As Revceived
Delegate of India to the League of Nations at the fourteenth meeting. (1932) Imam said:
“The basis of all security is a foreign policy rooted in mutual goodwill and cooperation; a foreign policy in which no country covets its neighbor’s possessions or seeks to infringe its moral and spiritual rights.”
The following is an eye witness account provided by Sheikh Hussein Kidwai on Afghanistan’s entry to the League of Nations:
….I was thrilled to the bone by what the Aga Khan said when the Muslim State of Afghanistan joined the so-called League of Nations. The Aga Khan was the head of the delegation from India. While welcoming the entry of Afghanistan he said:
“India is proud of her Eastern culture, Eastern traditions, Eastern language, Eastern civilisation and with Afghanistan, eighty million Muslims of India are proud, as I am proud to belong to the Glorious Brotherhood of Islam.”
I was fortunately present on the occasion. The Hall was full with peoples of different nationalities professing different religions.
The members of the League itself belonged to over fifty different nationalities. They were all educated, talented men representing their respective Governments.
But none was more cultured or enlightened than His Highness the Aga Khan who had assimilated all that was best in the Eastern as well as in the Western culture. He, indeed, was most cultured of them all.
In the presence of so many learned persons who claimed to represent nations scattered all over the world stood up a man – a responsible, thoroughly educated, well-experienced, well-travelled, well-polished man, a gentleman, a nobleman, respected by one and all, – and he proclaimed at the top of his voice that he was proud to belong to the Glorious Brotherhood of Islam.
The bold announcement was thrilling. The occasion when it was made was thrilling.
The Aga Khan’s words raised the prestige of Islam in an assembly which was almost prejudiced against it. I was overjoyed. I am a man hard to bend before anybody – not even “before a king”. But I would gladly bow before a man who spoke from his heart those thrilling words…
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On October 6, 1937, in a speech to the League of Nations in Geneva the Aga Khan said:
Indeed all the problems that fall to the League of Nations may be ultimately reduced to one – that of man, and the dignity of man…The tribulations of one people are the tribulations of all. That which weakens one weakens all. That which is a gain to one is surely a gain to all. This is no empty ideal…
Imam clearly defines life as the most precious gift granted by God to human beings. He wrote:
“Life is a great and noble calling, not a mean and grovelling thing to be shuffled through as best as we can but a lofty and exalted destiny.”
His approach to one’s perception of failures or disenchantment in life was that of keeping hope alive and rejecting the very thought of despondency. He said:
“You must remember that life will have for you many disappointments. If one-fifth of one’s hopes are realised, one is extremely lucky and fortunate, so do not be discouraged by disappointments.
“Failures should be forgotten and new efforts made. Despondency is a sin, and hope, a necessary part of iman (faith) both for material wealth and, above all, for progress to spiritual enlightenment.”
The idea of this faith based hope resonates with the following important teaching from the Holy Qur’an:
“Despair not of the Spirit of Allah. Lo ! None despaireth of the Spirit of Allah save disbelieving folk.” (Chapter 12, Verse 87).
Rather than looking at an unfortunate event on hindsight, the Aga Khan recommended that one should not only accept the event, but try and accept it wholeheartedly.
“I should first of all advise my heirs to learn to desire the thing that happens, and not try to mould events to their desires….
I say that you should endeavour to suit your desire to the event and not event to your desire. If a wall tumbles down and crushes my foot, I must say ‘that is the best thing that could happen to me’.”
To individuals who consider themselves in a hopeless situation in worldly terms and draw a comparison of their plight with those deemed to be in a better situation, the Aga Khan gave the following advice:
“I should have a word to say to those who deem themselves unfortunate from a worldly point of view. I should say to them, ‘Do not look up and lament that you are not as well off as those above you. Look down and congratulate yourself that you are better off than those below you’. To a man who looks with such eyes upon the world, it is not a prison but a garden. A marvelous garden – the garden of the Lord.”
Finally for him the primary message of Islam – that of Submission to the Will of Allah – was by very nature the key to happiness in this world.
This is not to suggest that human beings should become completely passive and just drift through life without attempting to improve their circumstances.
On the contrary, the Ismaili Imam paid great emphasis on human endeavour and struggle, and had even sent the following message to his followers:
“Struggle is the meaning of life; defeat or victory is in the hands of God. But struggle itself is man’s duty and should be his joy.”