Tanzania: Mzizima Student Gets U.S. $100,000 Scholarship

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
22 April 2008 | Posted to the web 22 April 2008

A student of Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School in Dar es Salaam, Mehak Tejani, has won a scholarship worth $100,000 (about Shll5 million).

A press statement issued by the school yesterday said Tejan

has been selected from applicants worldwide to receive an International Leader of Tomorrow (ILOT) award to study at University of British Columbia (UBC). He will be completing his IB diploma next month.

The statement further said that this is a highly competitive and sought after scholarship worth $24,000 (about Sh27.6 million) annually for four years. It helps outstanding international students who would otherwise not afford University education overseas, said the statement.

It explained that the UBC ILOT award recognizes students who have achieved academic excellence and shown leadership potentials through community participation.

With a history of community service, leadership roles and an outstanding academic record Mehak was a strong candidate.

His selection for the Aga Khan Education Service, Tanzania, student of the year award, at the recently held Ismaili Students Awards ceremony is proof to this achievement, the statement said.

Responding, Mehak said: “I am really excited because I feel that this award is an opportunity for me to practice and achieve my ambitions. I am going to do my best to keep up with its name, The International Leader of Tomorrow.”

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200804220510.html

Aga Khan ends tour of the US; visits Georgia to promote education program

ATLANTA — The Aga Khan, billionaire philanthropist and spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide, ended an eight-day tour of the U.S. stressing the importance of tolerance and education.

He did so as he announced his initiative to establish schools in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

His trip also included stops in Texas, Illinois and California.

It was part of the Shia Ismaili Muslim commemoration of the Golden Jubilee, which marks the Aga Khan’s 50th year as imam of the religious sect.

In a speech Friday at a high school in Atlanta, he sought to raise awareness about the Aga Khan Academies, a $1-billion education initiative to build 18 schools in 14 countries in Africa, Central and South Asia and the Middle East.

The project grew out of a need to develop well-educated, global citizens who would make a difference in their communities, the Aga Khan told the audience.

“Our Academies Program is rooted in the conviction that effective indigenous leadership will be the key to progress in the developing world, and as the pace of change accelerates, it is clear that the human mind and heart will be the central factors in determining social wealth,” he said.

“Too many of those who should be the leaders of tomorrow are being left behind today. And even those students who do manage to get a good education often pursue their dreams in far off places and never go home again.”

The Aga Khan, who was born and educated in Switzerland, is a Harvard-educated businessman who is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

In his capacity as imam, he is also chair of the Aga Khan Development Network, a group of private, non-denominational development agencies focused on social, cultural and economic development.

The Aga Khan Academies are an initiative of the network’s Aga Khan Education Services and, under the plan, 18 schools are planned in 14 countries at a cost of about $50 million per school.

Thant’s a commitment of nearly $1 billion.

The first school opened in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2003, and others are planned in India, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Madagascar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Tanzania and Uganda.

The academy curriculum is based on the International Baccalaureate program, which is derived from a program rooted in academics, critical thinking, and a respect and appreciation for cultural diversity.

The program is celebrating its 40th anniversary in Atlanta this week and the Aga Khan addressed the organization as its speaker for the Peterson Lecture, named for the program’s first director general.

Previously rooted in Judeo-Christian communities, the Aga Khan Academies represent the first expansion of the IB curriculum into Muslim cultures.

“Squaring the particular with the global will require great care, wisdom, and even some practical field testing, to ensure that it is really possible to develop a curriculum that responds effectively to both the global and the tribal impulses,” the Aga Khan said.

“The people with whom we will be dealing will present different challenges than before.”

To that end, there will be an emphasis on inclusion, ethics, global economics, world culture, and comparative political systems, the Aga Khan told the crowd of educators, administrators, followers and observers.

“The failure of different peoples to be able to live in peace amongst each other has been a major source of conflict,” he said.

“Pluralism is a value that must be taught … As we work together to bridge the gulf between East and West, between North and South, between developing and developed economies, between urban and rural settings, we will be redefining what it means to be well educated.”

