Aga Khan, spiritual leader and billionaire investor, dies

Prince Karim Aga Khan (R) enthroned forty-ninth Imam

(Image credit: INTERCONTINENTALE/AFP via Getty Images)

published 25 February 2025

In 1957 at the age of 20, Prince Karim Al-Hussaini inherited the reins of a lineage that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad and became the spiritual leader of some 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims. For much of his life, he remained a paradox. “The Pope of his flock”, he also possessed “fabled wealth”, inhabiting “a world of marvellous chateaux, yachts, jets and thoroughbred horses” – and building “a hugely effective global development network”, observed Vanity Fair in 2013. “Few persons bridged so many divides” between the spiritual and the material quite so “gracefully”.

The late Aga Khan, who has died in Lisbon aged 88, saw no conflict in his position, says The New York Times. An imam, or leader of his faith, was “not expected to withdraw from everyday life”, he once remarked. “On the contrary, he’s expected to protect his community and contribute to their way of life.” His own ability to prosper – he became one of the world’s richest hereditary rulers – was part of this duty. “It was perhaps this placid self-confidence, combined with an inner seriousness of purpose”, that led his grandfather, the Aga Khan III, to bypass his two sons and name his grandson successor, says The Telegraph.

The then Prince Karim didn’t disappoint in several later crises that afflicted followers spread across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and East Africa – including dictator Idi Amin’s expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1972, and civil war in Tajikistan following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In response to that, he accelerated investments in power generation and cellphones and later built healthcare, microfinance and other facilities, as well as the University of Central Asia in Khorog. “He saw his role as a venture capitalist who specialised in difficult environments, laying the foundations of projects to entice other investors,” says the Financial Times.

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There was plenty of snarking about the philanthropic credentials of some business projects – notably a luxury development at Porto Cervo in Sardinia, which became a playground for the super-rich, or his lifelong passion for breeding and racing thoroughbreds. The Aga was prickly about being described as a playboy, even if his lifestyle suggested it. But even detractors agreed with his friend, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, that he did a very “good job” of “balancing the task of increasing his capital” with “advancing the needs of his followers”.

Born in Geneva in 1936, Prince Karim was the eldest son of the noted playboy Prince Aly Khan and his aristocratic British wife, Joan. In his late 20s, he competed for Iran in skiing at the 1964 Winter Olympics. He was a student at Harvard when he acceded to the title. When his father died in a car crash in 1960, the Aga Khan inherited his extensive bloodstock interests – and a network of close racing friends that included the late Queen Elizabeth. For tax reasons, he located his business headquarters in Geneva, says The Telegraph, but everything else was run out of his French estate at Aiglemont, close to the Chantilly racecourse in France. The Aga Khan had plenty of successes on the racecourse but died with the mystery of Shergar, his most famous horse – kidnapped in Ireland in 1983, probably by the IRA – still unsolved.

Like his father, the late Aga Khan chose a glamorous upper-crust British debutante as his first wife. Their eldest son, Prince Rahim, 53, now inherits the title and a business and philanthropic empire valued at up to $13 billion, says Tatler. He seems well-qualified, having long served in the family foundation, with a particular interest in the environment and climate change. He inherits a wealth of good connections and “one of the most quietly influential roles in international diplomacy”. Let’s see what he does with it.

Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.