Today marks the 84th birthday of one of the most prestigious high society figures in the world: Prince Karim al-Husayni, also known as the Aga Khan IV. He is one of the richest royals and most influential leaders in the world, often acknowledged as the world's most well-connected man. Born on December 13, 1936, he is the elder son of Prince Aly Khan by his first wife, Joan Yarde-Buller, the daughter of the 3rd Baron Churston.
The Pope of his flock, he also possesses fabled wealth and inhabits a world of marvellous châteaux, yachts, jets, and Thoroughbred horses. Few people bridge so many divides — between the spiritual and the material; East and West; Muslim and Christian — as gracefully as he does.
Having celebrated his Golden and Diamond Jubilees with Queen Elizabeth II, the Aga Khan has often appeared at state dinners alongside the likes of Princess Margaret and the Prince and Princess of Wales. Though he has no political territory, he is virtually a one-man state and is often received like a head of state when he travels. With a British passport, he spends a great deal of his time aloft in his private aircraft.
Growing up in Geneva, Prince Karim attended Le Rosey, renowned for being one of the world's most expensive boarding schools, before travelling across the pond to study History at Harvard. Thrust into the limelight at the early age of 20, he became the religious leader of all the world’s Ismaili muslims following the death of his Grandfather in 1957. Since his abrupt ascension to the Imaan, that Aga Khan has helped his Ismaili flock navigate the end of the Cold War, the end of colonialism in Africa and communism in Central Asia, and the continuous turmoil in the Middle East, where militant Sunni jihadists brand the moderate Ismaili as apostates.
‘An imam is not expected to withdraw from everyday life,’ he told Vanity Fair, in an attempt to square his activities as a venture capitalist with his religious responsibilities. ‘On the contrary, he’s expected to protect his community and contribute to their quality of life. The imamate does not divide world and faith.’ The title Aga Khan — meaning, in a combination of Turkish and Persian, commanding chief — was granted in the 1830s by the Emperor of Persia to Karim’s great-great-grandfather when he married the emperor’s daughter.
Prince Prince Karim al-Husayni's accession was unexpected: the title of Aga Khan skipped his father, Prince Aly Khan, and went straight to him. His grandfather explained in his will that ‘in view of the altered conditions in the world in very recent years, including the discoveries of atomic sciences, I am convinced that it is in the best interest of the Shia Muslim Ismailian Community that I should be succeeded by a young man’. Thus, aged 21, he became the 49th hereditary Imam of the Ismaili Muslims.
Today, the most devoted of the Aga Khan’s flock, 15 million Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims scattered in 25 countries across the world hail him as the ‘the bringer of life’, and consider him to be the carrier of the eternal Noor of Allah (light of God). As Imam, he is responsible for looking after the material as well as spiritual needs of his followers, who are scattered in more than 25 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. His projects, however, benefit people of all faiths.
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For others, though, Prince Shah Karim is best known for his immense wealth. Described by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s 10 richest royals, the Aga Khan has an estimated net worth of over £13 billion. He owns hundreds of racehorses and premier stud farms, an exclusive yacht club on Sardinia, a private island in the Bahamas, two Bombardier jets, Alamshar — a £100 million high-speed yacht named after one of his prized racehorses — and several estates around the world.
His principal residence is the beautiful, breathtaking palace of Aiglemont, which is surrounded by water and sits at the heart of the town of Gouvieux, north of Paris. On-site, in addition to a château and an elaborate training centre for about a hundred of his Thoroughbreds, is the Secretariat, a modern office block that houses the nerve centre of what might be described as his own U.N., the Aga Khan Development Network. A staggeringly large and effective organization, it employs 80,000 people in 30 countries.
In 1969, the Aga Khan married Lady James Charles Crichton-Stuart, who became Princess Salimah Aga Khan, and assumed the name Begum Salimah Aga Khan upon marrying him. Sarah Frances was previously married to Lord James Charles Crichton-Stuart, son of John Crichton-Stuart, 5th Marquess of Bute. The couple had three children before their divorce in 1995.
In 1998, he married Princess Gabriele of Leiningen, who assumed the name Begum Inaara Aga Khan at her wedding. Born to Roman Catholic German entrepreneur parents in 1963, Gabriele was 27 years younger than the Aga Khan. Two years after the wedding, the Aga Khan became a father again at the age of 64, with the birth of a son, Aly Muhammad Aga Khan, born on 7 March 2000.
However, on 8 October 2004, after six years of marriage, an announcement was made that the Aga Khan and Begum Inaara would be seeking a divorce. After a decade-long legal battle during which he was accused of having an affair with an air hostess, the couple finally divorced in 2014, and Princess Gabriele’s eventual settlement was a reported £54 million.
For the past half-century, the fourth Aga Khan has been refining that work on both spiritual and society planes. His continued racing wins keep him in the very top echelon of the bloodstock world. In 2012, he won a record-breaking seventh Prix de Diane, France’s most prestigious horse race, held at Chantilly, a 16th-century Domaine near his estate on which he’s spent £40 million, restoring it to its ‘princely lustre’.
Meanwhile, the Aga Khan Development Network has overseen projects as diverse as restoring the mud walls of the 14th-century Djingareyber Mosque in Timbuktu (the oldest earthen building in sub-Saharan Africa), repairing key architectural components of the Old City in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and building a huge hydroelectric power network in Uganda that now brings 18 hours of electricity each day to the poor West Nile area, where there had previously been a scant four hours every other day. ‘He does a bloody good job balancing the task of increasing his capital with that of advancing the needs of his followers,’ his friend, former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, told Vanity Fair.
Now, on his 84th birthday, the Aga Khan has kept his title through a long and impressive reign, while his three elder children work within his development network.
