An Honour Signal and Deserved

The Aga Khan, head of the world-wide Muslim sect called the Ismailis, has visited Canada on many occasions. He has invested large sums of his personal finances in the country in establishing and building Ismaili Muslim structures that celebrate the diversity of human nature, and human rights, and above all demonstrate the aesthetic of Islamic culture through its architecture and its art forms. This is a man deserving of respect because he proffers it to others.

This is a man who espouses and respects and enthuses over social pluralism, a condition of people living together in peace and harmony and common civil regard for one another. He has, in the past, built some outstanding structures. In Ottawa alone, there are several, one of which is an architectural gem, the crystal-like Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, a paean to both modern and traditional Islamic architecture.The Delegation represents the Aga Khan's non-denominational, philanthropic, development agencies.

And with the recent announcement by the man known to his followers as Mawlana Hazar Imam, that a cultural centre, museum and park will be built on a site in Don Mills in suburban Toronto, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in acknowledgement of the good works and humanitarianism of the Aga Khan's charitable foundations, favoured this man with honourary Canadian citizenship.

The Aga Khan famously exhorted his followers in Canada to "Make Canada your home", and they have. Many of whom came to Canada to experience a better life, with more advantageous occupational and educational opportunities for their families, migrating here from countries like Uganda, Tanzania, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

"Canada has been the country which has been most generous, most thoughtful, most helpful in bringing people [in from] these difficult backgrounds, offering them a new opportunity", the Aga Khan once remarked, while in Vancouver. Ismaili-Canadians have returned the compliment most handsomely.