, Waterloo, the University of Toronto, and the University of Alberta. In the case of the University of Alberta, these relations began in 2006 with an agreement on academic and scientific cooperation together with Alberta Health Services. In 2009, the University of Alberta and the Aga Khan University signed a memorandum of understanding to move forward with their respective goals, to increase global engagement and to promote equitable human advancement and social justice throughout the world. At the same time, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper granted me honorary Canadian citizenship, a gesture for which I am humbled and grateful. Further agreements between the University of Alberta and the Aga Khan University, building on earlier collaboration, were signed on April 7, 2017.
Our collaboration and institutional presence in Canada has not been limited to Edmonton. The Ismaili Centre Burnaby (BC) opened in 1984. The Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa was established in 2008, while the Ismaili Centre Toronto was opened in 2014, together with the Aga Khan Museum, on the same Wynford Drive site — and connected by the Aga Khan Park. I happily recall the establishment of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat and the Prime Minister’s description that day of our collaborative efforts to make Canada “the headquarters of the global effort to foster peace, prosperity, and equality through pluralism.” Our collaboration extended to the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa, which officially opened in 2017.
These partnerships in Canada have been immensely strengthened, of course, by the presence for more than four decades of a significant Ismaili community, many of whom, with other Asian communities, were given a home in Canada when they were expelled arbitrarily from Uganda. These immigrants have become proud Canadian citizens, contributing their hard work, their time, and their expertise to building this country. Our experience in Canada has therefore been a particularly positive chapter in the history, of the Asian Ismaili community.
I wish to thank the Government of Alberta, the Chancellors, Presidents and the Senior Executives of the University of Alberta who have supported this project, as well as the faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, which administers the Garden. And, of course, I add my thanks to the very able and committed staff of the University of Alberta Botanic Garden for their support, expertise and guidance throughout the design and construction of this project.
I also would like to thank Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects who invested the time to research the great Islamic gardens of the past to create this wonderful space. Thomas Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz visited historic Mughal gardens, including the Taj Mahal, and found ways to evoke the deep traditions of the Islamic garden for an international audience.
Our responsibility to be good stewards of the earth extends to cultural heritage, whether in the form of parks or monuments. I believe this stewardship is even more critical today than ever before. In the developing and the developed parts of the world alike, societies are plunging into an increasingly bewildering future at an ever-accelerating pace. At such a time — and on occasions such as this — it is important that we commit ourselves ever more ardently to the essential work of sustaining cultural heritage so that it can remain a powerful contributor to improving the quality of life for the entirety of the human community.
His Highness the Aga Khan IV