The 70-year-old leader - also known as Prince Karim Aga Khan IV - succeeded his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, at age 20 on July 11, 1957, becoming the community’s 49th imam.

Source:  http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gyNfY4GTLCFbqCviOl0mvyJg_byQ

Muslim leader Aga Khan arrives, will dine with Perdue

By CHRISTOPHER QUINN | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/17/08

The Aga Khan, head of the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims, arrived at Fulton County Airport today to celebrate with his Georgia followers his 50th anniversary as their leader.

A band greeted him with the Ismaili anthem and the U.S. national anthem, and a representative from Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office as well as local politicians were on hand to welcome him.

Members of the Ismaili community greet the Aga Khan at the Fulton County Airport.

He will dine with Perdue and other guests at the Governor’s Mansion Friday.

The Aga Khan is well-known not only as a leader of the Ismailis, a sect of the Shiite branch of Islam, but also as a businessman and philanthropist.

He will speak in closed session with Ismailis from around the Southeast while here and give a lecture at North Atlanta High School that will attract students and teachers from around the country in the International Baccalaureate program. The Aga Khan is known for his interest in education, sponsoring 325 schools and two universities around the world.

Photos of the Event:

Source: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/living/stories
/2008/04/17/agakhan_0417.html

Aga Khan makes rare visit to U.S.

By Tricia Escobedo

(CNN) — The leaders of three world religions will be visiting the United States this week, and although the media spotlight is focused on Pope Benedict XVI and the Dalai Lama, thousands of Ismaili Muslims are celebrating a rare U.S. tour by the Aga Khan.

The Aga Khan says a “clash of ignorance” has led to friction between Islam and the West.

The Aga Khan doesn’t exactly fit the image that may be expected for the spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims across the world; he usually wears a suit and tie.

But his followers see him as the final authority on interpreting the Quran. One one Muslim scholar said that in that regard, “he is more powerful than the pope.”

The Aga Khan, 71, arrived Friday in Austin, Texas, where he met with Gov. Rick Perry and signed a memorandum with the University of Texas on behalf of his Aga Khan University.

The two schools agreed to share research and cooperate in what was described as “a move towards narrowing the gap between the West and Islam.”

Aga Khan University is an international University with teaching sites in eight countries: Afghanistan, Kenya, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Syria, Egypt and the United Kingdom.

The agenda for the Aga Khan’s first U.S. tour in 20 years includes stops in Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; and Atlanta, Georgia; places he described as having “particular importance to the Ismaili Community over the last half century.” Watch the Aga Khan’s arrival in the U.S. »

“It’s not very often that the Ismaili community gets this opportunity,” said Saloni Firasta Vastani, a volunteer community leader in Atlanta.

The Aga Khan “has a worldly responsibility in addition to spiritual,” Vastani explained. And that is why the centerpiece of his role is his $150 million nonprofit, nondenominational foundation that focuses on helping the poor.

The imam’s personal life has sometimes overshadowed his message of tolerance, which a spokesman for the U.S. Ismaili community says has “not been well covered” by the media.

“In the Western world, he is not as well-known, except for the British tabloid press, which will talk about his racehorses and the private life of his father,” Dr. Mansoor Saleh said.

The Aga Khan repeatedly focuses on a “clash of ignorance,” not a clash of cultures, that has led to the current friction between Islam and the West.

“The hope is that this visit will provide the impetus … for the West to understand what he does and what he stands for,” Saleh said.

Last year, Forbes Magazine listed the Aga Khan, who lives in the Paris suburbs, as the 10th richest royal in the world, valued at $1 billion. In a previous article, the magazine heralded him as “venture capitalist to the world,” saying the Aga Khan “was early among experts in Third World development to grasp that government handouts and multilaterally funded megaprojects often foster dependence, not self-reliance, in the people they’re meant to help.”

Prince Karim al-Husseini became the current Aga Khan as a 20-year-old Harvard student, after his grandfather passed the title on to him and not his father, Prince Aly Khan, who was once married to the American actress Rita Hayworth.

