The spiritual leader who was a regular in gossip magazines

On February 4, media around the world reported the death of the Aga Khan, the leader of the Nizari sect of Shiites. Today, the figure of the Aga Khan is surely no longer glamorous. The Aga Khan V is a title of the past, but a few decades ago this religious leader was a character who frequently appeared in the society pages of the written press, which gave him great popularity. In Karim's case, he had held the title since 1957, after the death of his grandfather, Sultan Mahommed Shah. Curiously, his father never held the title of Aga Khan, but there was a generational leap, very similar to that of the Spanish monarchy. Now, with Karim's death, the brand new Aga Khan V is his son Rahim al-Hussaini.

Born in Switzerland to a very international family, his life has been as closely linked to religion – let us not forget that he is the visible head of a religious denomination – as to the economy, because the wealth accumulated by his family transformed him out of necessity into one of the main businessmen in the world. He received the title just when he was studying the history of Islam at Harvard University (according to some sources he was studying engineering), after having begun his studies in Switzerland and having grown up in Kenya (he was sent to the African country to keep it away from the Second World War). As the origins of the family are Persian, when he decided to compete in the Winter Olympics as a skier (Innsbruck, 1964) he defended the flag of Iran.

Taking on the title of Aga Khan meant inheriting a large business conglomerate, which he made even bigger. The family's wealth has never stopped growing thanks to donations from the fifteen million Ismailis spread across thirty-five countries, who contribute 12.5% of their regular income. Within the family empire, it is worth highlighting the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), which, as its name indicates, is a fund dedicated to investing in companies in developing territories. The 150 companies that operate today under the umbrella of the AKFED have an accumulated turnover of nearly 4 billion dollars, which gives an idea of the fund's power. We can find everything from telecommunications companies to cotton firms, as well as energy companies, banks, meat, steel and sugar factories. A whole universe. One of his first investments was the creation of several newspapers in Kenya in 1959.

Beyond AKFED, the Aga Khan also controls a number of companies under the organisations AK Health Services, AK Schools, AK Agency for Microfinance, AK Agency for Habitat and AK Trust for Culture, as well as AK University and the University of Central Asia. On the European continent, he is remembered for promoting tourism on the so-called Emerald Coast of Sardinia.

Despite living permanently under the spotlight of the press, the Aga Khan tried to preserve his private life as much as possible. However, it is known that he had two marriages and two divorces, the first with the British model born in New Delhi Sarah Frances Croker Poole (divorced in 1995) and the second with Gabriele Renate Homey, a German related to the Thyssen family (divorced in 2011). A lesser-known fact is that in the late 50s he also had a relationship with the Catalan Sílvia Casablancas Ubach, clean of the businessman Ferran Casablancas Planell, to whom we dedicated this section in June 2021The Aga Khan's life was always surrounded by luxury – which he claimed was entirely compatible with his dedication to philanthropy and charity – and included private planes and ostentatious yachts. He owned an island in the Caribbean and had a large mansion in the north of Paris as his first residence, from where he directed his activities. He also always showed a great fondness for horse racing and for attending parties of European royalty.

The compass of his life was to consider that acting as a religious leader of a community consisted both of knowing how to understand the faith of millions of people and of doing everything possible to make their daily life as good as possible. As has already been pointed out, the Aga Khan was convinced that it was not typical of Islam to think that spiritual life should be completely detached from the material activities of daily life and also that the accumulation of material goods was only bad if it was put to an evil use.