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Faith and Ethics: The Vision of the Ismaili Imamat
Shi`i Ismaili Muslims are unique in following for centuries a living, hereditary Imam (spiritual leader), whom they believe to be directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad. The Imam's duty has been to guide his community on the basis of Islamic principles adapted to the needs of the time.
In this insightful book, M. Ali Lakhani examines how the ideas and actions of the current Ismaili Imam, and fourth Aga Khan, Prince Karim al-Husseini, provide an Islamic response to the challenges that face Muslims in the modern era. Prince Karim's programmes, implemented mainly through
the broad institutional framework of the Aga Khan Development Network, are aimed at improving the quality of human life among the disadvantaged, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. Addressing global issues ranging from healthcare and education to culture and civil society, the Aga Khan's initiatives are founded on core Islamic principles and values. This book is the first to provide an extensive survey of the Aga Khan's aspirations, showing how the values of integrity and dignity are at the forefront of his work, with the traditional Muslim concepts of cosmopolitanism and social justice guiding his response to the stark challenges of the modern age.
At a time when criticisms and misrepresentation surrounding Islam abound, Faith and Ethics explores the religion's universal principles and values, which the author holds to be central to the spiritual and ethical issues facing both Muslims and non-Muslims in the rapidly changing modern world. The book will be of special interest to scholars researching Islam, Muslim faith and ethics and the Ismailis, and to general readers wanting a deeper understanding of Islam.
In this insightful book, M. Ali Lakhani examines how the ideas and actions of the current Ismaili Imam, and fourth Aga Khan, Prince Karim al-Husseini, provide an Islamic response to the challenges that face Muslims in the modern era. Prince Karim's programmes, implemented mainly through
the broad institutional framework of the Aga Khan Development Network, are aimed at improving the quality of human life among the disadvantaged, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. Addressing global issues ranging from healthcare and education to culture and civil society, the Aga Khan's initiatives are founded on core Islamic principles and values. This book is the first to provide an extensive survey of the Aga Khan's aspirations, showing how the values of integrity and dignity are at the forefront of his work, with the traditional Muslim concepts of cosmopolitanism and social justice guiding his response to the stark challenges of the modern age.
At a time when criticisms and misrepresentation surrounding Islam abound, Faith and Ethics explores the religion's universal principles and values, which the author holds to be central to the spiritual and ethical issues facing both Muslims and non-Muslims in the rapidly changing modern world. The book will be of special interest to scholars researching Islam, Muslim faith and ethics and the Ismailis, and to general readers wanting a deeper understanding of Islam.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published February 28, 2018
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November 10, 2021Posting a review by Reza Shah-Kazemi on this Must read book on Ismaili Imamat.
https://thegreenknight.org/booksartic...
Faith And Ethics:
The Vision Of The Ismaili Imamat
BY M. ALI LAKHANI
BOOK REVIEW BY REZA SHAH-KAZEMI
This book is important for several reasons. First, as stated by the author himself, it is ‘the first extensive survey of the Aga Khan’s ideas’ (p.xxii). For the past sixty-four years the Aga Khan has led his community according to his understanding of the rich tradition of Ismaili Shia Islam. There are three key components here: Islam, the Shia branch of Islam, and the Ismaili branch of Shi’ism. How he has assimilated the principles of these three sources of his heritage, and how he has applied the principles of this tradition in the modern world, is what Ali Lakhani has admirably brought to light in his elegantly written exposition.
Lakhani’s book carries the subtitle: The Vision of the Ismaili Imamat. For those who might consider his use of the definite article a tad pretentious—who is Lakhani to say what the vision of the central guiding institution of the Ismaili community is—suffice to note that the book was published by the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, the main research body of the Ismaili community; and one presumes that a book which, for the first time, expounds the ideas of the Aga Khan in a systematic, philosophically coherent manner would have received an imprimatur from the highest authorities in the Ismaili community. It is, therefore, to be taken most seriously as an exposition of the implicit philosophy undergirding the scattered statements, speeches and interviews given by the Aga Khan as leader of his community since 1957.
Secondly, Lakhani does far more than simply tell us about the Ismaili community and the ideas of its leadership. He does an excellent job in juxtaposing the creative principles of Tradition and the destructive aspects of modernism, understood qua ethos, as opposed to modernity qua the contemporary world (chapters 3 and 4). He unpacks, in less than thirty pages, the philosophical premises implicit in the Aga Khan’s swingeing critique of the modernist ethos, delivered at Évora University in Portugal, 12 February, 2006:
‘How, in an increasingly cynical time, can we inspire people to a new set of aspirations—reaching beyond rampant materialism, the new relativism, self-serving individualism, and resurgent tribalism?’ (p.56).
