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The unique degree brings together two of the world’s leading universities and gives students the opportunity to study a topic of global significance while based in London and New York.

Columbia University and AKU have jointly developed an advanced curriculum for the program that includes a two-and-a-half-year sequence of reading and research seminars, interdisciplinary electives, and intensive foreign language training.

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Dean Anderson,
Faculty Members,
Graduating Students and Parents,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am deeply honoured to be here and deeply grateful for your invitation. This is a memorable day both in your personal lives and in the life of this School—and I am pleased to share in it.

They say that a good graduation speaker is someone who can talk in someone else’s sleep. I hope we can break that pattern today.

Columbia University’s Middle East Institute in New York and the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London have signed an agreement at Columbia University to mark the launch of their dual master’s degree.

The unique degree brings together two of the world’s leading universities and gives students the opportunity to study a topic of global significance while based in London and New York.
“At this moment in history, such an endeavour is especially important”

May 15, 2006 Columbia University, New York: H. H. The Aga Khan delivering the graduation speech. "The ultimate recourse in any democracy must be to the concept of popular sovereignty. But within that concept there is room for variation. One size need not fit all – and trying to make one size fit all can be a recipe for failure. "