GILGIT: Prince Karim Aga Khan Al Hussaini, the 49th imam of Ismaili Muslims, will be buried in the Egyptian city of Aswan on Sunday.
His funeral at the Ismaili Centre in Lisbon was attended by more than 300 guests, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and former Spanish king Juan Carlos I, leaders of the Ismaili community and other dignitaries on Saturday.
In Gilgit-Baltistan and other parts of Pakistan, thousands of followers of the late spiritual leader gathered at their community centres and Jamaat Khanas to view the funeral ceremony broadcast from Lisbon.
In Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar, shops and businesses remained closed to mourn the death of Prince Karim, who died on Tuesday in Lisbon after nearly seven decades as the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims.
Finance minister, global dignitaries attend funeral in Lisbon
According to a statement by the Ismaili Imamat, the funeral was a closed event attended only by invited guests. The Ismaili community was represented by the 22 National Council presidents from around the world, including Pakistan.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb also represented Pakistan.
The ceremony was televised live on Ismaili TV and arrangements were made at community centres and Jamaat Khanas for the late leader’s followers to witness the funeral.
In Gilgit-Baltistan, members of the Ismaili community congregated in Gilgit, Hunza, and Ghizer districts to witness the ceremony.
A large number of people witnessed the funeral across GB despite harsh weather.
Condolences
Prince Karim was regarded as a direct descendent of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and enjoyed near-divine status as the 49th hereditary imam of Ismaili Muslims. He held British and Portuguese nationalities, as well as honorary Canadian citizenship, a distinction rarely given.
Prince Karim’s burial on Sunday would be a private ceremony, to be followed by a special homage ceremony in Lisbon on Tuesday.
His son and successor, Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini, who was named the 50th hereditary Imam, or spiritual leader, according to his father’s will, would also attend Tuesday’s ceremony.
He will grant an audience to senior leaders of the community, who will pledge their allegiance to him on behalf of Ismailis all over the world.
It is expected that Prince Rahim will ordain an update to the Ismaili constitution and bless the community.
On Saturday, Finance Minister Aurangzeb met Prince Rahim and expressed condolences on behalf of the president, the prime minister and the people of Pakistan, according to a statement issued by the finance ministry.
The minister lauded the services of Prince Karim and the Aga Khan Development Network for the socio-economic well-being of people and honouring cultural heritage.
He called Prince Karim’s demise a “monumental loss” not only for his family, friends and followers but also for the underprivileged and destitute people of the world. He recalled the late leader’s special attachment to Pakistan and its people.
Special prayers were also held for the late leader at Ismaili community centres across Pakistan.
Delegations representing various sects, political parties, social organisations, civil society and officials have been visiting Ismaili Council Centres in Gilgit, Ghizer, and Hunza for condolences.
They paid tribute to the late leader for his contribution to the region’s socio-economic development.
A day of mourning was observed across Pakistan on Saturday over the demise of Prince Karim.
National flags on important government buildings remained at half-mast across the country.
As Aga Khan, Al-Hussaini expanded the work of his grandfather, who created hospitals, housing and banking cooperatives in developing countries.
He invested part of the immense family fortune in the most deprived countries, combining philanthropy with business acumen.
To this end, he founded the Aga Khan Development Network, a gigantic foundation which is thought to have 96,000 employees worldwide and which funds development programmes, mainly in Asia and Africa.
A keen racehorse owner, he continued the family tradition of breeding thoroughbreds in his eight stables in France and Ireland. His horses won many of the most prestigious races.
With input from Agencies
Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2025
Understanding the Aga Khan, leader of Ismaili Muslims
(RNS) — The Aga Khan IV was often referred to as a philanthropist, but the description ignores the spiritual impetus for his work.
FILE - The Aga Khan, spiritual leader to millions of Ismaili Muslims, addresses an audience, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015, at the Memorial Church on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
February 7, 2025
(RNS) — On Tuesday (Feb. 4), Shah Karim al-Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, passed away in Lisbon, at age 88. For most Americans, this name has little meaning. People with a particular historical awareness may remember his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah, Aga Khan III, as one of the founders of the League of Nations and international statesman. But even those who know the lineage of the Aga Khans, a title that goes back to the British Raj in India, don’t understand who Shah Karim was.
