Prince Karim al-Hussaini Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary Imam of the Ismailis, was laid to rest in Egypt’s Aswan city at a private burial ceremony on Sunday, according to a statement issued by the community.
In the statement, the community said Prince Rahim al-Hussaini Aga Khan — the 50th hereditary Imam — and his family were present during the ceremony.
“The Governor of Aswan facilitated and participated in a dignified procession through the city to the banks of the River Nile,” it said.
Shah Karim’s casket was transferred by boat in a ceremonial crossing to the mausoleum of Mawlana Sultan Mahomed Shah. The casket was carried by hand to the hilltop mausoleum, where Shah Karim’s body was interred.
After the ceremony, leaders expressed condolences to the family, and the Governor of Aswan presented Prince Rahim with a symbolic key to the City of Aswan as a mark of respect.
A new mausoleum for Mawlana Shah Karim will be constructed as his final resting place on land adjacent to the existing structure, the statement added.
Prince Karim Aga Khan, renowned for his triumphs in horse racing, immense wealth, and global development work, breathed his last in Lisbon, Portugal, at the age of 88 on Tuesday.
A day earlier, Prince Karim’s funeral was held in Lisbon, Portugal, which was attended by several Heads of States, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Spain’s King Emeritus Juan Carlos.
Following Prince Karim’s demise, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) announced Prince Rahim al-Hussaini Aga Khan was named the 50th hereditary Imam, as per the late Imam’s will that was read in the presence of his family and senior community leaders.
The late spiritual leader of the Ismaili community left behind three sons, Rahim Aga Khan, Aly Muhammad Aga Khan, and Hussain Aga Khan, and a daughter, Zahra Aga Khan.
Karim was born in Switzerland and spent his childhood in Nairobi and graduated from Harvard University with a BA Honors Degree in Islamic History.
He assumed imamat at the age of 20 years in 1957 after succeeding his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III.
He was widely known for his welfare services in different regions of Asia and Africa via his network of private development agencies, AKDN.
In recognition of his service, Prince Karim received 44 international awards, including honorary Canadian citizenship and the UN Champion for Global Change Award, and was the recipient of 24 honorary degrees from leading institutions such as Cambridge, Harvard and McGill, according to the AKDN website.
He had also given exemplary services for the development of Pakistan and in recognition of his outstanding services, he received the country’s highest civilian decorations — Nishan-i-Imtiaz in 1970 and Nishan-i-Pakistan in 1983.
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The Aga Khan, known for his triumphs in horse racing, dazzling wealth and development work around the world, has died in Lisbon at the age of 88, according to the Aga Khan Development Network on social media.
The announcement of his designated successor will follow, the network said.
The 49th hereditary imam or spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Ismailis, his name also became synonymous with success as a racehorse owner, with the thoroughbred Shergar among his most famous.
The multi-millionaire, perhaps billionaire, also enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, characterised by private jets, a $200 million super-yacht and a private island in the Bahamas.
Estimates of his wealth varied from $800 million to $13 billion, with his money coming from his family inheritance, his horse breeding business and his personal investments in tourism and real estate.
The international jet setter — who held British, French, Swiss and Portuguese citizenship — also poured millions into helping people in the poorest parts of the world.
“If you travel the developing world, you see poverty is the driver of tragic despair, and there is the possibility that any means out will be taken,” he told the New York Times in a rare interview in 2007.
By assisting the poor through business, he told the newspaper, “we are developing protection against extremism”.
Prince Shah Karim Al Husseini was born on December 13, 1936 in Geneva and spent his early childhood in Nairobi, Kenya.
He later returned to Switzerland, attending the exclusive Le Rosey School before going to the United States to study Islamic history at Harvard.
When his grandfather Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan died in 1957, he became the imam of the Ismailis, at the age of 20.
His grandfather chose Karim as his successor over his flamboyant son – Karim’s father Prince Aly Khan — who was once married to Hollywood actress Rita Hayworth.
He was the fourth holder of the title which 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.
The role included providing divine guidance for the Ismaili community, whose members live in Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and North America.
After his father died in May 1960, the Aga Khan initially pondered whether to continue his family’s long tradition of thoroughbred racing and breeding.
But after winning the French owners’ championship in his first season he was hooked.
“I have come to love it,” he said in a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair. “It’s so exciting, a constant challenge. Every time you sit down and breed you are playing a game of chess with nature.”
His stables and riders, wearing his emerald-green silk livery, enjoyed great successes with horses like Sea the Stars, which won the Epsom Derby and the 2,000 Guineas; and Sinndar, which also won the Epsom Derby, the Irish Derby and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in the same year, 2000.
But perhaps his most famous horse was Shergar, which won the Epsom Derby, the Irish Derby and the King George, before being kidnapped in February 1983 from Ireland’s Ballymany stud farm.
A ransom demand was made, with the mafia, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the Ireland Republican Army all suggested as suspects. No money was paid, and no trace of the horse was ever found.
The Aga Khan set up the Aga Khan Development Network in 1967. The group of international development agencies employs 80,000 people helping to build schools and hospitals and providing 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 fishnet factory.
“Few persons bridge so many divides — between the spiritual and the material; East and West; Muslim and Christian — as gracefully as he does,” Vanity Fair wrote in its 2013 article.
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.
