The Aga Khan addresses an viewers concerning the challenges to a pluralistic society on Nov. 12, 2015, on the Memorial Church on the campus of Harvard College, in Cambridge, Mass.
Steven Senne/AP
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Steven Senne/AP
PARIS — The Aga Khan, who grew to become the non secular chief of the world’s tens of millions 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 faculties in growing international locations, died Tuesday. He was 88.
His Aga Khan Improvement Community and the Ismaili spiritual group introduced that His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and forty ninth hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died in Portugal surrounded by his household.
His successor was designated in his will, which will probably be learn within the presence of his household and non secular leaders in Lisbon earlier than the title is made public. A date has not been introduced. The successor is chosen from amongst his male progeny or different kinfolk, in accordance with the Ismaili group’s web site.
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 ought to be led by a younger man “who has been brought up in the midst of the new age.”
Over a long time, the Aga Khan developed right into a enterprise magnate and a philanthropist, transferring between the non secular and the worldly with ease.
Whereas his loss of life was introduced late within the day in Europe and the Center East, ceremonies have been already being held Tuesday in Ismaili communities within the U.S. Condolences poured in on-line from charity teams he supported, in addition to the equestrian world, the place he was a well known determine.
“An extraordinarily compassionate global leader,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated Tuesday, calling him an excellent good friend. “He will be deeply, deeply missed by people around the world.”
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 equaled in diamonds in presents from his followers.
He had left Harvard to be at his ailing grandfather’s facet, and returned to highschool 18 months later with an entourage and a deep sense of accountability.
“I was an undergraduate who knew what his work for the rest of his life was going to be,” he stated in a 2012 interview with Vainness Honest journal. “I don’t think anyone in my situation would have been prepared.”
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 turn into concerned in politics.
The Aga Khan Improvement Community, his principal philanthropic group, offers primarily with problems with well being care, housing, schooling and rural financial improvement. It says it really works in over 30 international locations and has an annual funds of about $1 billion for nonprofit improvement actions.
A community of hospitals bearing his title are scattered in locations the place well being care had lacked for the poorest, together with Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the place he spent tens of tens of millions of {dollars} for improvement of native economies.
The extent of the Aga Khan’s monetary empire is tough to measure. Some studies estimated his private wealth to be within the billions.
The Ismailis — a sect initially centered in India however which expanded to giant communities in east Africa, Central and South Asia and the Center East — think about it an obligation to tithe as much as 12.5% of their earnings to him as steward.
“We have no notion of the accumulation of wealth being evil,” he instructed Vainness Honest 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.”
The Ismaili group’s web site stated he was born on Dec. 13, 1936, in Creux-de-Genthod, close to Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Joan Yarde-Buller and Aly Khan, and spent a part of his childhood in Nairobi, Kenya — the place a hospital now bears his title.
He grew to become well-known as a horse breeder and proprietor, and he represented Iran within the 1964 Winter Olympics as a skier. His eye for constructing and design led him to determine an structure prize, and applications for Islamic Structure at MIT and Harvard. He restored historical Islamic constructions all through the world.
The Aga Khan lived at size in France and had been primarily based in Portugal for the previous a number of years. His improvement community and basis are primarily based in Switzerland.
The Aga Khan will probably be buried in Lisbon. The date was not launched.
He’s survived by three sons and a daughter and several other grandchildren.
