Excerpts from the article:
Celebrating his 50th year as the Aga Khan last year, the former Leverett House resident has become a bridge between East and West, traditionalism and modernity.
In speeches across the world, he has pressed for more pluralistic attitudes to combat what he dubs the “clash of ignorances”—a retooling of professor Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.”
Asani said the Aga Khan has formalized the traditional Islamic obligation to serve the poor through the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of nine agencies with an annual budget of $330 million that work to empower the poor in Asia and Africa.
In recent years, the Aga Khan has overseen hefty development projects, from a sprawling park in the center of Cairo to a major telephone company in Afghanistan. The Aga Khan’s newest project is a system of 18 high schools called Aga Khan Academies in the developing world that will be based on the International Baccalaureate curriculum.
The Aga Khan is known for his projects that use architecture to promote pluralism. In 1979, The architecture aficionado endowed a joint program between Harvard and MIT called the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture that aims to promote understanding of Islamic architecture in the West.
Complete article at The Harvard Crimson
Ismailimail 