WHO IS THE AGA KHAN?
The man behind the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is Prince Karim Aga Khan
IV, the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims. He is
descended from Muhammad through the Prophet's youngest daughter Fatima and
her husband, the Prophet's chosen heir and cousin, Ali. After Muhammad's
death, the Ismailis believe Ali became their spiritual leader; the Imamat
continues through his male line.
Ali's descendants, known as the Fatimids, founded Cairo in the tenth
century, making it their capital. Their 200-year-long dynasty marked one of
the great flowerings of Islamic culture, due in part to its patronage of
scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, jurists, artists, and poets-the
work of these brilliant thinkers influencing Europe's scholars and
intellectuals for centuries. Bent on territorial expansion, the Fatimids
brought all of North Africa, Syria, and Sicily under Islamic control. But
they were overthrown in the twelfth century by Saladin, the great Muslim
commander who had defeated the Crusaders, then waging their own "jihad" for
Jerusalem. The Ismailis regrouped in Persia, flourishing until the
thirteenth century, when their lands were overrun by the Moguls. Today, 20
million faithful are scattered throughout the Muslim world, in Asia
(particularly India and Pakistan), North and East Africa, and the Middle
East; there are communities in the West as well.
Since the days of the Fatimids, Ismaili Imams have encouraged intellectual
freedom and tolerance. For them, like the Aga Khan today, the Koran and its
teachings were open to each individual's interpretation and could never be
dictated. The Ismaili Imamat neither defines spiritual not political
practice. These are up to the individual. All the Aga Khan asks is that
Ismailis believe in Allah and be good citizens of their countries.
While the Ismailis are a Shia sect, they are entirely different from Iran's
fundamentalist, U.S.-hating Shi'ites. Their hostility arises not so much
from their Muslim faith, but from its translation into nationalist
politics. For at the crux of Islam is the conviction that Din and Dunya
(Faith and World) are inextricably linked; thus, all Islamic political and
social action should be in accordance with the ethical framework of the
Koran. For the Ismailis, this is an ideal world scenario. But for the
fundamentalist Shi'ites, it is a real world goal, and Western materialism
and its illicit freedoms threaten its achievement. Islam then is not
necessarily antidemocratic, nor antagonistic to either Judaism or
Christianity. In fact, Abraham is considered one of Allah's prophets, as is
Jesus.
Prince Karim assumed the Imamat when he was a 20-year-old undergraduate at
Harvard in 1957, after the death of his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed
Shah Aga Khan, a respected Indian statesman and former president of the
League of Nations. His father, Prince Aly Khan, was Pakistan's ambassador
to the United Nations, though he's probably better known as the flamboyant
playboy who married Rita Hayworth; the Aga Khan's mother was the daughter
of an English lord. His own ex-wife was a British model, and his three
children have all been educated in the United States. Attempting to enhance
the status of women, the Aga Khan often travels in the Muslim world with
his Harvard-educated daughter, Zahra, who works on social development
issues for the Imamat. Although deeply involved with Ismaili communities
throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, he makes his home in an
eighteenth-century chateau in Chantilly, France. A man who belongs to both
the East and West, the Aga Khan defies just about every Western stereotype
of an Islamic religious leader.
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