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Like the scattered Ismaili Muslim community of some 15mn people of which he was the spiritual leader, the footprints of the Aga Khan IV, who has died aged 88, can be found in almost every corner of the world.
A billionaire who poured money into universities, hospitals and schools from Tajikistan to east Africa, he rejected the title of philanthropist, often tied to his name, as a misnomer. Rather, he saw his charitable deeds as part of the responsibilities that flowed from his role as an imam, or leader of the faith.
The Aga Khan IV was born in Switzerland as Prince Karim Al-Hussaini in 1936, the eldest son of renowned playboy Prince Aly Khan and his wife Joan, the daughter of a British baron.
In 1957, at the age of 20, while he was studying Islamic history at Harvard University, Prince Karim inherited his title on the death of his grandfather, the Aga Khan III. With his ascension, the Aga Khan IV became the 49th imam of Ismaili Muslims, a Shia lineage that traces its descent from the Prophet Muhammad.
He was nothing if not international. Born in Geneva, he grew up in Nairobi, was educated in Switzerland and died in Portugal. In between, he developed upscale tourism in Sardinia, bred horses in 15 countries and even competed for Iran in the 1964 winter Olympics in Innsbruck.
Despite his global presence, he remained a relative enigma — an almost mythical figure whose personal life was protected by a wall of royal secrecy.
Those who met him in private, though, describe an urbane yet self-effacing man, a charming host and someone who rarely stood on ceremony — even if he insisted that he and members of his wider family observed the protocols he believed befitted his title.
“He was a very modest and engaging man, surprising for someone of his stature and wealth,” said Mo Ibrahim, the British-Sudanese billionaire who met him several times.
The Aga Khan was also an entrepreneur who built a successful empire of banks, luxury hotels, insurance companies and agro-industrial businesses and who saw no contradiction between the secular and religious elements of his life. Wealth accumulation was not an end in itself, he taught his followers, but a means of creating the wherewithal to help others.
He lived a luxurious lifestyle, with a sprawling estate outside Paris, a superyacht called Alamshar and an island in the Bahamas among his many possessions. Yet Naguib Kheraj, an adviser and a trustee of the Aga Khan University, said that it would be for his dedication to institution building that history would remember him.
“His grandfather sowed the seeds. But he was never organised in this very institutional way and scale,” he said. “He has founded universities, built schools, built hospitals, instituted an award for architecture — the range of things he has done is extraordinary.”
Speaking in the aftermath of his death this week, members of his community spoke of the sense of unity, tolerance and purpose he had imparted as well as the wider developmental impact that he had in the nearly 20 countries where his charitable foundation was active.
“He kept his community together,” said Nasir Karmali, a garage owner and car dealer in Nairobi, describing a social welfare system for Ismaili Muslims that ensured help was always at hand when circumstances turned for the worse.
One of his first investments in 1960, not long after he became imam, was in the press in Kenya, where he had been sent as a child for his protection during the second world war. He founded the Nation Media Group, whose newspapers, including the Daily Nation and The EastAfrican, became bastions of free speech during the repressive years of Daniel arap Moi, president from 1978 to 2002.
“He helped to make the media a pillar of governance in this region,” said Joseph Odindo, founding editor of the EastAfrican, who said the Aga Khan’s media empire became “a shield for those who were persecuted from what was a one-party dictatorship”.
Horses were his passion. At his Aiglemont estate outside Paris he trained thoroughbreds, a pastime that cemented a friendship with the late Queen Elizabeth II. One guest to a three-day wedding he organised for one of his sons remembers seeing a near life-size bronze statue of the legendary Irish racehorse Shergar, which the Aga Khan had owned.
“What he did in horseracing is what he has done in many fields: strive for excellence,” said his adviser Kheraj.