Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

And while Canada may not be unique in welcoming the victimized to her shores, where she stands very nearly alone is in her encouragement to her new citizens to maintain their traditions and customs. An encouragement that is in my view a particularly wise and mature expression of democratic freedom.

In my experience, enabling environments interact with each other. By co-operation they build on each other's success.

Education determines people's approach to the widest problems facing civilization.

As a general rule, IPS mobilizes for its projects from foreign, local or government parties, five times its own investment. Thus they are true generators of development and investment in developing areas.

Since all that we see and do resonates on the faith, the aesthetics of the environment we build and the quality of the social interactions that take place within those environments, reverberate on our spiritual life

Islam is an all encompassing faith and it gives direction to every aspect of one's life. It urges the individual to lead a balanced life, one that strives to accommodate both material progress and spiritual well-being. But no man, woman or child can hope to achieve this balance in sickness, illiteracy or squalor.

The limited sources of the Third World can only be made the most of by good management and the encouragement of merit, at all levels and in all walks of life.

No art form in the Muslim world has suffered from the insidious influence of alien cultures as much as architecture. Yet it was only a few hundred years ago - a fragment of time in the great span of human history - that architecture became the greatest of Islamic cultural art forms.

Changes are coming upon Islam faster now than in the age of our greatest territorial expansion. Today the changes have to do not with military conquest or the conversion of new peoples to the faith but with the impact upon us of economic, social and technological change, urbanization, population explosions, skyscrapers, automobiles, hotels and airports. Future shock is upon us.

Islam is a total religion touching on all aspects of a Muslim's life. Therefore the Imam, whilst caring first of all for the spiritual wellbeing of his people, should also be continuously concerned with their safety and their material progress.

The dangers facing democracy worldwide are increasing under the stress of economic pressure and unemployment. Recent years have demonstrated, not only in the developing countries but also in the older western democracies, how fragile democracy can be when political morality collapses under the strain of events.

I fear the day when Islam will be our faith, yet its outward manifestation in the building we work and live in, the painting and works of art we behold and the music we listen to, will be dominated by foreign cultures which have their roots neither in our spiritual beliefs nor in our great artistic heritage

Should we allow future generations of Muslims to live without the self-respect of our own cultural and spiritual symbols of power, to practise their faith without also being reminded of that sense of scale in relation to the universe around us which is so particularly ours?

The wind does not blow in the same direction for ever

The preservation of democratic institutions requires a strong sense of integrity and discipline. Striking a balance between freedom and unbridled licence demands constant pragmatic adjustments in all areas of life

What we really need, of course, is a personalised, pocket-computer to answer examination papers, not just to mark them!

Failure to acknowledge these facts - the need to be selective and to recognize that modern technology is constantly changing and thus an on-going commitment - can lead to some expensive miscalculation, not all of which occur in the developing countries.

In Islamic design the basic forms are balanced and ruled by geometry. There is a sense of stability, tranquility and equilibrium. And with serenity goes modesty. There is a lack of domination and pride. The superiority of man-made structures over natural environment is a concept alien to Islamic belief.

If given the right environment, private enterprise can do a great deal more than simply invest, it can introduce competition and stimulate growth.

Many forces exert pressure to divide nations; recession, the polarisation between the developed and the developing countries, divisions in religious faiths. In my view it is, therefore, all-important that countries in the same continent, troubled by similar economic and other problems, should find common areas of endeavour and strive to assist each other