The Aga Khan, billionaire spiritual leader, dies at 88

He became the Aga Khan IV when he was a 20-year-old student at Harvard

(Image credit: Horacio Villalobos - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images)

published 5 February 2025

What happened

The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Ismaili Muslims and one of the world's wealthiest hereditary heirs, died Tuesday in Portugal. He was 88 and had led the Shiite branch — with large communities in South and Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and East Africa — for nearly seven decades

Prince Karim Al-Hussaini became the Aga Khan IV and 49th hereditary iman in his family's 1,300-year-old dynasty when he was a 20-year-old student at Harvard. His grandfather, the Aga Khan III, unexpectedly bequeathed him the title upon his death in 1957, bypassing his playboy son Prince Aly Khan, Prince Karim's father. Queen Elizabeth II granted the Aga Khan IV the nonhereditary title "His Highness" two weeks later, reflecting the "close ties between the two dynasties, bonded in a shared fascination with fine horses," The New York Times said.

The Aga Khan "evolved into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly with ease," The Associated Press said. "Urbane, cosmopolitan and often media-averse," the Times said, he drew his fortune — estimated at between $1 billion and $13 billion — from an "eclectic" array of business ventures, a "lucrative equestrian empire" inherited from his father and "a kind of Quranic tithe levied on his followers." His philanthropy funded hospitals, housing, schools and development projects in some of the world's poorest places.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.