People coming together around a common purpose are much stronger, for example, in eliminating corruption. When an individual faces corruption, that’s a problem. When a village community faces corruption it’s a totally different issue. And in fact, corruption in civil society is probably one of the most damaging forces that we are trying to deal with everyday…. And what we’ve found is that the community organisations, when they come together, what do they look at? It’s very exciting. Their whole basis of hope is built around best practice. They reject all the things that have damaged them individually and they come together and say we want a new future built around new people whom we choose because we trust them. [Emphasis original]

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I’ve seen that film [of Shergar's Epsom win] I don’t know how many, tens or hundreds of times. I keep trying to analyse where this remarkable performance came from and every time I see the film, I feel that I have learned something…. I had watched quite enough races to be able to determine what the jockey probably was feeling, how the horse was going, and when he came around Tattenham Corner, I couldn’t believe my eyes, frankly…. His victory was, as we all know, up to this point in time, unique. But I think I had two things that I found stunning — one was the ease with which that horse moved and second the fact that during the finishing straight, he just kept going away, going away, going away. That was really, I think, remarkable.

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Much focus over the years has centred heavily on the capital, Kabul, and the central government. Insufficient attention has been paid to the real impact of the generous investments made by donor countries. Do enough Afghans perceive these investments as improving their quality of their life? It is vitally important to demonstrate that local governments and local actors working together with local communities can meet pressing needs. We know too well from experience in Afghanistan and elsewhere that nefarious elements gain the upper hand when there is a gap between the promise of state-supported services and their tangible delivery on the ground. Results change minds, not rhetoric. AKDN’s involvement in national programmes, such as the National Solidarity Programme, which place directly the onus of meeting development needs and setting priorities on communities, is showing remarkable progress, speaking to the entrepreneurial vigour of Afghans.

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Yes [Zarkava] really is an exceptional filly in a very, very good year of race horses…. [H]er trainer, really had identified that quality very, very early on and that’s why he took the decision to run her from a maiden and go straight into a group 1 race.

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Sometimes we are associated with fast ladies and this is a case when I am very happy to be associated with a fast lady! …

I want to say that, as a traditional breeder, Zarkava is probably the greatest reward that any breeder could ever have. If you are in this industry and you like breeding and not only racing this is the greatest, greatest reward that any owner could have because whether we admit it or not — and men can be kind of macho — we depend on the ladies in this game. They are the ones who produce the winners. And some of them we try to make faster than others.

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“If you try to put social development ahead of economic support, it doesn’t work. You have to do both together. A community whose economics don’t change is not one that can support community structures, education, healthcare, it doesn’t have the wherewithal.”

I ask whether he thinks this long-term view is key to his success and he says that many projects can take 25 years to come to fruition. He cites a hospital in Pakistan that now produces world class doctors a quarter of a century after it opened. It would be hard to find Western donors who would remain with a project for that long.

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It has been an enormously happy visit to the United Kingdom and I appreciate all the kindness, generosity and particularly the hard work that has gone into transforming the Jamat of 1957 — less than a hundred people in the UK — to a successful Jamat of significant global importance that you are today. Congratulations and on behalf of the Jamat around the world, mubarak and thank you.

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We have also, in these recent decades, established two new institutions of higher learning here, The Institute of Ismaili Studies and The Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, which is part of the Aga Khan University. They both offer Masters level teaching programmes, they engage in research and publication, and they also develop curriculum materials for children in primary and secondary schools. In all these efforts, they take a holistic, civilisational approach to Islamic studies, rather than emphasising the more narrow domain of theological dialectic.

What some describe as a clash of civilisations in our modern world is, in my view, a clash of ignorances. This is why education about religious and cultural heritage is so critically important — and why we will continue to invest in these institutions. We deeply believe that scholarship, publication and instruction — of high quality and generous breadth — can provide important pathways toward a more pluralistic and peaceful world.

