The fifth edition of the Paris Peace Forum [PPF] took place on the 11th and 12th of November, 2022 at the Palais Brongniart, the heart of Paris. PPF is a global governance platform. The Aga Khan Development Network [AKDN] is a founding member of the forum, along with the French government and various civil societies. The AKDN was represented at the forum by Prince Amyn Aga Khan & Prince Rahim Aga Khan.
There were 32 heads of state and government, leaders of international organizations and civil societies, as well as 80 panels and roundtables, and 70 projects showcased, out of which 10 projects were selected to receive tailored support for one year so as to expand the circle of their impact.
PPF 2022 focused on ‘Riding out the Multicrisis’, with particular emphasis on the following priorities: managing the fallout of the multicrisis on populations, catalyzing climate and environmental solutions, rethinking globalization in a polarized world, cooperating through conflicts, ensuring a safer and ethical digital world, and fostering more inclusive, just societies.
I was invited to the forum as the representative of the twentieth and twenty-first century Pakistani polymath, ‘Allamah Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai, who founded the Institute for Spiritual Wisdom and Luminous Science (ISWLS), and whose contributions to modern-day philosophy, language, literature, and culture, earned him the Sitarah-yi Imitiyaz, one of Pakistan’s highest national honors.
On November 12th, I visited The Climate Pathways Project’s booth, where I had a wonderful conversation with Prince Rahim Aga Khan. We spoke about the CPP’s En-ROADS climate solutions simulator, the first app that allows users to explore the impact of roughly 30 policies – such as electrifying transport, pricing carbon, and improving agricultural practices – on hundreds of factors like energy prices, temperature, air quality, and sea level rise, across the globe, in connection with which I shared ‘Allamah Nasir Hunzai’s Law of Nature and spoke on the many practical implications of his surrounding ethical philosophy, in which Prince Rahim expressed his interest. I thus presented to him a hardback edition of ‘Allamah Nasir Hunzai’s Practical Sufism and Spiritual Science. Prince Rahim went through the book with keen interest, looked at its back-cover which features a picture and bio of ‘Allamah Nasir Hunzai, thanked me profusely for it and said “I appreciate this very much,” before taking it away with him as a gift.
This followed an equally fruitful day on November 11th, where I spent some time with Meredith Preston McGhie, Secretary General of the Global Centre for Pluralism, and Prince Amyn Aga Khan. We spoke on the practical implications of the monism and connecting ethical philosophy found in ‘Allamah Nasir Hunzai’s The Wise Qur’an and the World of Humanity. After a highly productive discussion, I presented Prince Amyn with a hardback edition of ‘Allamah Nasir Hunzai’s Wonders and Marvels of Spiritual Science, and spoke further on some of his many contributions to pluralism in the modern-day Isma’ili tradition, including how he was the first to author a diwan of devotional and philosophical poetry in Burushaski, to which Mawlana Hazir Imam ascribed the status of a ginan book in the language of Hunza, finally giving the Burusho people from among the majority-Isma’ili population there the gift of liturgical hymns in their own mother-tongue. At all of this, Prince Amyn expressed his immense pleasure and held a beaming smile, before taking the book away with him as a gift.
I would summarize the forum in the words of Pascal Lamy, the President thereof: “The Paris Peace Forum is not just about ideas, initiatives, or what we should do but about how we do it with concrete solutions; getting things done.”
Yasmin Pyarali Karim
Vancouver, Canada
Ismailimail 
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