On this day of Navroz, I say to each and everyone of you ‘Idd Mubarak’ and I pray that in this New Year your worldly and spiritual progress should progress tenfold and that this should be the case every year. Each Navroz say to yourselves, “Have we done our work?” If you have, then I will be very happy indeed. Once again, I say to you all “Navroz Mubarak”. And I want you at the beginning of this New Year to try to think a little bit ahead in your future. — Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan, Rangoon, Burma, March 21, 1960, excerpted from Ilm, March 1976.

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Some ways to think ahead for the new year

For many of my generation, the greatest technological miracle of this century has been sending men into space, and a remark made by an astronaut on one of the first flights in space has always remained in my mind. Looking down upon the earth he had just left he has said emotionally, “It’s one world.” He was not a Muslim. But this remark substantiated two fundamental aspects of our faith: the limitlessness of God’s power and the brotherhood of man — Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan, Acceptance of the Charter of Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, March 16, 1983.

All men, rich and poor, must aid one another materially and personally. This fraternity is absolute, and it comprises men of all colours and all races: black, white, yellow, tawny; all are the sons of Adam in the flesh and all carry in them spark of the Divine Light — 48th Ismaili Imam, Mawlana Sultan Mahomed Shah, His Highness the Aga Khan III (1877-1957).

We have so many issues to deal with and the environment is a very important one, a very big one. [I am] doing the part that I can, a small part to reverse things and change people’s minds a little bit and to share the beauty I see. I encourage everyone to travel and visit the forest, for they are amazing…there will be fewer and fewer in the future. That’s what I say to myself when I take every photograph…In my photographs, I let the animals and trees speak for themselves and hope other people will see the beauty I see — Prince Hussain Aga Khan, Founder, Focused on Nature.

Date posted: March 16, 2019.
Last updated: March 20, 2021.

Before departing this website, may we suggest that you visit Barakah’s Table of Contents for links to more than 260 pieces dedicated to Mawlana Hazar Imam and the Ismaili Imamat.

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Featured image at top of this post (or home page): Conceived and created by Toronto artist Karim Ismail, this calligraphy represents the greeting Navroz Mubarak in Eastern Kufi.  Image: © Karim Ismail.

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