Aga Khan, philanthropist and spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, no more

A spiritual leader of millions of Ismaili Muslims and one of the world’s most prominent philanthropists, Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, known as Aga Khan IV, died on Tuesday in Lisbon, Portugal, at the age of 88.

Advertisement

He became the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims at age 20 as a Harvard undergraduate and poured a material empire built on billions of dollars in tithes into building homes, hospitals and schools in developing countries.

His Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili religious community announced that His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died in Portugal surrounded by his family.

The Ismailis — a sect originally centred in India and which expanded to large communities in east Africa, and Central, South and West Asia— consider it a duty to tithe up to 12.5 per cent of their income to him. In 19th century, Aga Khan I (Shah Hassan Ali) had served as a prominent leader in Iran and later in the Indian subcontinent. He was the first Nizari imam to hold the title Aga Khan. He eventually settled down in Bombay, where he died in 1881.

Considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khan IV was a student when his grandfather named him as successor to lead the diaspora of Shia Ismaili Muslims, passing over his playboy father and saying his followers should be led by a young man “who has been brought up in the midst of the new age.”

The Aga Khan Development Network, his main philanthropic organisation, deals mainly with issues of health care, housing, education and rural economic development. A network of hospitals bearing his name are scattered in places where health care had lacked for the poorest, including Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

Over decades, Aga Khan IV evolved into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly domain with ease.