The Aga Khan IV, who because the chief of the world’s Ismaili Muslims fused entrepreneurship and philanthropy in turning into one of many world’s wealthiest hereditary rulers, died on Tuesday at his residence in Lisbon. He was 88.
His demise was confirmed by Fayyaz Nurmohamed, the director of communications on the Aga Khan Improvement Community. No trigger was given.
Urbane, cosmopolitan and sometimes media-averse, the Aga Khan — born Prince Karim Al-Hussaini — rejected the notion that increasing his private fortune would battle along with his charitable ventures. He mentioned his potential to prosper complemented his responsibility to boost the lives of Ismaili Muslims, a department of the Shiite custom of Islam with a following of 15 million individuals in 35 international locations.
An imam, or chief of his religion, was “not anticipated to withdraw from on a regular basis life,” he as soon as mentioned after turning into the Aga Khan. “Quite the opposite, he’s anticipated to guard his group and contribute to their high quality of life. Due to this fact, the notion of the divide between religion and world is overseas to Islam.”
His initiatives included growing the island of Sardinia’s ritzy Costa Smeralda resort space, breeding thoroughbred racehorses and establishing well being initiatives for the poor within the growing world.
He took subject with descriptions of his way of life as lavish, although he traveled on his personal personal jets and a luxurious yacht, owned a personal Caribbean island and shuttled amongst a wide range of residences, together with Aiglemont, a sprawling property north of Paris that grew to become the headquarters of his growth community and a coaching heart for his horses.
“The function and accountability of an imam,” he mentioned in a speech in 2006, “is each to interpret the religion to the group and likewise to do all inside his means to enhance the standard, and safety, of their every day lives.”
Although he had no inherited realm within the method of different hereditary rulers, the Aga Khan’s fortune was variously estimated at $1 billion to $13 billion, drawn from investments, joint ventures and personal holdings in luxurious accommodations, airways, racehorses and newspapers, in addition to from a sort of Quranic tithe levied on his followers.
Unusually, the Aga Khan — the title is usually translated as a mix of Turkish and Persian which means commanding chief — inherited his title from his grandfather the Aga Khan III, who bypassed his different descendants to call his grandson as his successor. Together with his assumption of the management as forty ninth imam of Ismaili Muslims in 1957, the Aga Khan IV took the reins of a Shia Muslim lineage that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad and imposed what he mentioned have been clear tasks on him.
On the time, he was a 20-year-old scholar of Islamic historical past at Harvard. That very same 12 months, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain conferred on him the nonhereditary title of His Highness, a mirrored image of the shut ties between the 2 dynasties, bonded in a shared fascination with effective horses.
In his will, his grandfather Sultan Mohamed Shah mentioned he had chosen to skip a era partly as a result of the “basically altered situations on this planet” — together with advances in atomic science — required a “younger man who has been introduced up and developed throughout current years and within the midst of the brand new age, and who brings a brand new outlook on life to his workplace.”
Certainly, the Aga Khan IV confronted a number of modern-day crises afflicting his followers, who’re concentrated in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and East Africa. Lots of them confronted upheavals, just like the 1972 determination by the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin to expel Asians and the turmoil in Tajikistan following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Aga Khan was lengthy referred to as a well-connected particular person. As such, he was in a position to persuade Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau of Canada, whom he had met within the Sixties, to allow hundreds of Ismaili Muslims to to migrate to Canada once they have been compelled to go away Uganda.
His friendship with Mr. Trudeau mirrored an ambiguous relationship with Canada, the place he grew to become an honorary citizen in 2010. In 2017, Mr. Trudeau’s son, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, drew censure from Canada’s ethics commissioner after he and his household accepted the Aga Khan’s hospitality with an unannounced trip on the prince’s personal residence within the Bahamas.
