Aga Khan II
Aga Khan II ( Persian آغا خان دوم Āghā Chān-e Duwwum orآقا خان دوم Aqa Chān-e Duwwum , born in 1830 near Mahallat , Iran ; died August 17, 1885 in Pune , British India , today India ) was the title of Aqa Ali Shah (آقا علی شاه Āqā 'Alī Shāh ). He was a member of the royal Qajar dynasty and after the death of his father in 1881 became the 47th imam of the Ismaili Nizarites .
Life
Aqa Ali Shah was the eldest son of Aga Khan I. His mother was a daughter of Fath Ali Shah . He spent his childhood in Mahallat and moved with his mother in 1840 to what was then Ottoman Mesopotamia , where he studied Arabic, Persian and the teachings of the Ismaili Nizarites. Towards the end of the 1840s he was able to return to Persia with the approval of the Qajar rulers and in 1852 moved with his mother to Bombay to live with his father. As a candidate for his father's Imamate , he visited numerous Ismaili communities in British India, particularly Sindh , Kachchh and Kathiawar , and lived for some time in Karachi .
After his father's death in 1881, Aqa Ali Shah became an imam and also inherited his title of Aga Khan . Like his father, he maintained friendly relations with the British colonial rulers and from 1880 to 1885 held a seat on the “Legislative Council” (Imperial Legislative Council) of the Bombay Presidency under Governor James Fergusson . In 1874 he was appointed a member of a commission which was set up to settle disputes between supporters of Islamic law and the "Hindu law" based on Manusmriti . He sponsored numerous educational institutions for Muslims in India and provided financial support to families in need. During the four years of his imamate he was also able to establish contacts with his fellow believers on the upper Oxus , in Badachschan , Samarkand , Burma and East Africa.
Like his father, he maintained close contacts with the Sufi -Orden Nematollahi . This is due not least to the fact that both Aqa Ali Shah and the founder of the order Shah Nimatullah from the 15th century traced their origins back to Jafar al-Sadiq and thus to Muhammad's cousin Ali .
Aqa Ali Shah was married three times. Not much is known about his first two wives, both of whom died in Bombay. With his first wife, Maryam Sultana, he had two sons, Shihab ad-Din Shah (also called Aqa Khalil Allah) and Nur ad-Din Shah, who both died at a young age. His firstborn son, born around 1851, wrote several works on Muslim ethics. He was named pir by his father in 1882 , died of chest problems in 1884 and was buried in Najaf . The brother Nur ad-Din died in a riding accident in Pune around 1884. The second wife came from a family in Shiraz and also died early. The third wife, Shams al-Muluk, was a Persian noblewoman, niece of Mohammed Ali Shah and granddaughter of Fath Ali Shah. From this marriage, which was concluded in 1867, there were three sons, two of whom died in childhood. His only surviving son and successor was Sultan Mohammed Shah, who later became Aga Khan III.
The first Aga Khan had started breeding racehorses as a family tradition in Bombay. Aqa Ali Shah inherited some of the world's most beautiful Arabian horses from his father . When Aqa Ali Shah died, his son inherited an impressive population of falcons , hunting dogs and between 80 and 90 racehorses. Until his death, Aqa Ali Shah was president of the Mohammedan National Association , as well as honorary chairman of the " Western India Turf Club" .
Aqa Ali Shah was a skilled rider, as well as an enthusiastic hunter, whose tiger hunts on foot became particularly well known. His son remembers in his notes traveling with his father through Sindh , Kachchh and Kathiawar and sleeping in tents. During a hunt for waterfowl in the pouring rain near Pune in 1885, Aqa Ali Shah caught a severe cold that quickly turned into pneumonia, of which he died eight days later. His body was taken to Bombay by train and buried in the family mausoleum in Najaf on the west bank of the Euphrates, with great sympathy among the population .
Web links
- Biography in ismaili.net (engl.)
- Aqa Ali Shah Aga Khan II (1298-1302 / 1881-1885), 47th Imam (Engl.)
literature
- Encyclopædia Britannica : Aga Khan II . Online partial view
- Farhad Daftary : The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 978-0-521-42974-0 .
- Farhad Daftary: A Modern History of the Ismailis. Continuity and Change in a Muslim Community. IB Tauris, London 2011. ISBN 978-1-84511-717-7 .
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Aga Khan II |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Shah, Aqa Ali; آغا خان دوم (Persian); آقا خان دوم (Persian); آقا علی شاه (Persian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Member of the royal Qajar dynasty, imam of the Ismaili Nizarites |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1830 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | near Mahallat , Iran |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th August 1885 |
| Place of death | Pune , British India , now India |