For many years, Ismailis have devised and followed
a certain criteria for designating the living Imam (or Hazar Imam). These criteria have not only been followed
throughout their history, but are also taught to all Ismailis.
In
this article we will look at the principles of Nizari Ismaili Imamate over the
centuries, birth and background Aly S. Khan as described by his father Aga Khan
III, appointment of Aly S. Khan as successor by Aga Khan III, contradiction in
Aga Khan III’s will, rejection of Karim Aga Khan by the Ismaili community, and
the question which looms Ismaili leadership to this day: “Was Aly S. Khan
planning to come out clean?”.
1. Principles of Nizari Ismaili Imamate
2. Birth of Prince Aly S. Khan
3. Aly S. Khan’s Offcial Appointment as wali ahad
4. Contradicion in Aga Khan III’s Will
5. Ismailis’ Rejection of, and Revolt Against Karim
Aga Khan
6. Was Aly S. Khan Planning to Come Out Clean?
Let’s
examine all of the above:
1. Principles of Nizari Ismaili Imamate
The established
criteria for the nizari Ismaili Imamate are as follows:
a.
The world cannot exist without an Imam and that
there has to be an Imam on the face of this Earth;
b.
There can be only one true Imam at any given period
of time;
c.
This person leads as true Imam as long as he lives;
d.
This living Imam has the sole authority to
designate his successor;
e.
Under normal circumstances, this successor should
be from one of his sons, which is usually the eldest son;
f.
The person designated as the next Imam can only be
enthroned to the seat of Imamat, after the
death of the previous Imam.
Here are the historical
records to substantiate the above:
In 1817, Khalilullah Ali –
the 45th Imam of the Ismailis and the father of the Aga Khan I, was murdered in
Iran. After Khalilullah Ali, his son Hasan Ali became
the 46th Imam. Hasan Ali died on 12th April 1881 in Bombay, India.
After Hasan Ali, his son Ali Shah became
Aga Khan II and the 47th Imam of the Ismailis. Aga Khan II died on 17th August
1885 in Pune, India serving only four years as a Nizari Ismaili Imam.
After Ali Shah, his son Sultan Muhammad became
Aga Khan III and the 48th Imam of the Ismailis. Sultan Muhammad died on 11th
July 1957 in Geneva, Switzerland. After him, his grandson Karim, instead
of his son Aly S. Khan, became Aga Khan IV and the 49th Imam of
the Ismailis.
Karim Aga Khan’s
appointment was unexpected as Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III in the late
years of his life had sent his son Aly S. Khan on various visits to Jamaats around
the world and had clearly pronounced him as his successor.
2. Birth of Prince Aly S. Khan
Prince
Aly S. Khan, referred in western media as Aly Solomone Khan or Prince Aly
Salomone Shah, and in Ismaili literature as Prince Aly Salman Khan, was born 13
Jun 1911, Torino, Piemonte in Italy. Interestingly, his father, Aga Khan III
himself admitted in public documents that Aly S. Khan was born out of wedlock.
The
Aga Khan was married first in 1898 to the daughter of his uncle, Aga Jangishah.
In 1908, Aga Khan III lost his heart to a pubescent teenage ballerina “Ginetta”
(real name Theresa Magliano), during his visit to France. In his Memoirs
published in 1954, Aga Khan III writes (p. 104):
From 1907 onwards I visited Europe every year. I
had lost my heart to the French Riviera. Now in my maturity my affection for it
had deepened and ripened, and I found myself returning to it again and again.
In 1908 this affection found a personal focus. I made the acquaintance of Mlle.
Theresa Magliano, one of the most promising young dancers of the Ballet Opera
of Monte Carlo, a ballerina… She was then just nineteen… In the spring of that
year she accompanied me to Egypt and we were married in Cairo in accordance
with Muslim law.
Three years after the publication of his Memoirs,
Aga Khan signed his will. We find an interesting version of “the muta form of marriage” in that document (p. 4):
In the year One thousand nine hundred and eight I
was married to CLEOPE TERESA MAGLIANO according to the Muta form of marriage.
