Mumbai – Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan, a spiritual leader of the Ismaili Shia Muslim community and world famous man for his development works, died at the age of 88 in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. According to Aga Khan Development Network, according to Ismaili tradition, one of his successors will soon be elected his successor. His family consists of three sons and a daughter and several grandchildren. They will be buried in Lisbon. The news of the death of His Majesty Aga Khan raged in Gujarat and the worldwide a wave of mourning in the Ismaili Khoja community. Khoja in Gujarat is well -established as a business community.
His Majesty Aga Khan was born on 13 December 1936 in Geneva. He spent his childhood in the city of Nairobi in Kayya. He later returned to Switzerland, where he received his education in La Rosary School. He then moved to the United States to study Islamic history at Harvard University. When his grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammad Shah Aga Khan died in 1957, at the age of 20, he became an Imam of Ismaili Muslims, a branch of Shia Islam. The protector of Islamic culture and values, Aga Khan worked as a bridge between Muslim society and Western society. He never joined politics.
Aga Khan lived a luxurious life. He also had a private island in private jets, supernues and Bahamas. He had British, French, Swiss and Portuguese citizenship. A large part of Aga Khan’s life was spent in France. In recent years he settled in Portugal. His development network and foundation are located in Switzerland.
He founded the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and served as its lifetime president. This charitable network mainly works in the areas of health, housing, education and rural economic development. This network, working in more than 30 countries, is employed in 96,000 people and its annual development budget is an estimated one billion dollars. This network helps in building schools and hospitals in poor areas of Africa and Asia.
