The death in Lisbon, Portugal of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV at age 88 on February 4, didn’t get as much media coverage in India as it merited. For sixty-eight years Prince Karim spiritually and temporally guided the small, globally dispersed Nizari Ismailiasm Shia Muslim community of Middle East and subcontinental origin. Despite the estimated 15 million Ismailis dispersed across 35 countries in Central and East Africa and South Asia, Middle East, Europe, North America and Australia, over the past six decades, Aga Khan IV transformed his struggling, scattered followers into arguably the most progressive, well-educated and affluent community within the global Islamic Ummah whose number is estimated at 2.5 billion.
Equipped with excellent trading, soft skills and emotional intelligence, Ismailis prospered modestly in far-flung territories under the guidance of Prince Karim’s grandfather, Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah (1877-1957), Aga Khan III who played an important role in the lead up to India’s independence and attended the 1931 Round Table Conference in London together with Mahatma Gandhi. Exceptionally, Mohammed Shah was a champion of primary education and gender egalitarianism, and ensured that all in his small flock of Ismaili Muslims received good education which served as a strong building block for the future prosperity of this small community spread worldwide.
Prior to his death in 1957, he superseded his two racy sons, and decreed the appointment of Prince Karim, then a Islamic history student at Harvard University, as his successor.
Under the sect’s charter, most Ismailis voluntarily pay-in a reported 10 percent of their annual incomes to the Aga Khan. From these contributions Prince Karim accumulated a princely fortune estimated at $12 billion (Rs.1.05 lakh crore), mostly invested in the global Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). Since then over the past half century, AKDN has built a large number of non-denominational Aga Khan schools, hospitals, housing development banks and loans disbursement societies which ensure that all children of the community everywhere receive excellent education, medical care and housing and business development finance at subsidised interest rates.
At the very top, the Aga Khan is advised by a council of highly educated alumni from the world’s best universities on ways and means to develop good relations (often through promoting infrastructure projects) with political leaders in countries hosting Ismaili communities. Moreover, in all countries national councils chaired by successful businessmen, ensure that no Ismaili household is without good quality shelter, clothing, education and medical care.
Under this model Prince Karim — a ruler without a geographic state — transformed the Ismaili sect into the world’s most modern, progressive middle class Muslim community. A good development model for India’s other Muslim sects/communities suffering indifference of educated Muslims and oppression of anachronistic clergy, to emulate.
Also read: Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad