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MAYBE MISSING: We regret that some (or many) of the speeches during this visit are not available in the Archive. Listed below are some events he attended where Mawlana Hazar Imam made or may have made a speech. We would be very grateful if any of our readers who may have these speeches, or others from the visit, would kindly share them with us. Please click here for information on making submissions to NanoWisdoms; we thank you for your assistance.

I think the notion of time is different. I think in my case, I’m working in an institution whose time context is different from that of a politician…. You start with an idea and then you let it grow…. I think at the moment there is a tendency to want to see political change occurring in the developing world very rapidly. And I think this notion of consultation and democracy is all excellent, but I simply don’t believe that Western forms of democracy are necessarily replicable throughout the developing world I know. And indeed I would go so far as to say at the moment one of our risks is to see democracy fail…. I think you have to be patient, careful, analytical, thoughtful, prudent and build step by step. I don’t think it can be done like mixing a glass of Nescafe.

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The aim of the Aga Khan Museum will be to offer unique insights and new perspectives into Islamic civilisations and the cultural threads that weave through history binding us all together. My hope is that the Museum will also be a centre of education and of learning, and that it will act as a catalyst for mutual understanding and tolerance….

This exhibition illustrates how the Qur’an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, is a fundamental source of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations. This freedom of interpretation is a generosity which the Qur’an confers upon all believers. It guides and illuminates the thought and conduct of Muslims belonging to different communities of spiritual affiliation, from century to century, in diverse cultural environments. It extends its pluralistic outlook to adherents of other faiths too, affirming that each has a direction and a path, and should strive to perform good works.

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This exhibition is designed to give us a glimpse into the future. What we see here today is the nucleus of the Islamic art collections of the future Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. This museum, which is being designed by the renowned Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, is conceived as a primarily educational institution in the field of Islamic art and culture, a specific mandate that is not fulfilled so far by other North American museums. We hope and trust it will contribute to a deeper understanding among cultures — to the strengthening of true cultural pluralism — which is increasingly essential to peace, and to progress, in our world….

If I could express one hope for all of you, as you leave this place today, it is that you will appreciate even more deeply how much culture matters in Muslim societies, and how deeply culture is entwined for Muslims with matters of faith. This is why we call this exhibition: ‘Spirit and Life’.

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The vast majority of buildings in the developing world are not “architectured” buildings in the sense of the Western profession. That does not mean that quality buildings do not happen. They happen through a whole series of different processes, and not just the architectural process. The inherited knowledge of builders is remarkable. There is a whole body of inherited knowledge in developing countries, and in the Islamic world in particular, which is not driven by Western definitions of architecture.

When the Award started, the question arose about whether we were talking about that small window of “architectured” buildings in this enormous environment or whether we were talking about the whole process of change of that environment? … Very early on there was consensus that the Aga Khan Award could not be just for “architectured” buildings, it had to be an award for quality buildings no matter what the process of their creation…. The Award was very definitely an initiative to recognise the processes of building quality….

I think that the Award must evolve. Institutions that do not evolve tend to get marginalised. There are needs ahead of us which must be addressed by the Award. The biggest concern I would have is to recognise the processes of change, and to be certain that the Award plays an appropriate role in working with those processes so that they are not exclusive of quality in design or environmental concerns.

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Our financial pledge of $75 million in 2002 has been exceeded by 60 per cent and along with our donor, lender and investor partners, we have mobilised just under $400 million for the reconstruction of Afghanistan….

[D]evelopment is only possible when the community is engaged at the grassroots level and is given the ways and the means to take responsibility for its own future. This means building the capacity of civil society institutions as well as tapping into the wellspring of individual initiative …

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This was one of the poorest, most marginalised areas in the world. We were looking for ways to improve income. First we brought 33,000 hectares of land back into production with irrigation projects, improving livestock and productivity. We decided to make an inventory of all the assets of the area and to decide how they could be used.

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The message of [Cairo's] skyline is the question of whether the inherited institutions and the presence of places of worship are important, or whether it is the urban growth that is going to dominate people’s perception of city life?