Despite the Aga Khan’s immense wealth, the imam shuns the title of “philanthropist” because he feels that the Aga Khan Foundation is part of his mandate as a religious leader.

His teachings also stress respecting other cultures and faiths, Vastani said.

“There’s not enough education on both sides, and we’re living in such a global place now, so learning about each other is important,” she said. “That’s the way the Ismaili community views it.”

Dr. Liyakat Takim, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of Denver, said it is not the Aga Khan’s wealthy lifestyle that draws the most criticism from fellow Muslims but his authority to interpret the Quran for Ismaili Muslims.

“Ismailis see him as the final authority in today’s world,” Takim said. “His word is law.”

That means as a spiritual leader, the Aga Khan “is able to reinterpret” the teachings of Islam and has the authority to “nullify or supersede religious practices.”

“That would include things like daily prayers,” Takim said. “Ismailis see themselves firmly within the Islamic tradition but of course other Muslims have problems with that.”

But for many Ismailis, the Aga Khan’s role transcends that of spiritual leader. Those who feel that way include Zarifmo Aslamshoyeva, who credits his foundation with saving her life, as well as the lives of her husband and their two children.

Now an editor with CNN in Atlanta, Aslamshoyeva saw her life as a television news anchor in her native Tajikistan came crashing down after the collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a civil war in her country in 1992.

Aslamshoyeva lived in the remote, mountainous Pamir region of Tajikistan, isolated from the aid that flooded in following a lull in the fighting.

“There was aid in the capital and in the surroundings, but they could not reach us in the mountains,” she said.

Pamir residents normally stockpile food for the harsh winters, but nearly everyone ran out of food in the middle of winter partly due to an influx of refugees fleeing the fighting in the capital, Dushanbe.

“At home, there was no electricity, no food. I would just sit there and look at my children,” she said. Their faces were pale and thin. Without any paychecks from Moscow, many people were forced to beg on the streets.

“By then, who cares if you have an education or if you are a doctor or journalist? We all had nothing, and we were worried about our children.”

It felt like the world had forgotten about her small region and their suffering, she said.

“Pamir was just a little tiny place,” she said. “People know Tajikistan but not Pamir.”

Despite intermittent power, television remained the only way to communicate. She says her life changed on the day she was called in to the tiny TV station to read an announcement telling residents that food from the Aga Khan Foundation had finally arrived in Pamir.

“I never heard of the Aga Khan Foundation, but I had heard of the Aga Khan,” she said. Her grandmother had spoken of “the imam” in hushed tones during the Communist period.

Since that day, Aslamshoyeva said, aid began pouring in, changing her life forever.

“He helped everyone who lived in Tajikistan: Russians, Germans, Jews,” she said. “It didn’t matter what religion you were.”

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/15/ aga.khan/

UT Austin inks academic partnership with Aga Khan University

 The University of Texas has established a five-year exchange agreement with Aga Khan University in Pakistan.

The agreement will expand UTeach-Liberal Arts’ Muslim Histories and Cultures Program, a training program for Texas high school teachers. The program offers seminars and workshops on Muslim history and cultures. More than 80 secondary school teachers from school districts in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston have participated in the program.

Under the agreement with AKU, the program will train additional Texas teachers from an expanded number of districts during the next three years.

“The agreement formalizes many relationships that are already in place between our two universities,” says Richard Flores, senior associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “Our hope is that the collaborations will help to dispel many of the myths and stereotypes about Islam that persist, and foster greater understanding between Texas and the Muslim world.”

AKU has 11 campuses in eight countries, including Afghanistan, Kenya, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Syria, Egypt and the United Kingdom.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2008/04/14/daily10.html 

Aga Khan to tour US to mark his 50th anniversary as the imam for Ismaili Muslims

The Associated Press | Published: April 11, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas: The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide, was to begin an eight-day U.S. visit Friday in Texas that will be highlighted by the announcement of a nearly $1 billion (€630 million) initiative to establish residential schools in 14 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia.

The visit was the latest in a series of trips by the Aga Khan to mark his 50th anniversary, or Golden Jubilee, as imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslim community. He previously visited East and Southern Africa, and will later be traveling to Dubai.

Tens of thousands of Ismaili Muslims live in Texas, and many of them are expected to hear their spiritual leader speak in San Antonio on Sunday.

The 71-year-old Aga Khan, one of the world’s richest men and a major philanthropist, was also planning to visit California, Illinois and Georgia.

On April 18, the Aga Khan was scheduled to deliver the annual Peterson Lecture at a conference in Atlanta marking the 40th anniversary of the International Baccalaureate program that is now offered to more than 600,000 students in nearly 2,300 schools in 127 countries.
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In the speech, he plans to announce plans to establish 18 Aga Khan Academies, with each school expected to cost around $50 million (€31.6 million), in 14 countries, according to his spokesman Nazim Karim. One academy has already opened in Kenya, and others are being constructed in Tanzania, Uganda and India so far.

The academies, which will offer the International Baccalaureate program, reflect the Aga Khan’s “commitment to education and the need for excellence to promote civil society and encourage democracy and pluralism in developing countries,” Karim said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

In Texas, the Aga Khan was scheduled to meet with Gov. Rick Perry on Saturday and attend the signing of a student and faculty exchange agreement between the University of Texas and the Aga Khan University, which has campuses in Pakistan and other countries.

The governor was scheduled to host a private dinner Saturday night and then a fireworks show near Austin for the Aga Khan, a Harvard-educated businessman and philanthropist who traces his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad.

Perry and the Aga Khan became friends nearly a decade ago. Their friendship resulted in a University of Texas program that exposes state teachers to Muslim history and culture. It is funded by the Aga Khan Development Network, one of the world’s largest private development agencies.

The Aga Khan was also scheduled to attend an event Saturday at an exotic game ranch in Buda.

The present Aga Khan succeeded his grandfather as the 49th hereditary imam of the Ismaili Muslims in 1957. Ismaili Muslims are a branch of the Shiite community.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/11/america/NA-GEN-US-Aga-Khan-Golden-Jubilee.php

Kabul Hotel Tax Raid Sparks Cash Exodus

April 8th, 2008 | By Jon Boone

Afghanistan businesses are moving cash reserves overseas after learning that the government claimed it was owed more than $285,000 in back taxes from the Aga Khan’s luxury hotel development in Kabul.

A fortnight after eight guests and staff were killed by a terrorist attack at the city’s most upmarket hotel on January 14, the ministry of finance took the money from the dollar account of the Serena hotel without warning.

After two years in operation, the Serena, an elegant five-star hotel set up by the Aga Khan in the hope that it would spur other international investors, has yet to make healthy profits.

The ministry of finance said it was within Afghan law to settle tax disputes by freezing or “making transfers” from private accounts. But Christopher Newbery, the hotel’s general manager, said the sudden withdrawal of funds could not have come at a worse time. The hotel’s revenue had dried up after a team of suicide bombers detonated themselves in front of the compound in central Kabul and it needed cash to repair the damage.

“We were absolutely furious because having been attacked on January 14, on January 29 we had a second attack when the government took our money at just the moment we needed it most.”

The case has highlighted the risks of starting businesses in a country where entrepreneurs say government interference and “nuisance taxes” are as big a problem as declining security and a decrepit national electricity supply.

Three companies, which declined to be named, told the Financial Times that they were taking cash out of the country to protect their businesses.

The Serena is one of two businesses that the Aga Khan Development Network has invested in as part of a private sector-led development programme. Frantic lobbying of Hamid Karzai, the president, by the ambassador to the Aga Khan, the billionaire spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim community, led to the money being temporarily repaid.

The ministry of finance says it expects the money to be paid to the government in three tranches. But the Serena’s tax consultants say the amount owed, which related to tax accrued by the Indian construction company that built the hotel, is more like $50,000 (?25,000, 32,000).

At a meeting on December 31 they paid that sum as a goodwill gesture and were told by Sharifullah Ibrahimi, the deputy minister of finance, that the dispute would only be settled after a full audit by the country’s large taxpayer’s office.

