- Wednesday, February 05, 2025
He was the founder and president of the Aga Khan Development Network, which helped build schools and hospitals and provided electricity for millions of people in Asia and Africa
By: India Weekly
THE AGA KHAN, imam of the Ismaili Muslims and head of a major development aid foundation, died Tuesday (4) in Lisbon at the age of 88, his foundation announced.
He was the founder and president of the Aga Khan Development Network, which employs 96,000 people and finances development programmes particularly in Asia and Africa.
In a social media post, the foundation said that Aga Khan IV passed away peacefully surrounded by his family and his successor will be announced soon.
The successor will be the fifth person to hold the post since the 19th century.
Present in multiple countries, notably in central and southern Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the Ismaili community numbers 12 to 15 million, according to its website.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres described the Aga Khan as “a symbol of peace, tolerance and compassion in our troubled world” following the religious leader’s death.
Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace laureate and education campaigner, said his legacy will “live on through the incredible work he led for education, health and development around the world”.
Islam ‘religion of peace’
Born in Geneva, the Aga Khan spent his childhood in Kenya and was appointed in Tanzania to succeed his grandfather in 1957.
His father was passed over in the line of succession after a tumultuous marriage to American actor Rita Hayworth.
A billionaire owner of yachts and jets, the Aga Khan was a regular on the racetrack and continued the family tradition of breeding thoroughbreds.
He also ploughed a large amount of his inherited wealth into philanthropic projects and was awarded honorary Canadian citizenship for his work on development and “tolerance around the world”.
The Aga Khan set up the Aga Khan Development Network in 1967. The group helped build schools and hospitals and provided electricity for millions of people in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.
The Aga Khan also held British and Portuguese citizenship. The Ismaili leadership is based in Lisbon, where there is a significant community.
He mixed his development work with private business, owning for example in Uganda a pharmaceutical company, a bank and a fishnet factory.
He was married twice, first in 1969 to former British model Sarah Croker Poole, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. The couple divorced in 1995.
In 1998 he married German-born Gabriele zu Leiningen, with whom he had a son. The couple divorced in 2014.
Despite his role as the spiritual head of the Ismaili Muslims, he was reluctant to discuss Middle East conflicts, religious fundamentalism or Sunni-Shiite tensions.
Islam is not a faith “of conflict or social disorder, it’s a religion of peace,” he told AFP in 2017.
It is used in situations which are “essentially political, but which are presented, for various reasons, in a theological context. This is simply not correct,” he said. (Agencies)
