DUSHANBE, November 13, 2015, Asia-Plus – On Thursday November 12, His Highness the Aga Khan delivered the Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture at Harvard University”s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
According to the Aga Khan Development Network, entitled “The Cosmopolitan Ethic in a Fragmented World”, his lecture covered the challenges to pluralism and cosmopolitanism.
The Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture provides for “the delivery of lectures by eminent and well-qualified persons for the promotion of tolerance, understanding and good will among nations, and the peace of the world.” Since its establishment in 1955, the lecture has featured heads of state, diplomats and international public figures, including a former secretary-general of the United Nations, past president of the World Bank, and the secretary general of the European Council.
After the lecture, the Aga Khan spoke with Diana L. Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies and Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University. She is also a Member of the Faculty of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School, a Harvard College Professor, and Director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University.
His Highness the Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, a global, multiethnic community whose members comprise a wide diversity of cultures, languages, and nationalities.
Since taking on his role, the Aga Khan has been committed to improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable populations, while emphasizing the need to uphold human dignity as well as respect for tolerance and pluralism. His Highness accomplishes this through the work of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of private, international, and nondenominational agencies working to improve living conditions and opportunities for people in specific regions of the developing world.