The journey was deemed to signify a battle of curiosity, as a result of the Aga Khan Foundation had lately obtained $38 million value of federal help from the Canadian authorities. For his half, the Aga Khan was formally exonerated.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Aga Khan’s followers within the mountainous Pamir area of Tajikistan have been amongst these embroiled in a ruinous civil struggle within the Nineties in opposition to the federal government led by Emomali Rahmon. In response, the Aga Khan accelerated investments in energy era and a cellphone firm in Tajikistan and later constructed well being care, microfinance and different amenities, in addition to the College of Central Asia in Khorog.
However the Aga Khan’s revered standing amongst Ismaili Muslims, residing primarily in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province, reportedly stirred resentments and resistance among the many nation’s secular leaders, who sought to dam demonstrations of help for the Aga Khan.
Prince Karim Al-Hussaini was born in Geneva on Dec. 13, 1936. He was the eldest son of the famous playboy Prince Aly Khan and his first spouse, Joan (Yarde-Buller) Khan, a descendant of British aristocracy. His youthful brother, Amyn Aga Khan, was born the subsequent 12 months.
In 1949, their mother and father divorced, and Prince Aly went on to marry the American actress Rita Hayworth, with whom he had a daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan.
Identified in his youth as Prince Karim, the Aga Khan grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, earlier than attending college on the unique Institut Le Rosey in Geneva. In his late 20s, he competed for pre-revolutionary Iran in snowboarding on the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.
He went on to Harvard, the place he was finding out Islamic historical past when he grew to become Aga Khan IV on the demise of his grandfather.
“It was a shock,” he mentioned in an interview in 2013 with Vanity Fair journal, “however I don’t assume anybody in my scenario would have been ready.”
His new standing, he mentioned, meant that the course of his life was henceforth set on immutable coordinates. “I used to be an undergraduate who knew what his work for the remainder of his life was going to be,” he mentioned.
A few of his followers ascribed divine standing to him, however he rejected such notions of godliness.
In 1969, he married Sarah Croker Poole, a British mannequin and former debutante who grew to become Salima Aga Khan. The couple had three kids, Princess Zahra, Prince Rahim and Prince Hussain, earlier than they divorced in 1995. All three siblings went on to work within the Aga Khan’s organizations. Prince Rahim has been named to succeed him because the Aga Khan V.
In 1998, the Aga Khan married Gabriele Thyssen zu Leiningen of Germany, who grew to become Inaara Aga Khan. That they had a son, Prince Aly Muhammad. The couple broke up just a few years later and spent a decade negotiating a divorce settlement mentioned to be value about $60 million when adjusted for inflation.
He’s survived by his kids; his brother, Prince Amyn Muhammad; his half sister, Princess Yasmin; and 4 grandchildren.
Through the years, the Aga Khan’s enterprise ventures have been eclectic. He was a major mover within the Sixties in constructing the resort of Porto Cervo, full with a yacht membership and polo tournaments, as a part of the event of Sardinia’s northern Costa Smeralda as a playground for the superrich. He confirmed a liking for Maserati sports activities automobiles, however he additionally invested within the growing world in fundamental industries that made fishnets, plastic baggage and matches.
In Uganda, following the overthrow of Idi Amin and the later rise of Yoweri Museveni, he joined personal fairness giants just like the Blackstone Group in a $750 million hydroelectric scheme.
In 1960, Prince Aly, the Aga Khan’s father, died in a automotive crash at Suresnes, exterior Paris, and his kids inherited his profitable equestrian empire, which included 9 farms in Eire and France. “The three of us discovered ourselves with this household custom none of us knew the very first thing about,” he advised Self-importance Truthful in 2013.
Since then, the Aga Khan had owned, skilled and bred many champion horses. In France, his filly Valyra gained the distinguished Prix de Diane in 2012, to determine a brand new homeowners’ report of seven wins. Within the Eighties, his stallion Shergar was kidnapped in Eire and by no means seen once more. (He refused to pay a ransom demand.)
“I’ve come to like it — it’s so thrilling, a relentless problem,” he as soon as mentioned of the equestrian enterprise. “Each time you sit down and breed, you might be taking part in a recreation of chess with nature.”
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