On the twenty-third day of January One thousand nine hundred and twenty-three I
went through the permanent form of marriage with my said wife CLEOPE TERESA
MAGLIANO in Bombay observing the ceremonials which are customary among Shia
Moslems.
Having insisted in his Memoirs published just
before his death, that he had married Mlle. Magliano “in accordance with the
Muslim law” the Aga Khan shortly afterwards in his Will admitted that in fact
he was married to her “according to the muta form of
marriage” and that fifteen years later he “went through the permanent form of
marriage,” in Bombay.
Aly S. Khan was born in 1911, which is between 1908
– the year of the muta marriage and 1923 – the
year when Aga Khan III was actually married.
Biographer
Willi Frischauer writes in The Aga Khans (p. 75):
Although some Muslim writers (among
them Mr. Asaf A. A. Fyzee, writing in the Aga Khan Diamond Jubilee Souvenir
Book, 1945) have claimed that “mut’a (temporary marriage) is, according to
Ismaili Law, altogether unlawful…” the Aga Khan himself, supreme
arbiter of Ismaili religious practices, obviously did not concur because he
mentioned in his will that he had married his second wife “by mut’a
marriage”.
The
Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (Harper and Row, 1989) describes “Mut’ah” (p.
291) as follows:
A
marriage stipulated to be temporary, sometimes called a “marriage of pleasure.”
The marriage is automatically terminated at the end of the agreed period.
Out of this temporary
marriage, two sons were born within a period of three years. The first son was
named Giussepe Mahdi Khan, who died in February 1911. The second son, named Aly
S. Khan, was born in Turin, Italy, on 13 June 1911. Aly Khan’s birth
certificate describes his mother as “Teresa Magliano, unmarried 22 years old, living
on independent means,” and his father as “His Highness The Aga Khan, son of the
late Aga Ali Shah.”
3. Aly S. Khan’s Offcial Appointment as wali
ahad
In August 1930, Aga Khan
III sent Prince Aly Khan to visit Syrian Ismailis. He also dispatched a special
Farman to his Syrian Jama’at. This Farman was recorded by A. J. Chunara, the
author of Noorum-Mubin. (p. 531), which reads:
“We
are sending our son to you. Consider his arrival as my arrival. We are
appointing our Prince as our wali ahad, meaning the successor
to our throne.”
To
commemorate this occasion, a darbar (royal
pageant) was held in Salamiyya. The governor of Salamiyya read Aga Khan’s Holy Farman. Thereafter, members of the Syrian Jama`at
took the bay’ ah (oath of allegiance) at the hand of the
future Imam and offered him nazrana (or
gifts). During this visit to Syria, Aly Khan rode an Arabian horse and wore an
Arab dress. A photograph of this appears in Noorum-Mubin (p. 530) with the
following caption in English:
H.S.H.
Prince Aly S. Khan heir apparent to Mowlana Hazar Imam, in the Arab costumes of
his forefathers, during his visit to Syria.
Ismailis
of India, Africa, and Burma celebrated this appointment of Prince Aly with
special majalis and melawadas. A deputation
of Ismaili leaders presented Peramini (special gifts) to Lady Ali Shah at her
bungalow in Valkesh’war, Bombay, records Noorum-Mubin, p. 532.
In our Mission Class, we were told by the senior
missionaries that Prince Aly the future forty-ninth Imam would, during the
period of his Imamate, manifest himself before the world as Hazrat Ali, the
first Imam. On the day of his zahurat (manifestation),
Aly Khan would wear an all-white Arab dress and ride the legendary white horse Duldul. In his right hand would be Zulfiqar, the undefeated sword of Mawla Ali (ra). To
support their speculation, our teachers would quote a Ginan in Gujrati:
Duldul
gode Ali chadseh Shah….
Aly S.
