The Aga Khan, who grew to become the non secular chief of the world’s thousands and thousands of Ismaili Muslims at age 20 as a Harvard undergraduate and poured a cloth empire constructed on billions of {dollars} in tithes into constructing properties, hospitals and colleges in growing international locations, has died. He was 88.
His Aga Khan Basis and the Ismaili spiritual group introduced on their web sites that His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and forty ninth hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died on Tuesday in Portugal surrounded by his household.
They mentioned an announcement on his successor would come later.
Thought-about by his followers to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV was a scholar when his grandfather handed over his playboy father as his successor to guide the diaspora of Shia Ismaili Muslims, saying his followers must be led by a younger man “who has been introduced up within the midst of the brand new age”.
Over many years, the Aga Khan developed right into a enterprise magnate and philanthropist, shifting between the non secular and the worldly and mixing them with ease.
Handled 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 inheritor to the household’s 1,300-year dynasty as chief of the Ismaili Muslim sect.
He grew to become the Aga Khan IV on Oct. 19, 1957, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the spot the place his grandfather as soon as had his weight equalled in diamonds as items from his followers.
He had left Harvard to be at his ailing grandfather’s facet, and returned to high school 18 months later with an entourage and a deep sense of duty.
“I used to be an undergraduate who knew what his work for the remainder of his life was going to be,” he mentioned in a 2012 interview with Self-importance Truthful journal. “I don’t suppose anybody in my state of affairs would have been ready.”
A defender of Islamic tradition and values, he was broadly thought to be a builder of bridges between Muslim societies and the West regardless of – or maybe due to – his reticence to grow to be concerned in politics.
The Aga Khan Growth Community, his fundamental philanthropic organisation, dealt primarily with problems with well being care, housing, schooling and rural financial growth.
A community of hospitals bearing his title are scattered in international locations the place well being care had been missing for the poorest, together with Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the place he spent tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} for growth of native economies.
His eye for constructing and design led him to determine an structure prize and packages for Islamic Structure at MIT and Harvard. He restored historical Islamic buildings all through the world.
Accounts differ as to the date and place of Prince Karim Aga Khan’s delivery. In keeping with Who’s Who in France, he was born on 13 December 1936, in Creux-de-Genthod, close to Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Joan Yarde-Buller and Aly Khan.
The extent of the Aga Khan’s monetary empire is tough to measure. Some stories estimated his private wealth to be within the billions.
The Ismailis – a sect initially centred in India however which expanded to giant communities in east Africa, Central and South Asia and the Center East – contemplate it an obligation to tithe as much as 10% of their revenue to him as steward.
“We’ve no notion of the buildup of wealth being evil,” he informed Self-importance Truthful in 2012. “The Islamic ethic is that if God has given you the capability or luck to be a privileged particular person in society, you have got an ethical duty to society.”
He’s survived by three sons and a daughter.
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