When the Aga Khan was studying at Harvard University in the late 1950s, he got to know Pierre Trudeau. In 1972, Asians were expelled from Uganda, and Trudeau, by now prime minister of Canada, agreed to his friend’s request to allow thousands of Ismaili Muslims to go there. Since then, there have been prominent Ismailis in Canadian public life and letters, and some have had significant roles in standing up to political and social pressure from the opposite extremes of Islam.
At both the magnificent Aga Khan Museum of Islamic Art in Toronto and the Ismaili Centre in Ottawa, friendly young Canadian Ismailis are happy to talk about the art as well as the sect and themselves, if you ask, but they never proselytise.
