Aga Khan, leader of Ismaili Muslims, dead at 88
Death of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV was confirmed in a statement Tuesday
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims around the world, has died at 88.
A statement 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, which was the Aga Khan's central philanthropic organization.
It said a designated successor will be announced later.
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. The Aga Khan was a student when succeeded his grandfather, the Aga Khan III, at the age of 20 on July 11, 1957.
His grandfather, Sultan Muhammad Shah, unexpectedly skipped his own son in the line of succession to name Prince Karim as ruler of the family's 1,300-year dynasty.
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.
Beyond his spiritual leadership, the Aga Khan was a jet-setting, entrepreneurial millionaire — or billionaire — who enjoyed a lavish personal lifestyle and poured millions into helping people in some of the most impoverished parts of the world.
His connection to Canada 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 Aga Khan 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.
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."
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 left to be with his aging grandfather in France, but went back 18 months later with a weighty new title, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth, to mark his ascension: "His Highness."
His predecessors had been similarly honoured by the Crown.
"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."
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.
With files from Shanifa Nasser and The Associated Press