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Mowlana Hazar Imam’s speech at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the main building of Abdul Waheed Moledina Schools', Poona (India).

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Managing Board Ladies and Gentlemen:

In your kind speech, Mr. Chairman, you have said that I needed no introduction, and yet you have added some very kind words about My late grandfather and Myself. Let Me assure you that your institute has never needed any introduction, and when you so kindly invited Me to lay the foundation stone of the main building of your technical school, I hastened to accept this invitation for it was a great personal honour to have been called upon for this occasion. If you have had such remarkable success since your early days, with a small Madrasa, it can only be thanks to the worthiness of your cause, and the recognition of this worthiness by your generous donors.

Never in the history of mankind has the speed of change been so great. Until some years ago, only the philosophers and astronomers had thought of the other worlds. All our children will have to think of them for our boys and girls will certainly have the occasion to visit them. This extraordinary widening of the horizons of mankind is something for which we must prepare our children and if the aim of education is to equip our young generations with the weapons with which to meet the future, then surely your institute is doing the most noble service.

If we devote some time to thinking about the speed of revolution through which we are passing, it is a salutary thought and a sobering one also to guess at the world into which will be born our grand-children. We cannot shirk our responsibilities to them, and if we do decide to devote our thought and energy to preparing them for their future, surely we must begin with religion and education.

The task which you have taken upon yourselves and which you are enlarging by the very creation of this new building is one to which I wish to pay public tribute. I admire your courage and purposefulness and you know that that all my thoughts and prayers are with you in your great endeavor. I will always watch the progress of your institutions and of the pupils graduating from them, with the greatest interest and with the confident knowledge that the right path has been seen and chosen.