On the other hand, Lakhani also demonstrates with admirable clarity and concision the ways in which the positive aspects of the contemporary world—its cosmopolitanism, for example (see chapter 4)—can be enhanced and calibrated by the universal principles so central to the Qur’anic revelation. He also shows how ‘living the ethics of Islam’ (chapter 9) allows not just the Ismaili community but all devout Muslims to integrate din (religion) and dunya (the world) in such a manner as to embrace diversity and pluralism as an expression of their religious ethos. The faith-based ethics of Islam, in other words, engender a humanistic perspective which respects and reveres the intrinsic and inalienable dignity of every human being, irrespective of religion or race, ethnicity, or nationality. This perspective is in stark contrast to ‘materialistic modernism and hidebound tradition’—which are two sides of the same coin, in fact: both materialistic modernists and fanatical traditionalists have made an idol of their ideology, which they worship with the same spirit compounded of exclusivism and intolerance of the Other. By contrast, as Lakhani reveals on page after page, the vision animating the Aga Khan’s indefatigable efforts on so many fronts—educational, cultural, artistic, architectural, environmental, charitable, humanitarian, etc—is to ‘replace walls which divide with bridges which unite’ (p.5) Instead of excluding and crushing the Other through ignorant antipathy, the Aga Khan makes a plea for us all to eliminate our fear of the Other through knowledge and empathy:
‘The danger is that knowledge gaps so often run the risk of becoming empathy gaps. The struggle to remain empathetically open to the Other in a diversifying world is a continuing struggle of central importance for all of us’ (p.103).
Lakhani rightly insists that such empathy with, and cultural sensitivity to, the Other can only emerge out of what, in another speech, the Aga Khan refers to as ‘a deep intellectual commitment’. It is here, perhaps, that we can see Lakhani’s most important contribution to the articulation of ‘the’ vision of the Ismaili Imamat, and implicitly, of the Aga Khan himself. Throughout the book, Lakhani makes it blindingly evident that when the human intellect is inspired by the deepest wellsprings of Islamic faith, it will be governed by the highest ideals of virtue, embracing the whole of humanity with a love which engenders hope and banishes fear:
‘This reversal from fear to hope is rooted in individuals, in the leadership that they provide to the overall impact of civil society. Governments and institutions must create an Enabling Environment in which hope can flourish. But the actual process of replacing fear with hope rests with every individual in his or her society’ (pp.148-149).
Speech at the Graduation Ceremony of Aiglon College,
Chesières, Switzerland, 21 June, 2014.
https://thegreenknight.org/booksartic...
https://thegreenknight.org/booksartic...
Faith And Ethics:
The Vision Of The Ismaili Imamat
BY M. ALI LAKHANI
BOOK REVIEW BY REZA SHAH-KAZEMI
This book is important for several reasons. First, as stated by the author himself, it is ‘the first extensive survey of the Aga Khan’s ideas’ (p.xxii). For the past sixty-four years the Aga Khan has led his community according to his understanding of the rich tradition of Ismaili Shia Islam. There are three key components here: Islam, the Shia branch of Islam, and the Ismaili branch of Shi’ism. How he has assimilated the principles of these three sources of his heritage, and how he has applied the principles of this tradition in the modern world, is what Ali Lakhani has admirably brought to light in his elegantly written exposition.
Lakhani’s book carries the subtitle: The Vision of the Ismaili Imamat. For those who might consider his use of the definite article a tad pretentious—who is Lakhani to say what the vision of the central guiding institution of the Ismaili community is—suffice to note that the book was published by the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, the main research body of the Ismaili community; and one presumes that a book which, for the first time, expounds the ideas of the Aga Khan in a systematic, philosophically coherent manner would have received an imprimatur from the highest authorities in the Ismaili community. It is, therefore, to be taken most seriously as an exposition of the implicit philosophy undergirding the scattered statements, speeches and interviews given by the Aga Khan as leader of his community since 1957.
Secondly, Lakhani does far more than simply tell us about the Ismaili community and the ideas of its leadership. He does an excellent job in juxtaposing the creative principles of Tradition and the destructive aspects of modernism, understood qua ethos, as opposed to modernity qua the contemporary world (chapters 3 and 4). He unpacks, in less than thirty pages, the philosophical premises implicit in the Aga Khan’s swingeing critique of the modernist ethos, delivered at Évora University in Portugal, 12 February, 2006:
‘How, in an increasingly cynical time, can we inspire people to a new set of aspirations—reaching beyond rampant materialism, the new relativism, self-serving individualism, and resurgent tribalism?’ (p.56).
On the other hand, Lakhani also demonstrates with admirable clarity and concision the ways in which the positive aspects of the contemporary world—its cosmopolitanism, for example (see chapter 4)—can be enhanced and calibrated by the universal principles so central to the Qur’anic revelation. He also shows how ‘living the ethics of Islam’ (chapter 9) allows not just the Ismaili community but all devout Muslims to integrate din (religion) and dunya (the world) in such a manner as to embrace diversity and pluralism as an expression of their religious ethos. The faith-based ethics of Islam, in other words, engender a humanistic perspective which respects and reveres the intrinsic and inalienable dignity of every human being, irrespective of religion or race, ethnicity, or nationality. This perspective is in stark contrast to ‘materialistic modernism and hidebound tradition’—which are two sides of the same coin, in fact: both materialistic modernists and fanatical traditionalists have made an idol of their ideology, which they worship with the same spirit compounded of exclusivism and intolerance of the Other. By contrast, as Lakhani reveals on page after page, the vision animating the Aga Khan’s indefatigable efforts on so many fronts—educational, cultural, artistic, architectural, environmental, charitable, humanitarian, etc—is to ‘replace walls which divide with bridges which unite’ (p.5) Instead of excluding and crushing the Other through ignorant antipathy, the Aga Khan makes a plea for us all to eliminate our fear of the Other through knowledge and empathy:
‘The danger is that knowledge gaps so often run the risk of becoming empathy gaps. The struggle to remain empathetically open to the Other in a diversifying world is a continuing struggle of central importance for all of us’ (p.103).
Lakhani rightly insists that such empathy with, and cultural sensitivity to, the Other can only emerge out of what, in another speech, the Aga Khan refers to as ‘a deep intellectual commitment’. It is here, perhaps, that we can see Lakhani’s most important contribution to the articulation of ‘the’ vision of the Ismaili Imamat, and implicitly, of the Aga Khan himself. Throughout the book, Lakhani makes it blindingly evident that when the human intellect is inspired by the deepest wellsprings of Islamic faith, it will be governed by the highest ideals of virtue, embracing the whole of humanity with a love which engenders hope and banishes fear:
‘This reversal from fear to hope is rooted in individuals, in the leadership that they provide to the overall impact of civil society. Governments and institutions must create an Enabling Environment in which hope can flourish. But the actual process of replacing fear with hope rests with every individual in his or her society’ (pp.148-149).
Speech at the Graduation Ceremony of Aiglon College,
Chesières, Switzerland, 21 June, 2014.
https://thegreenknight.org/booksartic...
July 14, 2020
This book deserves time and attention to read. It is written in an academic way so you do need to process what you are reading. It is well organized with sections broken up into very digestible chunks. I was able to read a few sections and then spend time thinking about them. This book provides a lot of insight and is a worthwhile read...but be prepared to think.
November 21, 2025
Mr Lakhani has given us a broad survey of the values and principles that underpin the life's work of the 49th Imam of the Nizari Isma'ilis, Prince Shah Karim al-Husseini, Aga Khan IV. Lakhani describes how the Imam's values and principles are rooted in the Qur'an and the Islamic tradition, in particular the principles of the oneness of reality (i.e., God) and the oneness of our common humanity (c.f., Q4:1: "O mankind! Reverence your Lord, Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate, and from the two has spread abroad a multitude of men and women."), upon which foundation the Imam builds his efforts to advocate for a pluralistic, cosmopolitan global society that is characterised by tolerance, justice, dignity, and compassion. Lakhani quotes extensively from the Imam's numerous public talks on these topics and provides some concrete examples of the Imam's faith being put into action through the work of the agencies Aga Khan Development Network, but I would have appreciated some examples of how the Imam's values and principles are expressed in ethical guidance, in particular in how the Imam interprets the Islamic ethical tradition in relation to modern life - Lakhani referred to the Imam drawing distinctions between valuing freedom of individual expression and disapproving of excesses, but nowhere tells us where this distinction is actually drawn. I would also have been interested in seeing discussion of the evolution of the Imam's ideas over the course of his more than sixty years of service - the quotes from his talks, however, are almost always topically rather than chronologically focussed. Still, as a Baha'i, I found a great deal to admire in the values, principles, and life of service of the Imam, finding these to be very congruent with my own faith tradition, which is also ultimately rooted in the esoteric Shi'i tradition. Reading Mr Lakhani's survey has inspired me to go directly to the source and read "Where Hope Takes Root: Democracy and Pluralism in an Interdependent World", a collection of the Imam's talks.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews