Aga Khan IV, wearing a tweed jacket over a sweater with a shirt and tie, as he stands with his horse Zeddaan, United Kingdom, March 18, 1973. Photo: Getty Images
The Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary imam or spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims, was arguably much better known for the secular side of his life. The multi-millionaire, perhaps billionaire, enjoyed a lavish lifestyle characterised by private jets, a $200million super-yacht, a private island in the Bahamas and a string of top-line racehorses. The best-known of those, Shergar, was kidnapped in 1983 — no trace of the valuable animal was ever found. Prince Shah Karim Al Husseini was born in Switzerland in 1936 and studied Islamic history at Harvard. When his grandfather Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan died in 1957, he became the imam of the Ismaili Muslims, a branch of Shia Islam, at the age of 20. In 1967 he set up the Aga Khan Development Network, a group of international development agencies employing 80,000 people, which helped to build schools and hospitals and provide electricity for millions of people in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia. He mixed his development work with private business, owning for example in Uganda a pharmaceutical company, a bank and a fish net factory. The Aga Khan died on February 4 aged 88. — APL/Agencies
