Fatimid Heritage Foundation

Sultan Muhammad Shah 1302-1376 (1885-1957) the Aga Khan III, Savior of Humankind, Champion of Jew Christian, Buddhist, Hindu Sikh Muslim Unity, Founder of Pakistan, 48th Fatimid Imam caliph, direct lineal descendant of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) through his cousin and son-in-law, Aly, the first Imam Caliph Ameerul Mu’mineen (Master of the Faithful), and his wife Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, was born on Friday, 25th Shawwa'l, 1294 ME 2nd November, 1877 CE at Mount of Muhammad in Karachi Pakistan.

Sultan Muhammad Shah, like the present Aga Khan, was the rope of love, wisdom and unity among interpretations of the Faith, and also bridge of confidence between West and Muslims.
He became the Ima'm Caliph on Monday, 6th Zu’l-Qa’dah, 1302 ME 17th August, 1885 CE at the age of seven.
Aga Khan III was the man of many visions and in his long life played diverse roles in numerous public fields. He was the hereditary Imam Caliph of the Ismaili Muslims, Founder President of All India Muslim League (1906-1912), Founder-President of the All India Muslim Conference, patron of the London Muslim League, head of the 1906 Muslim Deputation to the Viceroy of India, President of the All India Mohammedan Educational Conference, He was a member of the imperial legislative council from 1902 to 1904 and member of Privy Council (1934). In 1903 he became the president of the reception committee of the All-India Muslim Education Conference and presided over its Delhi session in 1904. Aga Khan, as the leader of the Muslim delegation in a meeting with the Viceroy Lord Rippon in 1906 at Simla, suggested for a separate electorate for Muslims. In 1911 he raised a donation of three million rupees for the Aligarh Muslim University.
One of the founders and Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, Head of the British Indian Delegation to the Round Table Conference (1930-33), he was Indian Delegate to the Disarmament Conference, Chief Indian Delegate to the League of Nations and later its President (1937).
The nature and strength of his compassion for humanity formed foundation of his passion for social reform: his dislike for violence and war, his disapproval of racism, his faith in democracy, his tendency towards movement for independence, his efforts for world peace, his obsession with education, his interest in emancipation of women, his appreciation of poetry, his emphasis on culture, and his interpretation of Islam.
He complimented the British for their initiative to eradicate the practice of ‘sati’. Uniquely, he related the human living to the purpose of divinity. “With this acceptance of divinity in mankind, there is the acceptance of brotherhood The whole economic, social and religious fabric calls for immediate relief - uplift of the weak - economically, intellectually and culturally, so that there may be left no one to be called downtrodden.” He asked Muslims to attend to the needs of the ‘untouchables’ of India, elevate their social status and make their life happy. Similarly, in South and East Africa he asked Asian settlers to be kind and friendly to local population and help in their needs.

