Karim Aga Khan IV.

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Karim Aga Khan IV.

Karim Aga Khan IV. , Real name Karim al-Husseini , (born December 13, 1936 in Creux-de-Genthod, municipality of Genthod , canton of Geneva , Switzerland ) is the religious leader of 20 million Ismaili Nizarites in 25 countries. His main residence is the Château Aiglemont in Gouvieux / Chantilly in the Oise department north of Paris . The title His Highness Prince Aga Khan IV. Was bestowed on him as a sovereign title by the British Queen on July 26, 1957. His fortune is estimated at at least ten billion euros , the Aga Khan Foundation is the largest private development organization in the world. He is considered the 49th imam of the Nizarites.

resume

Karim Aga Khan's father was Aly Khan , who was Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and Vice-President of the UN General Assembly from 1958 until his accidental death in 1960 , but better known as Jetset - Playboy who starred with Hollywood diva Rita Hayworth entered into a marriage. His mother was the former model Joan Yarde-Buller (1908-1997), daughter of John Yarde-Buller, Baron Churston (1873-1930) and known as the wife of Aly Khan as Princess Tajudaulah. Karim Aga Khan was born in Switzerland and spent his early childhood in Nairobi . As a British citizen , he attended schools in South Africa , Nairobi and London . He graduated from high school at the exclusive Le Rosey boarding school on Lake Geneva. He then studied economics , oriental languages and history at Harvard and Cambridge until 1959 .

During a visit to Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1959, Karim Aga Khan IV received a piece of trinitite as a gift , which was produced in the first nuclear weapon explosion on July 16, 1945, the so-called Trinity test .

At the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck Karim Aga Khan acted as alpine skier to Iran and finished 59th in downhill, giant slalom 53rd rank. He also started in the slalom .

At the age of 20, on July 11, 1957, after the death of his grandfather Sultan Mohamed Schah ( Aga Khan III ), he was surprisingly appointed Aga Khan. His grandfather had decreed in his will that not the son but the grandson should succeed him, and so he was appointed head of a branch of the Ismailis, the Nizarites ; a religious direction within Islam , which in turn is part of the Shiite faith . In the eyes of his followers, he is considered a direct descendant of Fatima , the youngest daughter of the Prophet Mohammed , and his successor and therefore the forty-ninth imam of the Nizarites and their spiritual head.

Karim Aga Khan IV. Founded Porto Cervo on the north-east coast of Sardinia in the mid-1960s as a holiday destination for exclusive holiday guests.

Karim Aga Khan is a major shareholder in several international corporations, including the Fiat Group and Lufthansa . He also owns banks , newspaper publishers , gem mines, airlines, horse breeding companies and hotel chains - the Aga Khan earns one billion euros a year with his companies . In addition, the Aga Khan receives donations of hundreds of millions of euros from his followers every year.

In October 2012, the investigative online newspaper Mediapart published that Nicolas Sarkozy had  exempted the Aga Khan in France from all tax payments  - especially income tax - since 2008 . At that time, Éric Woerth was budget minister in Sarkozy's government, who later had to resign in the course of the party donation affair surrounding the L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt ( Bettencourt affair ). Woerth was previously mayor of Chantilly , which is world-famous for its castle and horse breeding. When the castle and racecourse were threatened with closure because the funds to renovate them were lacking, the Aga Khan donated millions to maintain them.

Private life

In 1969, Aga Khan married the divorced Lady Crichton-Stuart, the British model Sarah Frances Croker-Poole, later dubbed Begum Salima. The marriage had three children: Zahra (born September 18, 1970), Rahim (born October 12, 1971), Hussein (born April 10, 1974). Shortly before the Silver Wedding in 1994, the marriage was divorced, Begum Salima received a divorce settlement of 45 million euros.

Aga Khan married the German Gabriele Princess zu Leiningen in 1998 , adopted Thyssen , who from then on bore the name Inaara Gabriele Aga Khan and the title Begum Inaara and converted to Islam . The marriage resulted in a son: Aly Muhammad (born March 7, 2000). Aga Khan separated in 2004 after six years of marriage, but it took seven years for the details of the separation to be legally settled; The starting point was a court in Switzerland. A court in England followed before the Aga Khan finally brought the case to the French judiciary. In addition, the Begum was awarded a divorce settlement in the amount of 60 million euros, in return she had to discard the name and title Begum ("Princess"). The decision on divorce settlement was overturned by the Court of Cassation in January 2013 , with Sarkozy and Woerth playing a crucial role.

Development programs

Above all through its private development aid network, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), Aga Khan supports a variety of development programs in the following areas, among others:

  • Health, education and architecture
  • rural development and promotion of private entrepreneurship
  • Projects to secure food needs and water supply

For example, the AKDN donated $ 80 million for reconstruction in Afghanistan .

In 1977, Prince Karim Aga Khan founded the London Institute of Ismaili Studies , which, according to its own account, is dedicated to the teaching of Islamic cultures and societies in the present and history. In addition, the relationships to other cultures and religions should be researched and conveyed.

Honors

interview

  • Gero von Boehm : Prince Karim Aga Khan IV. - July 31, 2007. Interview in: Encounters. Images of man from three decades. Collection Rolf Heyne, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-89910-443-1 , pp. 556-568.

Web links

Commons : Aga Khan IV  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Expensive divorce from Begum: stewardess affair costs Aga Khan millions. Spiegel online October 1, 2011
  2. ↑ Karim Aga Khan IV. In the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
  3. ↑ Le cadeau fiscal de Sarkozy et Woerth à l'Aga Khan. Mediapart October 24, 2012
  4. ↑ The list of the most expensive divorces.
  5. ↑ Nicolas Sarkozy's role in Aga Khan divorce revealed. The Times January 25, 2013
  6. ↑ Aga Khan Foundation press release. On: akdn.org of September 20, 2018, accessed on September 23, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Aga Khan IV., Karim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aga Khan IV .; Prince Karim El Husseni; al-Husseini, Karim (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Ismailit, head (49th Imam) of the Ismailis
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Creux-de-Genthod, municipality of Genthod , Canton of Geneva , Switzerland