“It was as if the meeting had never taken place,” Mr Newbery said. “Not only did they simply help themselves to money, they claimed that we had never paid the $50,000. That’s what they do to people who actually pay their taxes - they take whatever they can get.”

Cases such as these are, the Afghan business community says, damaging the country’s efforts to build its economy, so Afghanistan can pay its own way when the foreign cash that pays for almost everything the government does dries up.

But the private sector is so limited - and so reliant on money spent by international consultants, diplomats and aid workers - that a French restaurant in Kabul catering to the culinary needs of the city’s expats is one of the country’s 100 biggest taxpayers.

Taxes, along with crime and persistent power outages, are leading some businesses to stop projects or relocate some or all of their businesses to Dubai. Saad Mohseni, chief executive of Moby Media, which runs television and radio stations, says he recently had videotapes of imported Indian television programmes impounded at Kabul airport because a government agency believed they should be paying on the content.

“The government says it is dealing with these so-called nuisance taxes but it’s ridiculous that after seven years we are still facing these problems,” he said. “Why can’t the whole lot just be declared null and void?”

He says his frustration with Afghan government “incompetence” is so great that the company has set up a business division in Dubai.

One leading international logistics company came close to pulling out of Afghanistan last year after it discovered it had been paying taxes to the ministry of communications - technically illegal because only the ministry of finance is allowed to raise revenue.

Some efforts to improve the tax system have made the situation worse. Draft laws prepared in English by foreign consultants have been mistranslated into Dari, the official language of government. The garbled version is then treated as the law. A western official, who declined to be named but has worked closely on tax reform issues, said the “cheques had been made out to the ministry of post, which doesn’t exist, so God knows who actually got the money”.

Source: ANC News

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

Aga Khan’s cultural centre crown jewel for Don Mills

Apr 02, 2008 04:30 AM

Christopher Hume
Urban Affairs Columnist
Perhaps the Aga Khan knows something we don’t. Why else would the spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims have chosen a 7-hectare site near Don Mills and Eglinton to build his $200 million community centre/cultural campus?

Most Torontonians would have dismissed that location without a second thought; after all Wynford Dr., where the old Bata and Shell corporate sites were located, is more a drive-by corner than a destination.

But once the transformation is complete, sometime around 2011, it will be a full-fledged international destination, a place for all.

The three-part project consists of a museum and a community/religious centre surrounded by gardens. Though work won’t begin until later this year, drawings show a complex of rare beauty that, even more amazing, is rendered in the language of contemporary architecture. Unlike most such religious/culture centres that have appeared recently in these parts, this one looks to the future, not the past.

The designer of the museum, intended to house the Aga Khan’s exquisite collection of Islamic art and artifacts, is none other than acclaimed Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. The Pritzker Prize winner has conceived a state-of-the-art facility clad in white stone and set off by a dome—like metal structure on the roof. Inside, there will be a 350-seat theatre as well as all the usual features – library, café, restaurant and storage.

It sits north of the centre by Charles Correa, another celebrated architect, in this case from Mumbai. A modernist known for his sensitivity to local conditions, Correa has contributed a low-slung building also highlighted by a multi-faceted dome rendered in glass. The centre will contain the meeting rooms and various spaces. The jamatkhana, or prayer room, is the sacred part of the complex; it will be a simple, unadorned area lit by the dome above. Clad in limestone, this large rambling structure reads like a geological feature, part of the landscape; it’s the largest element on site.

In between and all around will be a series of gardens, ponds, fountains and rows of trees that can be expected to erase all signs of suburbia. Designed by Vladimir Djurovic of Lebanon, this green space takes its inspiration from the traditional Islamic idea of the garden as a place of quiet contemplation and enclosed beauty. It must also serve to block out the nearby parkway and off-ramp, the major arterials and the whole apparatus of a postwar car-based city.

Interestingly, the Aga Khan, who signs off on all plans, was strongly in favour of the gardens – and underground parking for 750 cars. His Highness was concerned about what kind of image the centre will send to the population at large. He wanted non-Ismailis to feel as welcome as possible, and also to be confronted with the sheer beauty of the complex.

Given the number of surface lots in Toronto, one might think we love them, but thankfully the Aga Khan doesn’t. Though his demand will raise the cost of the project, that’s a price he’s willing to pay.

For this, and everything else, we should be eternally grateful. It is revealing that the Aga Khan and his foundation treat this city with more respect than most developers who work here. Not only did Toronto win the museum over London, England, the plan will empower three important architects to help transform Toronto.

The Aga Khan is also hard at work in Ottawa, converting the old War Museum of Sussex Dr. into the Global Centre for Pluralism. There’s another Ismaili centre, also designed by Maki, under construction in the embassy district.

Too often the subtext of the diversity debate focuses on what Canada can do for immigrants. This time, it’s about how much they can do for Canada – and Toronto.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/408998

Ummah Cum Laude; Remapping The World

Through The Leadership Of The Aga Khan, An Ambitious 17-Acre Redevelopment In Suburban Toronto Will Bring Two Global Cultural Institutions To Canada Supporting Art And Culture In The Ummah, Or Muslim Diaspora.; As A Jury Member For The 2007 Aga Khan Award For Architecture, Architect And Professor Brigitte Shim Discusses The Importance Of This Unique Awards Program.

Atop a hill overlooking the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in Toronto’s Don Mills suburb, construction is about to begin on an important cultural precinct. Funded by His Highness the Aga Khan, two significant cultural institutions will stand on the former site of a late-Modernist office building. One will help support Toronto’s 40,000 Ismaili Muslims, while the other will comprise a museum whose mission it is to improve cultural understanding of the Muslim world.

The Aga Khan had already owned the eastern portion of the site and was planning on building the Ismaili Centre and Jamatkhana (community prayer hall) when the late-Modern Parkindesigned Bata International Headquarters building came up for sale in 2002. This offered the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) an opportunity to expand their site for the purposes of building a museum housing an extensive collection of Islamic art, as well as a pluralistic educational centre to study Muslim culture. While it is unfortunate that the Bata building was unable to be saved from demolition, its replacement will undoubtedly be of far greater significance to both the cultural and architectural history of Toronto. Fifty years ago, very few Muslims lived in nearby communities like Flemingdon and Thorncliffe Park. Today, these communities represent one of most significant Muslim populations in Canada. Forsaking the chance to build exemplary contemporary architecture celebrating the ethnic and cultural diversity of Toronto for the sake of preserving the Bata building would have truly been a wasted opportunity in the architectural history of the city, and indeed the country.

The 17-acre site bounded by Wynford Drive, Eglinton Avenue, the DVP and Don Mills Road will be transformed by the addition of two significant projects: the Ismaili Centre and Jamatkhana designed by Mumbai-based Charles Correa Architects, and the Aga Khan Museum, designed by architect Fumihiko Maki of Maki & Associates in Tokyo. Inserted between each of these 10,000-square-metre projects will be a series of landscaped gardens designed by the Beirut-based landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, who received a 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for his Samir Kassir Square project in Beirut. And overseeing construction of the site are Moriyama & Teshima Architects of Toronto, the architects of record. Collectively, the construction costs for the two buildings will exceed $200 million. The Ismaili Centre will be completed by late 2010, with the Aga Khan Museum completed approximately one year later.

Including Eastern-influenced formal gardens and over two kilometres of walking trails open to the public, Wynford Park will contain five reflecting pools, enclosed gardens and waterfalls. Visitors will be shielded from the noisy DVP and Eglinton Avenue traffic with numerous places for contemplation. Along the southern edge of the site, the development group is in the process of discussing with the City of Toronto as to how best manage the City-owned property abutting the site. In return for relocating some of the existing fencing along the property line, the AKDN will maintain the adjacent City property, as well as upgrade its plantings and grading. Both the selection of plant material and safety concerns regarding public access to the site during non-daylight hours and the winter season are currently being discussed with the City to ensure that issues of maintenance and safety are properly addressed. Even a nearly inaccessible traffic island will be upgraded and maintained so that the impact of Wynford Park’s landscape can extend as far into the community as possible.

Wynford Park crystallized the development process in 2004 through the creation of the Imara Development Group, a project management arm engaged to oversee the construction of both institutions in addition to the landscape architecture. Although the construction costs will be underwritten by the AKDN, Wynford Park will require distinct, ongoing financial commitments. Since the Ismaili Centre is a community facility, the Toronto Ismaili community will be responsible for fundraising its many ongoing activities. As the museum is a cultural enterprise, it will be seeking ongoing patronage to support its functions through the establishment of endowment funds, exhibition donations and membership revenue from the community at large–similar strategies to what most other public museums pursue in order to remain viable.

While the AKDN had developed their functional and programmatic requirements for the site, they hired Shamez Mohammed as their representative to coordinate the project, essentially a turnkey operation to be delivered over to the AKDN after its completion. Before working for the AKDN, Mohammed, a civil engineer with an MBA, had worked for Mercer Management Consulting in Toronto for several years. After the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, he took a paid sabbatical from his firm and moved to India for 14 months to establish the Mumbai operations of Focus Humanitarian Assistance, an international disaster management agency. After returning to Canada, Mohammed became a volunteer for the Aga Khan, eventually resigning from Mercer in 2004 to become the Project Coordinator for the Ismaili Centre and Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, in addition to coordinating two ongoing Ottawa projects supported by the AKDN–the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat and the Global Centre for Pluralism.

The significance of building a pluralist precinct devoted to education, culture, religion and community devoted to Ismailis and the Muslim world with the intent of engaging a dialogue with the general population cannot be overstated. His Highness the Aga Khan is not only a religious leader for the 15 million Ismailis around the world, but a leader concerned with strengthening the contemporary identity of Muslim culture in the Ummah, or the Muslim diaspora. Building such an ambitious project as Wynford Park, the Aga Khan has taken a clear position regarding the study and dissemination of contemporary Muslim culture in the global sphere, and not just for the benefit of the Toronto Ismaili community. In a speech delivered at a roundtable held at the Louvre in Paris last October, the Aga Khan noted the challenges associated with manoeuvring the identity of his Toronto Aga Khan Museum within a cultural framework that is difficult to generalize in a diverse, complex and pluralistic world. When it comes to generalizing the Islamic world, these sensitive challenges become overlaid with misunderstandings associated with issues such as religious wars, terrorism and regional strife–elements that are not representative of the vast majority of Muslims. Therefore, the Aga Khan’s creation of a contemporary cultural and religious precinct in the suburbs of Toronto is incredibly challenging but also extremely vital, if both the Muslim and general Canadian populations are to learn about themselves and each other.

Before beginning the deliberation process for the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA), our jury was asked to provide words reflecting any aspirations for this award program. In no particular order, I thought that it would be helpful to list these words: collaboration, education, excellence, sustainability, sensitivity to context, negotiations, changing the status quo, interventions, coherences, transformations, broader context, process, architectural ethnography, affective contribution, new models of urbanism, accretive urbanization, humane urban density, dialogic ummah, contemporaneity, translation and transition.

Prior to serving on the 2007 AKAA jury, I associated this award program with its admirable recognition of significant restoration projects throughout the Muslim world. I certainly did not link this award with contemporary buildings. I quickly learned that this, the tenth award cycle for the program, represents a 30-year commitment by His Highness the Aga Khan to architectural excellence and a desire to stimulate debate and reflection about the built environment. Once every three years, this award program provides a lens to view, understand and celebrate built work emerging from communities throughout the Islamic world. The projects reviewed for the 2007 award cycle leaves us with valuable lessons that can guide us toward new models of exemplary and meaningful contemporary works of architecture.

In the Western world, there is a great deal of attention paid to the look and image of buildings. Our architecture magazines reflect our speedobsessed societies mirrored through mega-projects and agitated skyscrapers. In our busy world, it is rare to take the time to reflect and better understand the powerful role building plays in shaping people’s lives and fostering community.

