“The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation”
Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the “Musée-Musées” Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007
“Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God’s creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason”
Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006
“The starting point of such a synthesis is the doctrine of ibda (derived from Qur’an 2:117). In its verbal form it is taken to mean ‘eternal existentiation’ to explain the notion in the Qur’an of God’s timeless command (Kun: Be!). Ibda therefore connotes not a specific act of creation but the dialogical mode through which a relationship between God and His creation can be affirmed – it articulates the process of beginning and sets the stage for developing a philosophy of the manifestation of transcendence in creation……
…..In sum the process of creation can be said to take place at several levels. Ibda represents the initial level – one transcends history, the other creates it. The spiritual and material realms are not dichotomous, since in the Ismaili formulation, matter and spirit are united under a higher genus and each realm possesses its own hierarchy. Though they require linguistic and rational categories for definition, they represent elements of a whole, and a true understanding of God must also take account of His creation. Such a synthesis is crucial to how the human intellect eventually relates to creation and how it ultimately becomes the instrument for penetrating through history the mystery of the unknowable God implied in the formulation of tawhid……”
Ismaili Philosophy, Dr. Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, U.K.
The creation according to the Quran and key figures in Islam:
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