Aga Khan is the title of the imām (spiritual leader) of the Nizārī Ismā`īlī Shī`ites, a small group of Shī`ite Muslims who broke away from the larger group of Shī`ites in the 700’s. Since 1818, four men have held this title, which means chief commander.
Aga Khan I
(1804-1881), was born Hasan Ali Shah in Persia (now Iran). He was governor of the Persian province of Kerman (now in southeastern Iran). In 1818, the shah of Iran gave him the title Aga Khan. Under the next shah, however, he rebelled over what he considered to be a matter of family honor, in 1840. His revolt failed and he went to India, where he helped the British in their first war against Afghanistan and their conquest of Sindh. Aga Khan I settled in Bombay (now Mumbai) and eventually established his authority as imām. He claimed to be a direct descendant of Alī ibn Abī Tālib, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, and Fātima, Muhammad’s daughter.
Aga Khan II
(1830-1885), the son of the first Aga Khan, sought to improve conditions for the Ismā`īlī Muslims. He was imām for only four years.
Aga Khan III
(1877-1957), the son of Aga Khan II, was born in Karachi, today a commercial and industrial center in Pakistan. His full name was Sultan Mohammed Shah. He received both an Islamic and a Western education and was a keen supporter of the United Kingdom during World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945). As well as being imām to Ismā`īlī Muslims, he became one of the leaders of the Muslims throughout India and helped to secure the passage of the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909, which provided for separate Muslim electorates. He was a founding member and president of the All-India Muslim League and funded the setting up of a Muslim university at Aligarh. He played an important diplomatic role in the peace negotiations that ended World War I. In 1937, he became president of the League of Nations, a forerunner of the United Nations, where he had earlier represented India. In addition to his spiritual and political activities, he was an enthusiastic owner and breeder of racehorses. He spent his later years, including those of World War II, in Switzerland. One of his sons, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, who was born in 1933, became an official of the United Nations.
Aga Khan IV
(1936-…), born Shah Karim al-Husayni, in Geneva, Switzerland, was the grandson of Aga Khan III and the eldest son of Prince Aly Khan. He was educated at Le Rosey, Switzerland, and at Harvard University in the United States. In 1969, he married an Englishwoman, Sarah Croker-Poole, but the couple divorced in 1995. In 1957, he succeeded as imām of the Ismā`īlī Muslims and immediately made visits all over the world to his spiritual subjects. He provided strong leadership to his community, ordering them to adopt citizenship of the country in which they lived and to leave countries where they were persecuted. Aga Khan IV became a successful businessman, helping to develop Costa Smeralda, in Sardinia, as a holiday resort. He has created a complex institutional network, generally referred to as the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), for implementing projects related to social, economic, and cultural development. He has also endowed many trust funds and awards and continued his family’s ownership and breeding of racehorses. In 1983, he became chancellor of Aga Khan University in Pakistan.
The Aga Khan has the authority to interpret and even invalidate religious texts. Based on religious decrees issued by the Aga Khan, Ismā`īlīs have their own kind of prayers. They do not perform the standard Islamic prayers and do not observe traditional Islamic rituals as strictly as other divisions of Islam do. They have their own special religious taxes and their own places for group prayer that are out of bounds for non-Ismā`īlīs. Due to their unique beliefs and practices, many Muslims regard the Nizārī Ismā`īlīs as being outside the boundaries of Islam.
See also India, History of ; Islam (Divisions of Islam) ; Isma`ili Muslims .