Rather than considering the winning entries of the 2007 AKAA as a homogeneous group, readers need to dig deeper and understand the pivotal role each project plays–in the words of the Aga Khan–”in changing the physical environment of the Islamic world enabling people of all backgrounds and faiths to live a better life.” Hopefully, the rest of the world will take notice of and learn to develop a greater understanding about the remarkable transformative work taking place many parts of the Muslim world. The following are some of the themes that I derived from my experiences as a member of the jury.

Remapping

Architecture fuses together poetic ideas, inert materials, physical site and social conditions. Architecture trades on its ability to touch and shape people’s lives in profound and meaningful ways. Around the world, no matter where it is being practiced, architecture is a complex discipline. Projects in the Islamic world have a rich architectural history and are burdened with an additional mandate to link and intertwine the past, present and future in meaningful and innovative ways. In January and June of 2007, I was honoured to be one of nine jury members invited to spend several days in Geneva, Switzerland deliberating over the ways in which built architecture impacts the Muslim world. Each jury member was required to do plenty of homework prior to arriving in Geneva, as several thick binders full of background information were sent to us beforehand. With 343 projects submitted, I became intimately aware of the enormous challenges and the hopeful opportunities of building in cities and towns like Koudougou, Beirut, Addis Ababa, Rada’, Bandar Seri Iskader, Singapore, Shibam, Nicosia and Radrapur. The Muslim world covers many continents, numerous climatic zones and specific regions of the globe. My experience on this jury has recalibrated my sense, inspiring me to remap my world.

Lateral Conversations

Most architecture award juries bring together architects to review photographic images of built work. Winning projects are selected based on the jury’s collective vision of architectural excellence. The 2007 AKAA program brought together five architects from around the world with an historian, an artist, a curator and a literary theorist to discuss, interpret and better understand the changing landscape throughout the Muslim world. During our numerous jury sessions, I was aware that architects were also painters and that curators were also poets and that everyone in the room was a teacher. We all listened and learned from the distinct voices around the table. The jury’s definition of architectural excellence was constantly being challenged, defined and redefined. The winning projects were not easily decided. They emerged from the breadth of our lateral conversations.

Deep Vertical Knowledge

No other architectural award program in the world sends independent reviewers to all parts of the globe to visit the jury’s shortlisted projects. No other architectural award program in the world brings these same reviewers to the jury to share with them their first-hand observations and insights about the physical and social context of the built work. The reviewers’ personal field experiences enable the jury to build a knowledge base for each and every project. The jury was made aware of the physical data, design and construction process, cultural contribution, construction schedule, cost, technical developments and social relevance for every shortlisted project considered. We discussed the design intent, the design process as well as the design results. We understood the varying role of the contractor, builders and craftsmen in each project, recognizing the many types of strong individuals and multi-headed client groups involved in commissioning work. We also understood the changing role of the architect and the complex nature of design teams required to realize any built project. This is fundamental to what I’ll call the vertical gathering of knowledge afforded by the AKAA program.

Building Community

How can architecture continue to play a vital role in building community throughout the Muslim world? The jury noted that many projects suffered by adopting a foreign or “borrowed” language of architecture that has matured over the last 50 years in the Muslim world, and also did not consider the communities that they served. As a counterpoint to this kind of placelessness, we need to support and celebrate ways of building community that emerge from a deep understanding of the local culture and building traditions while simultaneously addressing the layered complexities of our modern world. The discipline of architecture needs to nurture alternative models of practice that link and support committed designers to work directly with local communities to engage in projects that have the capacity to build and transform community.

Transforming the World

At no time in human history has the potential for architecture to shape our world been greater than today. The exemplary winning projects of the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture demonstrate to us that the human spirit is capable of transforming the world around us. While there is much to be learned from the built form of every winning project, the most valuable lesson lies in the understanding that architects can truly engage the Muslim world even before they start to design.

Brigitte Shim was a member of the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture jury. She is a principal of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Landscape & Design at the University of Toronto.

Source: http://www.canadianarchitect.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?story_id=159010084929&issue=03012008&PC=