At the age of 88, Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary imam of the world of 15 million Ismailites, known for his horse triumphs, his wealth and his development projects around the world.
The news of his death in Lisbon made it known by posting on X/Twitter, Agha Khan Development Network.
His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), passed away peacefully in Lisbon on 4 February 2025, aged 88, surrounded by his family. Prince Karim Aga Khan…
– Aga Khan Development Network (@akdn)
According to the same source, the announcement of his successor will follow.
The World Spiritual Leader of the Ismaili Muslims, Aga Khan also became known for his successes as the owner of a race horse, one of the most famous Shergar.
A multimillionaire, possibly a billionaire, lived a luxurious life, with private jets, a $ 200 million super yacht and a private island in the Bahamas.
Estimates of his wealth range from $ 800 million to $ 13 billion, money coming from his family heritage, horse farming business and personal investment in tourism and real estate market.
A member of the international jet set – he had a British, French, Swiss and Portuguese nationality – also made millions to help people in the poorest parts of the world.
“If you travel to the developing world, you see that poverty is pushing for tragic despair, and there is the possibility that people will use every means to get out of it,” he said in a rare interview with the New York Times in 2007. Helping the poor through businesses, he told the newspaper, “we are developing protection against extremism.”
Who was the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims
Prince Sach Karim al -Husseini was born on December 13, 1936 in Geneva and spent the first years of his life in Nairobi, Kenya. He later returned to Switzerland and attended the classy Le Rosey School before going to the United States to study Islamic history at Harvard.
When his grandfather, Sultan Mahoman Shah Agha Khan, died in 1957, he became the imam of Ismaili Muslims, a branch of Shiite Islam at the age of 20. His grandfather chose Karim as his successor, instead of his son -his father Karim, Prince Ali Han -who was once married to Hollywood actor Rita Hayworth.
The Ismailites believe that Aga Khan is a direct descendant of Prophet Mohammed, through his cousin and groom of Prophet, Ali, first imam, and his wife, Fatima, daughter of Prophet.
He was the fourth holder of the title, which was originally given in the years 1830, by the Emperor of Persia, to Karim’s pre-Propappos, when the latter had married the emperor’s daughter.
The role involves the divine guidance of the Ismailites community, whose members live in Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, sub -Saharan Africa, Europe and North America.
After his father’s death in May 1960, Aga Khan had initially examined the possibility of not continuing his family’s long tradition of rearing pure -blooded race horse. However, after winning the French championship of such horses, he began to work intensively.
“I arrived to love it,” he said in 2013 in an interview with Vanity Fair. “He’s excited, it’s a constant challenge. Every time you mate, you play a lot of chess with nature. “
Perhaps the most famous of his horses was Shergar, who won Epsom Derby, Irish Derby and King George, before being abducted in February 1983 from the Ballymany Horse Racing in Ireland. The ransom for his return were requested and suspected Mafia, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the Irish Democratic Army (IRA) were considered suspicious. The ransom were not paid and the horse was never found.
Agha Khan founded Agha Khan Development Network in 1967. This international development group employs 80,000 people and helps to build schools and hospitals, while providing electricity to millions of people in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia. He combined his development work with private companies, for example owner of a pharmaceutical company, a bank and a fishing net in Uganda.
“Few people bridge as many gaps – among the spiritual and material, the East and the West, Muslims and Christianity – as graceful as it,” Vanity Fair wrote in his article in 2013.
He got married twice, first in 1969, with the British former model Sarah Croker Poul, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. The couple divorced in 1995.
In 1998, he married Germany -born Gabriel Chu Lainingen, with whom he had a son. The couple got divorced in 2014.
Source: RES-EIA
