The Aga Khan, who became the spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims at the age of 20 as a Harvard undergraduate, and who poured a material empire built on billions of dollars in tithes into building homes, hospitals and schools in developing countries, has died. He was 88.
His Aga Khan Foundation and the Ismaili religious community announced on their websites that His Highness Prince Karim al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died on Tuesday in Portugal surrounded by his family.
They said an announcement on his successor would come later.
Considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad, the Aga Khan was a student when his grandfather passed over his playboy father as his successor to lead the diaspora of Shia Ismaili Muslims, saying his followers should be led by a young man “who has been brought up in the midst of the new age”.
Over decades, the Aga Khan evolved into a business magnate and philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly and mixing them with ease.
Treated as a head of state, the Aga Khan was given the title of “His Highness” by Queen Elizabeth in July 1957, two weeks after his grandfather the Aga Khan III unexpectedly made him heir to the family’s 1,300-year dynasty as leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.
He became the Aga Khan IV on 19 October 1957, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the spot where his grandfather once had his weight equalled in diamonds in gifts from his followers.
He had left Harvard to be at his ailing grandfather’s side, and returned to thee US university 18 months later with an entourage and a deep sense of responsibility.
“I was an undergraduate who knew what his work for the rest of his life was going to be,” he said in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair magazine. “I don’t think anyone in my situation would have been prepared.”
A defender of Islamic culture and values, he was widely regarded as a builder of bridges between Muslim societies and the west despite – or perhaps because of – his reticence to become involved in politics.
The Aga Khan Development Network, his main philanthropic organisation, dealt mainly with issues of healthcare, housing, education and rural economic development.
A network of hospitals bearing his name are scattered in countries where health care had been lacking for the poorest, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Tajikistan, where he spent tens of millions of dollars for development of local economies.
His eye for building and design led him to establish an architecture prize and programmes for Islamic architecture at MIT and Harvard. He restored ancient Islamic structures throughout the world.
Accounts differ as to the date and place of his birth. According to Who’s Who in France, he was born on 13 December 1936, in Creux-de-Genthod, near Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Joan Yarde-Buller and Aly Khan.
The extent of the Aga Khan’s financial empire is hard to measure. Some reports estimated his personal wealth to be in the billions.
The Ismailis – a sect originally centred in India but which expanded to large communities in east Africa, central and south Asia and the Middle East – consider it a duty to tithe up to 10% of their income to him as steward.
“We have no notion of the accumulation of wealth being evil,” he told Vanity Fair in 2012.
“The Islamic ethic is that if God has given you the capacity or good fortune to be a privileged individual in society, you have a moral responsibility to society.”
He is survived by three sons and a daughter.
English (US)