M. Ali Lakhani, is a writer, lawyer, and editor whose works focus on metaphysics and the perennial principles found in the wisdom traditions of the world. He is married to Nazlin N. Lakhani and lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Biography
Born in England in 1955, Lakhani was educated at The King's School, Canterbury before receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees in law from Cambridge University. He immigrated to Vancouver in 1973, and was called to the Bar in British Columbia in 1979. He practises law in Vancouver as a trial lawyer. In 2015, he was conferred the designation of "Queen's Counsel" by the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia to recognize his work as a lawyer. In 1998, he founded the Traditionalist journal, Sacred Web: A Journal of Tradition and Modernity. The bi-annual journal has included contributions by many leading traditionalists including Titus Burckhardt, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Jean-Louis Michon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Frithjof Schuon, Huston Smith, and the Prince of Wales. In 2001, Lakhani was invited to address the International Congress on Imam 'Ali in Iran where he presented his essay on TheMetaphysics of Human Governance. This essay garnered the First Prize in English at the conferences and awarded at a special ceremony in Tehran in March 2002. A revised version of this essay is included in The Sacred Foundations of Justice in Islam. The anthology has been described by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, as "among the best writings on this extraordinary figure in Western languages and are obligatory reading for anyone interested in ‘Ali but not familiar with Islamic languages. In May 2016, at the invitation of the Temenos Academy, Lakhani presented a talk at the Royal Asiatic Society in London, England, titled ‘The Integral Vision of the Aga Khan’. The talk focused on a question asked by the Aga Khan in 2006: "How, in an increasingly cynical time, can we inspire people to a new set of aspirations - reaching beyond rampant materialism, the new relativism, self-serving individualism, and resurgent tribalism?" Lakhani's book, Faith and Ethics: The Vision of the Ismaili Imamat was published by I.B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies in 2018. The book examines how the ideas and actions of the current Ismaili Imam, and fourth Aga Khan, Prince Karim al-Husseini, provide an Islamic response to the challenges that face Muslims in the modern era. The book provides an extensive survey of the Aga Khan's aspirations, showing how the values of integrity and dignity are at the forefront of his work, with the traditional Muslim concepts of cosmopolitanism and social justice guiding his response to the stark challenges of the modern age.
