Aga Khan, leader to millions of Ismaili Muslims, dead at 88
Rhianna Schmunk | CBC News | Posted: February 4, 2025 9:42 PM | Last Updated: 2 hours ago
Death of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV was confirmed in a statement Tuesday
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of millions of Ismaili Muslims around the world, has died at 88.
A statement from his central philanthropic organization said he died "peacefully" in Lisbon on Tuesday.
"Leaders and staff of the Aga Khan Development Network offer our condolences to the family of His Highness and to the Ismaili community worldwide," read the statement from the network.
It said a designated successor will be announced "in coming days."
The death is significant for 15 million Ismailis across 35 countries, who haven't grieved the loss of a spiritual leader in more than a generation. Beyond his decades-long rule, the Aga Khan was a jet-setting, entrepreneurial millionaire — or billionaire — who poured millions into helping people in some of the most impoverished parts of the world.
Entrepreneurship and philanthropy
Prince Shah Karim Al Husseini was born on Dec. 13, 1936, in Geneva. He spent his early childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, before returning to Switzerland and attending the exclusive Le Rosey School.
He later moved to the United States to study Islamic history at Harvard University. He was a junior when he succeeded his grandfather, the Aga Khan III, at the age of 20 on July 11, 1957. His grandfather had unexpectedly skipped his own son in the line of succession to name Prince Karim as ruler of the family's 1,300-year dynasty.
When he returned to Harvard, it was with a weighty new title, in part bestowed by Queen Elizabeth as other monarchs had done for his ancestors: "His Highness."
"I was an undergraduate who knew what his work for the rest of his life was going to be," he told Vanity Fair in 2012. "I don't think anyone in my situation would have been prepared."
The Aga Khan held British, French, Swiss and Portuguese citizenship, but also maintained a connection with Canada. The relationship was cemented when the nation, under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, took in thousands of Ismaili refugees who were abruptly expelled from Uganda in 1972.
Decades later, the Trudeau family's friendship with the leader created an expenses scandal for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he vacationed on the leader's private island in the Caribbean over the holidays in 2016.
WATCH | 'A very good friend,' Trudeau says:
Trudeau offers condolences
On Tuesday, the younger Trudeau offered his condolences to a man he saw as an "honourary Canadian."
"His Highness the Aga Khan was an extraordinarily compassionate global leader, a man of vision, of faith and of incredible generosity," Trudeau said during a Lunar New Year event in Ottawa.
"He will be deeply, deeply missed by people around the world, but particularly by the Ismaili community that is grieving tonight," he continued.
"And I lost a very good friend — a friend of my father's and a friend of mine — tonight, so I am sad, and we will all reflect on his extraordinary legacy for the coming days, weeks and, indeed, years."
Ismailis hold that the Aga Khan was directly descended from an unbroken line of imams going back to the Prophet Muhammad — through Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, the first imam, and his wife Fatima, Muhammad's daughter.
The title, derived from Turkish and Persian words to mean commanding chief, was originally granted in the 1830s by the emperor of Persia to Karim's great-great-grandfather when the latter married the emperor's daughter.
WATCH | Aga Khan saw Canada as a model for the world:
He also took up his family tradition of racing and breeding thoroughbreds.
His name became synonymous with success as a racehorse owner, especially with a horse named Shergar. The thoroughbred won the Epsom Derby, the Irish Derby and the King George before being kidnapped from an Irish stud farm in 1983. A ransom was demanded, but no money ever changed hands and the horse was never found.
Estimates of his personal wealth ranged up to $13 billion US, with his money coming from his family inheritance, the horse breeding business and his personal investments in tourism and real estate.
He set up the Aga Khan Development Network in 1967. The group of international development agencies, which has roughly 80,000 employees, helps to build schools and hospitals and providing electricity for millions of people in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.
University of Toronto professor Shafique Virani, who worked with Toronto's Aga Khan Museum to develop courses on Muslim civilizations, said the leader's philanthropy ranged from health and education to architecture and rural development.
"Countless Canadians have benefited from His Highness' contributions to our country and have participated in his endeavours to improve the lives of the less fortunate around the world. He will be deeply missed," Virani wrote in an email.