Alexandre Côté, Canadian Counsellor & Senior Trade Commissioner to Angola, DRC & Mozambique reamrks that he was “honored to visit the Agakhan Award for Architecture exhibition & to meet with the Ismaili community.”
Pictured above are members of the Canadian Diplomatic Corps with Nazim Ahmed, AKDN Resident Representative to Portugal, Mozambique and the Lusophone countries; and institutional leaders from the Ismaili community.
About Ismaili Imamat’s AKDN Resident Representatives
- Afghanistan: Nurjehan Mawani, Order of Canada
- Bangladesh: Munir M. Merali
- Canada: Mahmoud Eboo
- Kenya: Aziz Bhaloo
- Portugal, Mozambique and the Lusophone countries: Nazim Ahmad, Comendador da Ordem do Mérito (Commander of the Order of Merit)
- Syria: Mohamed Saifo
- Tajikistan: Ali Akbar Pesnani
- Tanzania: Amin Kurji, Légion d’Honneur (France’s Legion of Honour)
- Uganda: Mahmood Ahmed
AKDN Resident Representative is a position similar to an Ambassador. While AKDN is a non-denominational entity, it is supranational in the context of its reach and operations. AKDN is a contemporary endeavor of the Ismaili Imamat to realize the social conscious of Islam through institutional action and it is inspired by the ethics of Islam as interpreted by the Shia-Alid tradition. The diplomatic reciprocity AKDN enjoys in the global diplomacy arena speaks of the importance of the contribution, impact and relevance the Ismaili Imamat has in the community of nations in modern times.
According to Wikipedia, an ambassador is an official envoy, especially a highest ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state, or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and often temporary diplomatic assignment. The “ambassadors” to the Commonwealth of Nations are known as High Commissioners and “ambassadors” of the Holy See are known as Papal or Apostolic Nuncios.
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