The achievement that gave him immense joy and satisfaction was the creation of Aligarh Muslim University. As manifest Imam (Imam I Mubin), he considered acquiring and sharing of knowledge and education a religious duty. He recalled the Prophet’s saying which exhorted the Muslims to travel as far as China in search of knowledge. He referred to the injunction of Qur’an to study nature and comprehend God’s motive in creating the Universe.
He was particularly happy to see Muslim countries allow women go to mosques for prayers alongside their spouse, brothers, and children to seek help and guidance from God for steadfastness in their daily lives (in Cairo, there are special mosques, like the Muhammad Ali Mosque, where galleries are reserved for women. In North Africa, in the Paris mosque and the London mosque at Woking, in Iran and in Turkey, and the present day Pakistan women have their own special enclosure for prayers).
The Aga Khan refused to identify humankind without proper attribution to gender equity. In his view, the general well-being of every community depends on the emancipation of its women. No artificial barriers should obstruct their betterment. No prejudices, however narrow should deprive them of their natural rights and proper social status. Again and again he stressed the commanding importance of educating the girls. He went to the extent of declaring that “Personally, if I had two children and one was a boy and the other a girl, and if I could afford to educate only one, I would have no hesitation in giving the higher education to the girl.”
The Aga Khan opposed racism. He also warned the Asian settlers both in South and East Africa of potential danger, and appealed them to help African tribes with land economy, health and education. Asians and Africans must not hate or fear each other. He said: “White, black and brown are complementary members of a common body politic.”
The concern for humanity strengthened his resolve to work for world peace and to avert wars. He strongly believed that maintenance of world peace was the only guarantee for a secured happiness and survival of mankind. He worked hard for eliminating racial bigotry. In India he pleaded for Hindu-Muslim unity and proposed formulae of equal political representation at the federal level for a peaceful co-existence of the two peoples. In the West he encouraged Christian-Islamic understanding and a genuine respect for all faiths. In the world of Islam he was an enthusiastic spokesman of a pan-Islamic and Shi’i-Sunni unity.
He championed the cause of world peace at the ‘Disarmament Conference’ of 1932 and in League of Nations in the following years. On the material side, he pointed to the great benefits which would flow from the absence of war. “There is a cry going up from the hearts of all the peace-loving citizens of every country for the lessening of their military burdens, for a decrease of the financial load which those burdens impose, for the security of civil population against methods of warfare, and above all, for security against the very idea of war.”
In 1937, as President of the League of Nations, he called for the “peaceful removal of the causes of war and the establishment of the empire of peace throughout the world.” The Maharaja of Bikaner called him “a bridge between the East and the West, a connecting link between the two main civilizations of the modern world.” His sincere efforts to employ culture, more importantly the exchange of literature and historical enlightenment, as a means to improve international trust and goodwill, had no successor in the corridors of nations.
His love for humanity and his concern for the welfare of nations made the Aga Khan to work for ‘World Peace Order’, and put an end to wars. Today, the European Union (EU) owes its birth or formation substantially to the Aga Khan, who, just a year before Second World War appealed for the incarnation of ‘United States of Europe’ so as to avert the dangers of war (an earlier long ignored suggestion of Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, the joint winners of 1926 Nobel Peace Prize).
The crown of culture is poetry, and especially the poetry that speaks of spirit of man and the compassion of God. The Aga Khan had read poetry extensively, particularly the Persian poetry. “Man’s greatest of all treasures, the greatest of all his possessions, is the inherent, everlasting nobility of his own soul.” In it “there is forever a spark of true divinity which could conquer all the antagonistic and debasing elements in nature.” The faith in the soul of man is “not simply religious or mystic but an all-embracing and immediate contact with the ‘fact’, which, in every human being, is the ‘central fact of existence’.”
The Aga Khan called Islam “a great cultural and spiritual source for the world unity, and the fraternity of nations,”
He believed the religion to be of strong spiritual and aesthetic dimension in ones life. “A man must be at one with God,” he said. This was the mystical way to personal communion and joy of the heart. His religion had many dimensions in itself, all leading to a humanistic view of the world and an inner comprehension of what God has created.
The esoteric and mystic side of his individual belief is well described in certain passages of his autobiography ‘Memoirs of Aga Khan’. “It is said that we live, move, and have our being in God, when we realise the meaning of this saying, we are already preparing ourselves for the gift of the power of direct experience”. “The love of one human being for another is the harbinger of a joy which overshadows all the treasures of this life; all fame, all wealth, all power, all riches.
“The way to personal fulfillment, to individual reconciliation with the Universe that is about us, is comparatively easy for anyone who firmly and sincerely believes, as I do, that Divine Grace has given man in his own heart the possibilities of illumination and of union with Reality.”
The Isma’ili Muslims celebrated Golden Jubilee of his Imamat Caliphate in Bombay (1936) and in Nairobi (1937); the Diamond Jubilee in Bombay (1946) and in Dar es Salaam (1946) and the Platinum Jubilee in Cairo (1953) and in Karachi (1954), weighing the Ima'm with gold, diamonds and platinum respectively as mark of their faith, devotion, and gratitude for the Imamat. The Imam reciprocated Ismaili feelings most generously giving these back to be used as endowment for social, economic and educational development of the Ismailis in India, Pakistan, Africa, and world wide.
His struggle for saving Turkey from Greek expansionist ambition in 1920, his efforts to preserve the Caliphate after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, his stand for the Palestinians in 1929, the building of hundreds of Medrisa (schools for teaching Isla'm) and mosques in Africa, India and Pakistan and his work for the Pan-Islamism are but a few examples of his great services for the cause of Isla'm.
His book "India in transition" on the Indian problems, published in 1918 by the Times of India Press, Bombay had won him a worldwide acclaim. Baal Ganga'dhar Tilak, a political ancestor of Gandhiji, has remarked it as "the political Geeta of India".
He married Shahza'di Begum, his cousin (1897); Theresa Maglian, mother of Prince Aly Solomone Khan (1908); Andree Carron, mother of Prince Sadruddi'n (1933); and Omm Habibah (1944).
The 48th Fatimid Imam Caliph passed away at the age of eighty-two on Thursday the twelfth of Zil-Hijja, 1376 ME 11th July, 1957 at his residence Bar'kat Villa in Geneva, Switzerland.
Otto Giesen from Slaughter and May, the solicitor firm of the Aga Khan brought the WILL from Lloyds Bank, London, and read it before Imam's family at Bar’kat Villa.
The Aga Khan writes in his WILL: "Ever since the time of my ancestor Ali, the first Imam, that is to say over a period of thirteen hundred years, it has always been the tradition of our family that each Imam chooses his successor at his absolute and unfettered discretion from amongst any of his descendants, whether they be sons or remote male issue and in these circumstances and in view of the fundamentally altered conditions in the world in very recent years due to the great changes which have taken place including the discoveries of atomic science, I am convinced that it is in the best interest of the Shia Muslim Ismailia Community that I should be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years and in the midst of the new age and who brings a new outlook on life to his office as Imam. For these reasons, I appoint my grandson Karim, the son of my own son, Aly Salomone Khan to succeed to the title of Aga Khan and to the Imam and Pir of all Shia Ismailian followers."

Notes: This year, the world is celebrating Golden Jubilee of the Imamat Caliphate of Prince Karim al-Hussaini Aga Khan. Fatimid Heritage Foundation is a Cooperating Organization with The Development Gateway. The FATIMID - DG partnership supports heritage, education and peace activities to enhance knowledge, interfaith harmony and global pluralism. The FATIMID works to promote a more secure, equitable and prosperous world in conformity with the vision of His Highness Aga Khan. It is an expression of love and devotion Ismaili Muslims have for Aga Khan Fatimid Imam Caliph, 49th direct lineal descendant of Prophet Muhammad through his cousin and son-in-law, Aly, the first Imam-Caliph, and his wife Fatima, the Prophet's daughter. Aga Khan is the rope of love, wisdom and unity among interpretations of the Faith, and also bridge of confidence between West and Muslims. Geneva Peace Development Centre (Geneva Peace) and Mountain Girls Education Development Program (MGEDP) are other development initiatives of The FATIMID.