Both men were Imams, or spiritual leaders, of a Muslim community known as the Ismailis. This community is a Shi’ah community that believes the Prophet Muhammad named his cousin and son-in-law Ali as the first Imam. This figure of the Imam is designated in the Quran, the revealed word of God, according to Muslims, and is guaranteed by God to guide the community of believers. The Aga Khans are descended from Prophet Muhammad through Imam Ali and his wife Fatima.
Shah Karim, the 49th Imam in the lineage, took his title as Aga Khan in 1954, when he was 20, after the death of his grandfather.
The Aga Khan IV, who headed the Aga Khan Development Network, was often referred to as a philanthropist, a label that he himself called deeply inaccurate. According to broader Shi’ah belief, three interrelated elements are believed to elevate one another: faith, knowledge, and action. To increase in any one area, you must increase in the other areas as well, and together each amplifies the other. Most importantly, faith and knowledge without action is selfish and a denial of God’s blessings.
RELATED: The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and a philanthropist, dies at 88
In May 2006, in accepting the Tolerance Award from the Evangelical Academy of Tutzing, in Germany, the Aga Khan said, “I am fascinated and somewhat frustrated when representatives of the Western world … try to describe the work of our Aga Khan Development Network … they often describe it either as philanthropy or entrepreneurship.” He attributed the misconception to a false dichotomy made between secular and religious and explained that his work is in fact an expression of this relationship among faith, knowledge and action.
In the speech, he emphasized that he aimed “to improve the quality of worldly life for the concerned communities,” offering two exemplar inspirations. The first is the first verse of the Quran’s fourth chapter, which says “O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from the twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women.” The verse, the Aga Khan said, says that we are all connected, coming from the same origin, and that we are also diverse, and this is a sign of God’s blessings.
The second piece of inspiration he gave was a teaching of Imam Ali, which speaks of ideal virtues, including faith, knowledge and action and the ability to have humility and seek consultation.
The Aga Khan was a historical figure, a man of the world who skied in the Olympics on the Iranian team, received numerous honorary degrees and worked as an international peacemaker. But it is important to understand what drove him to achieve these things. The Tutzing speech is a window into that impetus: He didn’t act out of a wish for worldly acclaim or the disbursement of worldly wealth. Rather, his course in life was an expression of faith and knowledge, an essential part of what it means to be a believer, to be human.
A person of integrity, the Aga Khan did everything as part of a comprehensive whole. There was not a part that was separate from another part. For his community, he was the living exemplar of what it meant to embody the ethics of religion in its most complete form. His passing is a loss to the community and a reminder that God has promised them continual guidance, in the line of Imams that continues with his son, Prince Rahim al-Hussaini, Aga Khan V.
(Hussein Rashid, Ph.D., is an independent scholar based in New York and an Ismaili Muslim. The views in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of some 15 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide, died in Portugal on February 4 aged 88.
The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) announced the passing of the “49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad” on their website.
The Aga Khan was born into a wealthy family. He lived what most people would call a lavish life, mingling with heads of state and royalty, and devoted much time to his passion of horse-breeding and horse racing.
His horses won the Derby Stakes five times. One of the horses, Shergar, won in 1981 by the widest margin in Derby history, only to be kidnapped two years later. The horse was never found, and no suspects were ever apprehended.
But the Aga Khan was also a philanthropist, and impact investor, who was always devoted to his people, the Ismailis, many of whom live in remote areas of some of the world’s poorest countries.
Aga Khan IV's grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III, who died in 1957, chose his successor as a person of the world for the post-World War II times (Credit: AKDN).
For these people in particular, the Aga Khan was not only their spiritual leader, but also the source of better education, the builder of needed infrastructure, and in some cases, their saviour in desperate times.
Matt Reed, the global director of Institutional Partnerships for the Aga Khan Foundation, told bne IntelliNews that the Aga Khan was “a spiritual leader who felt an obligation to humanity to improve the quality of life for all people living in countries where he or his community were present.”
Prince Karim Al-Hussaini was born in Geneva, Switzerland on December 13, 1936. His father was Prince Aly Salomone Khan, while his mother was Joan Yarde-Buller, a British socialite. After the two divorced in 1949, Prince Aly Khan married movie star Rita Hayworth.
As a small child, Prince Karim lived in Kenya, but he moved to Switzerland to attend school. Afterwards, he majored in Islamic history at Harvard University. His grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III, died in 1957 having directed that Prince Karim, rather than Karim’s father or uncle, should be the next Aga Khan.
