NJ: And what about the interviews and writings?
ME: Well most of the interviews pre-date the Internet and had it not been for the earlier work by existing private Ismaili websites to preserve these, I think that by and large they would have been lost. Even then, although the Archive has some 100 interviews, going all the way back to 1958, I have no doubt some are still missing. All the interviews but one are publicly available.
As for the writings, again these are hard to locate and the Archive contains a couple of dozen, a few of which are Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah's -- whose works I've not yet focused on. Hazar Imam's writings are generally articles printed in the media -- usually edited versions of a recent speech -- or forwards, prefaces or introductions to AKDN publications or other books. To find these, I went through every publication I could find on akdn.org and I found some real gems hidden in them. I think I also found a few more digging through archnet.org.
NJ: How do you know you have a complete archive of speeches from the Imamat?
ME: Well I can never be sure the Archive is complete and I know many speeches are missing or incomplete. However, unlike conventional archives which usually only list their contents, I've also listed material I know exists -- usually from news reports -- but don't have. This missing material includes about 100 speeches. In addition to these, there are about 60 events which Hazar Imam attended but it is unclear if he made a speech. And finally, there are about 70 speeches and interviews which are incomplete as I only have excerpts, again usually from a news report. In addition to these, there will of course be other material I'm not even aware of.
All this missing, incomplete and unpublished material can be found listed and flagged in the Archive's index and I would be very grateful if your readers and our visitors, who collect Hazar Imam's speeches themselves, would review the index and contribute any material which they have in their personal collections that is flagged as missing or complete, or not even listed in the index at all. Instructions on how to contribute material are provided on the site. Nevertheless, at almost 700 entries, of which about 500 have full texts, I think the NanoWisdoms Archive is the most comprehensive, publicly accessible repository of Hazar Imam's wisdom and knowledge today.
NJ: What quality assurance methods have you employed to ensure the accuracy of the speeches?
The Archive aims to be a credible, reliable and professional resource not only for the jamat and public generally, but also for professionals, scholars and the media and so without holding to the highest standards no one will have confidence the Archive is a reliable source ...
ME: This is a very important point. The Archive aims to be a credible, reliable and professional resource not only for the jamat and public generally, but also for professionals, scholars and the media and so without holding to the highest standards no one will have confidence the Archive is a reliable source and there would be little point in doing the project in the first place. So I've made every effort to ensure accuracy and every entry has its sources listed. All publicly available speeches use primary sources. For the unavailable 190, I have used primary sources whenever they were available to me, otherwise a reliable secondary source has been used and identified as such. As I am able to locate primary sources, I verify texts against them. So far all the secondary sources have proven to be completely reliable, save for one interview and one speech -- which was merely incomplete.
In the 60s, 70s and 80s Hazar Imam's speeches were published in several books and except for two, I now have all of these thanks to help from Nano's visitors. The two I'm still looking for are Speeches II, which I believe was published in the late 60s, and Silver Jubilee Speeches I, a 100 page book. Note, this is different from the colourful, souvenir boxed set of Silver Jubilee speeches that was published by Aiglemont. If any of your readers have either of these two books, I would be very grateful if they would contact me.
Similarly for the interviews, where possible I have used primary sources but these are much harder to come by. For those interviews that come from secondary sources, I would be very grateful if your readers could help by sending photocopies or scans of the original newspapers or magazines, local to their countries, in which the interviews were published. I'm sure they'll be able to find them at major public or university libraries in their cities, or in the publisher's own archives.
NJ: Do you have plans to bring Nahjul Balagha into your treasury?
ME: Oh yes! As the website says, its purpose is to archive knowledge from the Imamat. However, once I have completed the thematic charts, my next focus will be on Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah's works -- I only have a few items of his in Nano at this time -- and again, I would be grateful for submissions from your readers. Similarly for earlier Imams, if your readers have any documents or books which quote them -- even small passages, I'd be very grateful for copies of the relevant pages.
NJ: Do you have any tips or suggestions on how visitors can be most effective when using the NanoWisdoms Archive?
ME: That is exactly the purpose of the new webinars. In them I'll be explaining the organisation of the Archive and demonstrating various tips on how to search effectively. For example, I've noticed often people perform a search that doesn't return any results when Mawlana Hazar Imam has spoken on the subject. The problem is they are unfamiliar with Hazar Imam's vocabulary so they will search "drinking", for example, when he doesn't use that term in his speeches but instead talks about "alcohol." Similarly visitors will search on dasond while in the interviews he addresses it in response to questions on "tithe." Another problem is visitors search on tariqah related concepts like ginans or bandagi when Hazar Imam generally doesn't speak on such topics in his public speeches. However, if visitors are having difficulty locating information they need and want some assistance, they're welcome to contact me for help.
NJ: Do you feel the speeches speak to you?
ME: I wouldn't say they "speak" to me as such, but when you're able to see everything Hazar Imam has said on a particular theme, subtle nuances become apparent, especially when read in conjunction with his farmans. Stumbling upon these nuances is, for me, the most exciting facet of all this work as it leads to whole new insights and perspectives which let me better understand Hazar Imam's perspectives and thus our faith. For example, Hazar Imam once pointed out that education should encourage students to consider questions such as "What is truth? What is reality?" Notice he did not say "What is the truth? What is the reality?" but what is truth and reality intrinsically. These are profound questions and reflecting on them helped crystallise and clarify many notions about our faith which I had otherwise only suspected for some time and had been murky and amorphous for me till then.
NJ: Yes, we'll be publishing a fascinating article of yours -- Truth, Reality and Religion -- later this month.
ME: Similarly, when we think of the themes Hazar Imam talks about, we usually think of the "biggies" -- pluralism, democracy, clash of ignorance and so forth, yet when you are able to study his speeches in depth, subtle undercurrents become apparent. For example, not immediately obvious are Hazar Imam's repeated appeals for confidence, for a spirit of adventure, for the courage to think independently, to break new ground and not get mired in dogma. In 1960, at Mindanao University in the Philippines, he even went so far as to say "I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us," meaning the Ummah. And then in 2007, at the academies in Mombasa and Uganda, he specifically called for education that instills a "spirit of adventure" in students. Similarly in his vision for the Academies, he wrote:
The true test [of education] is the ability of students and graduates to engage with what they do not know and to work out a solution.
In fact directly related to this is the Research and New Knowledge theme, which though not considered one of the "biggies" is actually one of the most frequently mentioned topics in Hazar Imam's speeches and writings. This is especially obvious on the word cloud of theme frequencies we published a couple of weeks ago.
I believe that constantly challenging established ideas, pushing the envelope, thinking in new directions -- seeing how one can "make a dent in the Universe" as Steven Jobs put it -- are not just nice platitudes but imperative attitudes any community needs to adopt to protect itself from inadvertently developing a corpus of unchallengeable dogma which would inevitably choke thought and adaptability, and stifle progress, perhaps for generations. Some of my favourite quotes of Hazar Imam on this theme are that we must "constantly review and revise and renew what we think we know," that "knowledge is constantly changing, must ever be challenged and extended." Even Hazrat Ali said:
No one establishes the order of God the Glorified except one who does not flatter, is not a conformist, and is not subordinate to objects of desire (emphasis added).
[T]his whole notion of engaging with the unknown and thinking independently, having the courage and confidence do so ... is, I think, a very important, yet subtle, theme that the Imams have always emphasised. I think it's because this is a key pillar upon which our intellectual tradition actually rests ...
So this whole notion of engaging with the unknown and thinking independently, having the courage and confidence do so -- notwithstanding the risk of failure or the ridicule of going against the "consensus", if that's where truth lies -- is, I think, a very important, yet subtle, theme that the Imams have always emphasised. I think it's because I believe this is a key pillar upon which our intellectual tradition actually rests as I explain further in that upcoming article.
Besides such subtle themes, at other times in what appears to be a rather modest speech, on say "just health care," Hazar Imam will speak to contemporary social issues. For example, at the opening of the Singal Medical Centre, Gilgit, in 1983, he said:
Children need to be cared for from the time they are conceived until they reach maturity ...
NJ: Mawlana Hazar Imam has given us a lot of advice in his speeches -- what are the main points a devotee can take away from them to change one's life and help others?
ME: That's an impossible question! One of the most remarkable characteristics about the Imam's words is how apparently simple, innocuous statements often capture all the facets of wholesome human character and our relationships both to each other and to Allah. Consider for example:
Uncompromising excellence is also an ethical principle.
Or:
[I]n Islam, the links between faith and knowledge are very strong and we are constantly encouraged to learn. This is an extraordinary message for humanity.
Think about that -- an extraordinary message for humanity.
If you reflect on these succinct statements, and understand their full ramifications, I think you could live your entire life by either one of them.
However, I would look at your question from different perspective. As we know, the Imam's primary purpose for us as Ismailis is to interpret the faith and so for me one of Hazar Imam's most revealing statements has always been:
The ethics of Islam guide all my activity.
In other words, if the ethics of Islam guide all his activity, then he is telling us without any ambiguity, that all his actions are a reflection of his interpretation of Islam.
Now, as I mentioned, I have noticed that when I post quotes, those related that appear to be related directly to the faith, such as interpreting the Qur'an or about the Imamat or Ismailism, far and away get the highest response, as compared to a quote on, say, regionalism or architecture or something "worldly." I believe this is because we generally tend to think about our faith only in "spiritual" terms. In my opinion, however, that is not only far too narrow a view of what is spiritual but also severely constrains our openness to the breadth of avenues the Imam uses to express and interpret our faith for us, narrowing our understanding of the faith. Consider another of his most important statements:
In Islam, [worldly and spiritual life] are the same thing. One cannot separate faith from the world (emphasis added).
Now, immediately most of us would take this to be a statement about din and duniya, but consider the words again. Is he really talking about two things -- deen and duniya -- or just one? In other words, taken with the first quote -- the ethics of Islam guide all his activity -- the "spiritual" facets of our faith also lie in everything that Imam does.
[F]or me each point of view of [the Imam's] is an interpretation of some aspect of our faith and so each action of his is itself an act of spirituality that is an example or lesson for us to reflect on, understand and emulate as best we can.
If we now reconsider Hazar Imam's emphasis on regionalism or "helping those among whom we live", for example, the question becomes: what are the ethics and values of Islam that are inspiring him? I would suggest one value would be: "help thy neighbour." He's just looking at a bigger neighbourhood than we normally think of! Another value would perhaps be his concept of Islam as a "frontierless brotherhood." So to answer your question, "What are the main points someone can take from all his speeches and interviews to change one's life," I would say reflect on the two earlier quotes I gave and try and discover what ethic or value is driving each aspect of his work and his articulation of it. For me each point of view of his is an interpretation of some aspect of our faith and so each action of his is itself an act of spirituality that is an example or lesson for us to reflect on, understand and emulate as best we can.
NJ: You mentioned you conceived of and developed the Archive by yourself. What keeps you fuelled to continue this endeavour?
ME: Many factors. Ismailis differ from other branches of Islam because we have a living Imam and, as we know, the Imam's guidance and knowledge is one of the most fundamental aspects of the Imamat. Indeed the Imam's guidance and knowledge may well be his raison d'etre. Given this, I think the question is really: "How can we, as Ismailis, not archive and make his knowledge better available?" Nevertheless, I see it as a duty and obligation simply out of respect for the Imamat, if for no other reason. Not to do it says, in a sense, that we don't value the Imam's knowledge sufficiently to make the effort to organise it so we can access it, study and learn from it or preserve it for future generations. Preserving and organising the Imam's knowledge was done in the past, must be also done today and I believe it is a duty for each generation to continue to do so in the future. Of course public introduction of such archives must be done with the proper permissions.
Now obviously there must be extensive archives at IIS and/or Aiglemont which have all these speeches and interviews and more, but these are not publicly available. I'm sure they would like to make them available, but, like all institutions, they have resource constraints and other priorities, so shouldn't we help contribute? Hazar Imam has said:
Even the materially rich countries are rethinking the notion of the State and are emphasising the State's role in helping to free and mobilise the energy and creativity of civil society to meet the challenges of development.... A richly diverse yet purposefully united citizenry is capable of making a critical contribution to social development in the struggle against poverty.
In other words, we can't expect governments to do everything because they just don't have the capacity and so private initiative is essential, with civil society being part of that private initiative. I think it is no different for our own community and institutions.
If you'll allow me I'd just like to elaborate on this point because I believe it is of prime importance to properly situate the relationship between private Ismaili initiatives, like the NanoWisdoms Archive, and our institutions so that more such initiatives can be undertaken by the jamat and hopefully supported by the institutions, without anxiety on both sides.
Continued on Page 3 >
His Highness the Aga Khan on Reconciling Modernity and Tradition in Islam - Wisdom par excellence!
The Importance of Spiritual Literacy By M. Ali Lakhani
Social Responsibility as Explained in the Qur'an by Dr. Ali S. Asani
A Good Word is Like a Good Tree speech by Annemarie Schimmel
Prophet Muhammad Collection
Hazrat Ali Collection
Collection of Speeches by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Ismaili Web
Collection of Interviews of His Highness the Aga Khan at the Ismaili Web
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