The Western world has gone through the same process: church towers became insignificant buildings. That may not be a healthy way of going about things; it may send a message about the wrong values. Here if you look around, you see the mosques, the places where the dead are buried, you see new glass and concrete buildings that are not very good. I think it is important to protect what one has; that is urban planning.

For example, at Bagh-i Babur [Babur Gardens] looking towards Kabul, you say to yourself, God forbid that the skyline should change; it has kept its human dimension; its symbolic spaces are visible. There are ways to modernise cities while keeping their historic values. The West is also working on this, fortunately.

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[It] is not a simple matter for any human society with a concern and appreciation of its history to relate its heritage to its contemporary conditions. Traditions evolve in a context, and the context always changes, thus demanding a new understanding of essential principles. For us Muslims, this is one of the pressing challenges we face. In what voice or voices can the Islamic heritage speak to us afresh — a voice true to the historical experience of the Muslim world yet, at the same time, relevant in the technically advanced but morally turbulent and uncertain world of today? …

One of the challenges that has concerned me over many years, and which I have discussed with leading Muslim thinkers, is how education for Muslims can reclaim the inherent strengths that, at the height of their civilisations, equipped Muslim societies to excel in diverse areas of human endeavour…. Today, any reasonably well-informed observer would be struck by how deeply this brotherhood of Muslims is divided. On the opposite sides of the fissures are the ultra-rich and the ultra-poor; the Shia and the Sunni; the theocracies and the secular states, the search for normatisation versus the appreciation of pluralism; those who search for and are keen to adopt modern, participatory, forms of government versus those who wish to re-impose supposedly ancient forms of governance.

What should have been brotherhood has become rivalry, generosity has been replaced by greed and ambition, the right to think is held to be the enemy of real faith, and anything we might hope to do to expand the frontiers of human knowledge through research is doomed to failure for in most of the Muslim world, there are neither the structures nor the resources to develop meaningful intellectual leadership.

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This programme is also an opportunity for achieving insights into how the discourse of the Qur’an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations. This freedom of interpretation is a generosity which the Qur’an confers upon all believers, uniting them in the conviction that All-Merciful Allah will forgive them if they err in their sincere attempts to understand His word. Happily, as a result, the Holy Book continues to guide and illuminate the thought and conduct of Muslims belonging to different communities of interpretation and spiritual affiliation, from century to century, in diverse cultural environments….

It is my sincere hope that this colloquium will bring additional insights to an understanding of the Holy Qur’an as a message that encompasses the entirety of human existence and effort. It is concerned with the salvation of the soul, but commensurately also with the ethical imperatives which sustain an equitable social order. The Qur’an’s is an inclusive vision of society that gives primacy to nobility of conduct. It speaks of differences of language and colour as a Divine sign of mercy and a portent for people of knowledge to reflect upon.

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Well, [Alamshar] done everything asked of him. In France, he’s never been beaten. He’s run on every ground. He was an excellent two-year-old and he’s an excellent three-year-old. He’s a very complete horse, a very elegant horse and he’s also very calm. These are qualities I identify with and the racing public identifies with, too.

I did say at the time that I thought Alamshar would not be an autumn horse, whereas Dalakhani might be. I’m extremely fortunate to have two very good horses in the same year. Often if you have two like that, they will avoid each other until the Arc, but the careers of these happened to come together at the Irish Derby. In exceptional circumstances, you just have to work out what is the right thing to do.

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I am very pleased indeed! Alamshar and Dalakhani both had logical reasons to run in the Irish Derby and before that race I did say that I was aiming Alamshar at this race. Dalakhani is having an autumn campaign. The two horses had a programme that was going to clash in the Irish Derby but probably not after that but who knows…. Good horse’s programmes need to be developed race by race and that is what I am trying to do. It does bring back memories of Shergar’s victory in this race. What is exciting is the continuation of the breeding stock which is able to produce horses and of course this horse goes back to Mumtaz Mahal.

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