Aga Khan III gave this instruction because he felt it was important that the new Aga Khan was a person of the world in atomic physics and other post-World War II technologies and inventions.
Prince Karim was 20 years-old when he became the Aga Khan. Despite his position, he returned to Harvard with an entourage and completed his studies, graduating in 1959.
Aga Khan IV established the Aga Khan Foundation in 1967 “to address the root causes of poverty and support community institutions to carry out sustainable, locally-driven initiatives that improve the quality of life.”
When Ismaili communities in several African countries were expelled or displaced, along with other South Asians, in the early 1970s, the Aga Khan helped to resettle them in Asia, Europe and North America.
Children in Osh, the Kyrgyz Republic, at an Aga Khan Foundation teacher training class on latest early childhood development pedagogies and techniques (Credit: AKDN).
The Aga Khan’s work expanded over the years. Hundreds of schools, two universities and dozens of hospitals and clinics were built.
He also sponsored thousands of agricultural projects, including research into hybrid crops that can grow at high altitudes, as well as the building of large-scale energy infrastructure. Moreover, he helped with the construction of small hydropower plants that serve remote communities, invested in telecommunications, organised microfinancing, and more.
In 2008, all of these projects were grouped under a common umbrella, and the Aga Khan Development Network was created.
The AKDN now works in more than 30 countries, but one of the most important areas the organisation works in is the Pamir Mountains, where Ismaili communities of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan are found.
There are some 500,000 Ismailis living in Pakistan. The Aga Khans have kept close connections with the country and have been doing philanthropic work in its Ismaili region for more than a century. The father of Aga Khan IV served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations in the late 1950s.
The AKDN started work in Afghanistan and Tajikistan in the 1990s, a time when there was civil war in both countries.
The Aga Khan is credited by many with saving many of the more than 200,000 Ismailis in mountainous, remote Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of eastern Tajikistan from starvation during the Central Asian country’s 1992-1997 civil war.
In the years after the war, the cash-strapped Tajik government was unable to spend money on GBAO, a region that the government’s civil war opponents used for bases because of its nearly inaccessible terrain.
The AKDN stepped in to assist and helped the government develop educational facilities, businesses and infrastructure in GBAO. It also built several bridges to connect the region to Badakhshan Province in neighbouring Afghanistan, where Ismaili communities are present.
The organisation helped establish the University of Central Asia in the GBAO regional capital Khorog (and later another UCA in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan), providing opportunities for local young people to obtain higher education without leaving GBAO.
Over the course of some 30 years, the Aga Khan spent some $1bn on projects in GBAO.
Condolences over the death of Aga Khan IV were expressed by many world leaders, past and present. King Charles III said he was "deeply saddened" on the passing away of his "personal friend of many years" (Credit: AKDN).
Since it started work in Afghanistan during the mid-1990s, the AKDN has never left the country. Some 200,000 Ismailis live in Afghanistan.
The AKDN is currently working in 26 Afghan provinces, 11 directly and 15 in partnership with other organisations, benefitting some 12mn people. The AKDN has actually expanded its Afghanistan operations in the years since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
The network has proved more than a lifeline to the communities it has assisted. It has helped all of them to improve their living situations and prospects, not only in the Pamir Mountains, but in other parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Reed, of the Aga Khan Foundation, said Aga Khan IV had three principles for the AKDN’s work, namely “Absolute commitment” to working with all the people in the communities where it operates, regardless of faith or background; establishing institutions that would endure long after his death, whether the governments of these countries were weak or strong; and community ownership of all the projects so that everything the AKDN built or helped establish, either belonged to, or was managed by, the communities or local people.
Aga Khan IV has been described in the media as a “socialite” or “playboy,” and that was part of his life. But the work he did for not only his Ismaili communities, but also for the people living with or near these communities, was so often invaluable.
The schools and universities, hospitals, power plants, rural projects, hotels, parks and local financing institutions Aga Khan IV leaves behind will benefit the people of these regions for generations to come.
It is therefore not surprising that among those expressing their condolences on the Aga Khan’s death and praise for his work were Pakistani President Asif Ai Zardari, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and King Charles III.
(Credit: AKDN).
It is a proud legacy, and it now falls to his son, Prince Rahim (pictured above), to carry on the work as Aga Khan V.
