“Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur’an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah’s benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: ‘Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah’.

Does not the Qur’an challenge the artist, as much as the mystic, to go beyond the physical – the outward – so as to seek to unveil that which lies at the centre but gives life to the periphery? Is not a great work of art, like the ecstasy of the mystic, a gesture of the spirit, a stirring of the soul that comes from the attempt to experience a glimpse of, and an intimacy with, that which is ineffable and beyond being?

The famous verse of ‘light’ in the Qur’an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah’s creation and mercy.” (His Highness the Aga Khan speech at the Opening Session of ‘Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions’, An International Colloquium organized by The Institute of Ismaili Studies, October 19, 2003, The Ismaili Centre, London)

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External World (afaq), Internal World (anfus) and Science: When the Qur’an was being revealed to the Holy Prophet, among many other prophecies one extremely important prophecy which has become a reality, is: “Soon We shall show Our signs in the horizons (of the world, afaq), and in their souls (anfus) until it becomes manifest to them that He is the true”. (41:53). There is no doubt that the external signs (ayat, miracles) have become manifest in the form of scientific inventions, but now the manifestation of spiritual signs and miracles remains. Note that if these Divine signs which have been revealed are called science, why should we not also call those signs which are going to appear in the human soul, science? There is one difference in that the former is material science and the latter, the spiritual one. (Allamah Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai  – Rubies and Pearls, p.69)