The Aga Khan University Hospital was inaugurated on November 11, 1985. In his address at this ceremony, Mawlana Hazar Imam said:
“The Aga Khan University is to be an Islamic institution. It will draw upon the great historical tradition of Muslim learning, the heritage of such scholars and scientists as al-Razi, al-Biruni, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd.”
Al Razi (865-925) developed a reputation as one of the greatest clinicians of the Middle Ages. Many of his medical works, translated into Latin, exercised a remarkable influence on the Latin West for many centuries. Al-Biruni (973-1050) was considered the most original and profound scholar Islam produced in the field of natural science. His works discussed the then debatable theory of the earth’s rotation on its axis and made accurate determination of longitudes and latitudes. Ibn-Sina (980-1037), known in the West as Avicenna, wrote over 200 books on philosophy, medicine, geometry, astronomy, theology, and art. His Canon of Medicine was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and became a textbook for medical schools in Europe until the end of the nineteenth century. Ibn Rushd (1126-1204), an astronomer and physician known as Averroes in the West, was the greatest Muslim philosopher judged by his influence especially over the West. The intellectual movement initiated by Ibn Rushd continued to be a living factor in European thought until the birth of modern experimental science.
Ref: Philip K. Hitti, History of Arabs (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1970)
Ismailimail 
These are a few of the other gems of wisdom uttered by Mowlana Hazar Imam at other milestone dates of the Aga Khan University:
AKU=Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation. (Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, AKU)
The truth, as the famous Islamic scholars repeatedly told their students, is that the spirit of disciplined, objective enquiry is the property of no single culture, but of all humanity(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, AKU)
To quote the great physician and philosopher, Ibn Sina: “My profession is to be forever journeying, to travel about the universe so that I may know all its conditions.” (Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, AKU)
By the art of translation, learning was assimilated from other civilizations. (Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, AKU)
An institution dedicated to proceeding beyond known limits must be committed to independent thinking. In a university scholars engage both orthodox and unorthodox ideas, seeking truth and understanding wherever they may be found(Aga Khan IV, 1993, AKU)
For a Muslim university it is appropriate to see learning and knowledge as a continuing acknowledgement of Allah’s magnificence(Aga Khan IV, 1993, AKU)
That quest for a better life, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must lead inevitably to the Knowledge Society which is developing in our time.(Aga Khan IV, 2nd December 2006, AKU)
The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time(Aga Khan IV, 2nd December 2006, AKU)
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