A Rare Muslim Leader Who Avoided Israel-Bashing

Forgive Americans for having less than a benign view of the modern Muslim world. From the jihadist attacks of 9/11 to Iranian mullahs smearing the US as “Grand Satan,” along with serial beheadings, stabbings, kidnappings and mass shootings fueled by calls of “Allah Akbar” – one asks, where are the moderate voices, the imams urging peaceful coexistence with nonbelievers?

I’m drawn to the question following the death this month of Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, better known as Aga Khan IV, spiritual leader of an estimated 15 million Ismaili Muslims. He was 88. I had the fortune of working with the Aga Khan – and his followers – for four years and learned that along with their devout faith Ismailis (a subset of the Shia branch of Islam) are enlightened, tolerant, hard-working and very much of this world and the communities in which they live.

My connection goes back to 1980, when I began working for a PR agency representing the Aga Khan Foundation and Prince Karim personally. A colleague described Ismailis as the Jews of Islam – well educated, mercantile and business-oriented, and spread across an international diaspora. Although many trace their origins to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, Ismailis have no single nationality. Adherents claim a direct 1,400-year descendancy from Ali, nephew and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, making them the only Shiites to have “a living, hereditary Imam.”

They’ve also faced persecution – in the early 1970s Uganda’s Idi Amin expelled tens of thousands of them (along with other Asians) for being economic “bloodsuckers” at the expense of Black Africans. Many resettled in Canada, Britain, the US and elsewhere. Wherever they dispersed, Ismailis assimilated, rather than living segregated lives prone to disaffection and radicalization.

Prince Karim was an amalgam, born in Geneva to Pakistani-Italian diplomat and socialite Aly Khan (famous for marrying actress Rita Hayworth in 1949) and a mother descended from British gentry. Schooled by private tutors in Kenya, he went on to attend the elite Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland and then Harvard. A solid athlete, he skied for Iranian’s Olympic team at the 1964 winter games in Innsbruck, Austria.

Architecture and design were lifelong passions. One of my earliest assignments was announcing a $12 million gift he made to Harvard – at the time the school’s largest single donation ever – to endow a department of Islamic architecture. He created a similar program at MIT.

The Aga Khan Awards for Architecture were established in 1977 – a three-year cycle whose master jury has since honored scores of diverse projects across the globe, with outsized cash prizes of $500,000 or more. Winners have spanned from a hotel and convention center in Mecca to a mud-clay medical clinic in Mali and an infrastructure improvement plan in Jakarta and a research center in Cordoba, Spain, along with museums, libraries, public housing units, palaces, mosques, gardens and even bridges located in Qatar, Senegal, Tehran, Turkey, the Palestinian territories and West Bank, Russia, China and other Muslim outposts. No matter the background noise over the past 48 years, the awards have remained apolitical, honoring design and function reflecting indigenous Islamic culture, not anti-Zionist or anti-American ideology.

The breadth of initiatives spearheaded by the prince’s foundation were remarkable. One week we announced a program to combat an epidemic of intestinal disease in Bangladesh, the next the debut of an Ismaili Center in Chicago, then high school scholarships in Kenya and the opening of vocational schools in India, followed by a trip to Xi’an, China to support renovation of local mosques. Today, the Foundation has a large footprint – it purports to serve more than 10 million people through partnerships with civic – i.e., non-Muslim – organizations.

The Aga Khan was an outspoken advocate of press freedoms and owned The Nation newspaper in Nairobi, which created a “twinning partnership” with the St. Petersburg Times to foster journalism exchanges between the two distant cities – imagine any other Muslim news organization doing the same.

Known in his circle as “HH” (or “His Highness”), Prince Karim lived up to the name. His primary residence was a modern chateau outside Paris called Aiglemont (“Eagle’s Nest”). He hobnobbed with royalty and jet-setters, owned race horses (including an Irish thoroughbred named Shergar that was kidnapped in 1983) and five-star European hotels.

Along with a group of investors, he turned Sardinia’s malaria-infested northeast coast into the ritzy Costa Smeralda resort (the souffles and bathrobes were divine). He led a consortium that backed Italy’s first 12-meter challenge to the America’s Cup races in 1983 – when visiting the spectacular Newport mansion he’d rented for his family that summer, I watched him pull a massive wad of cash from his pocket and peel off crisp large bills for his young son Rahim. Now 53, Rahim has been appointed to succeed his father as Aga Khan V and by all accounts has been well groomed to handle both the business and religious portfolios he will now oversee.

Karim’s followers were unfazed by his vast dynastic wealth and in fact contributed to the coffers through a tithing arrangement that Ismailis consider a sacred duty. Giving upwards of 12.5% of their income to the Aga Khan Development Network (its estimated valued is more than $13 billion), Ismailis welcome the returns those funds bring to their communities along with the spiritual guidance by the prince. A true global citizen, he received honorary citizenship in Canada and in 2018 was given France’s Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.

That the Aga Khan lived the high life of a business mogul did not appear to diminish his commitments to his spiritual flock – he was as often seen wearing his clerical garments and high taqiyah cap as his tailored pinstripe suits. As he explained in a 2006 address, “The role and responsibility of an imam is both to interpret the faith to the community and also to do all within his means to improve the quality, and security, of their daily lives.”

Ismailis approach their religion with moderation, even making fasting optional during Ramadan, though alcohol use is frowned upon. Drawing on strains of Neoplatonism, Ismaili faithful strive for self-improvement through social action. The official Ismaili web site describes its believers as “embracing pluralism by building bridges of peace and understanding; and generously sharing of one’s time, talents, and material resources to improve the quality of life of the community and those among whom they live.” Clearly a kinder, gentler form of Islam.

One area where Karim showed particular temperance was conflict in the Middle East, in keeping with his avoidance of geopolitics and a calculated decision not to offend militant Muslim factions who might retaliate against his people. He supported Palestinians and publicly urged the formation of a “viable” Palestinian state. But he never bashed Israel, including in the aftermath of October 7 when virtually all other Muslim regimes – and many American leaders – cynically blamed the Jewish state for inciting the massacre, rapes and abductions of its people as a justified grievance against “occupation.” He even acknowledged in one interview that Hamas brought “a record of conflict” and could be rebuked for disrespecting “cosmopolitan ethics.” Mild language for sure, but it stands apart from the rest of the pulpits.

Following one press event in Cambridge in 1982, HH let me hitch a ride back to New York on his jet. “Please, make yourself comfortable but forgive me for having to catch up on work,” he said sitting across from me. He edited a speech, pored over Foundation reports, read a cover story in Businessweek, then studied a copy of his newly launched glossy magazine Mimar to showcase architecture in developing countries (I was its first US ad sales rep). I realized then, as now, that he was a Muslim for the West of us.

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Allan Ripp runs a press relations firm in New York.