Khan continued such trips until even March 1957 to Lourenço Marques, Mozambique
and the other one around the same time when he visited Nagpur, India. There
too, Aly S. Khan was accepted and honored as the next Imam by the entire
Ismaili community worldwide as he substituted for his father as the Imam
in many ceremonies. Little did Aly S. Khan, or anyone else know that his father
had signed his official will on 25th May 1955 in which he would unprecedentedly
skip his son in favor of his grandson as the next Imam of the Nizari Ismailis.
This heart-breaking news for Aly S. Khan would only be revealed upon Sultan
Muhammad Aga Khan’s death, when his will was read by his solicitor. The next
imam was not yet designated at the time the will was being read and it was
expected that Sultan Muhammad, Aga Khan III, would designate his son Aly S.
Khan as the next Imam. However, to the surprise of many, the last will of
Aga Khan III appointed his grandson, instead of his son as Imam.
4. Contradiction
in Aga Khan III’s Will
Interestingly, there were
obvious contradictions in the will which the Aga Khan III signed off on. In
this document (p. 6), Aga Khan stated:
…notwithstanding
that under the Shia Moslem Law the issue of a son is not an heir if there be a
son alive….
In other words under
Shi’ah law, Karim, the grandson, could not be designated as an heir to the
throne of Imamate as long as Karim’s father or uncle was alive. However, on 12
July 1957, the above-mentioned will of Aga Khan III was read in his villa in
Geneva. It stated (p. 6):
I
APPOINT my grandson KARIM, the son of my son ALY SALOMONE KHAN to succeed the
title of AGA KHAN and to be the Imam and Pir of all my Shia Ismailian
followers….
By his
signature on the will document, the “all comprehensible” Imam had reversed his
pronounced decree of wali-ahad, broken
the admitted Shi’iah law of designation and shattered the
dreams of Ismailis who were expecting Aly Khan to manifest as Hazrat Ali
riding on Duldul with the sword zulfiqarin his hand. Consequently, Aly S. Khan became
the spiritual child of his own son, Karim al-Husayni, Aga Khan IV (commonly
known as Karim Aga Khan). Biographer Willi Frischauer records in The Aga Khans
(p. 210):
Bettina
…wrote: ‘To Aly it seemed that his father’s preference for his son was a kind
of public humiliation for him… He was never quite the same from that day on.
His deep sadness took cover beneath a life of still more inhuman activity.’
…In
Bettina’s words — which might well reflect Aly’s feelings at the time — Karim
was now the spiritual father of his own father.
5. Ismailis’ Rejection of, and Revolt Against Karim
Aga Khan
A majority of the Syrian
Ismailis and a few Khojah Ismailis of Punjab revolted at this unprecedented
designation. They refused to recognize the appointment of a grandson as their
Imam. The group acknowledged Aly Khan as their forty-ninth Imam.
To avoid a possible split in the community, Aly
Khan went to Syria, met the leaders of the revolting Ismailis, and explained
that his father had chosen his son Karim as the next Imam. In Karachi, the
leaders of the group gathered outside the residence of Amir Ali Fancy,
President of the Federal Council for Pakistan, and began shouting “Shah Aly Khan Hazar Imam Zindabad“, meaning “Long live
the majestic Aly Khan, the present Imam.”
Aly
Khan met the leaders of the group and assured them that he too had accepted his
son Karim as the rightful Imam. The revolting Ismailis were left with no other
choice but to accept Karim Aga Khan as their forty-ninth Imam. In Ismaili
history, Prince Aly will be remembered for his generosity by accepting his
humiliation without protest.
6. Was Aly S. Khan Planning to Come Out Clean?
Later on, a story began to
circulate among his close associates that the Prince had been talking to few of
his trusted friends about making a clean breast and testifying before the
Jama’at about “divinity and the divine power of the Ismaili Imams” after his
initiation. The news may have reached the ears of the late Aga Khan III, who
might have changed his decision about his son.
Aly
Khan’s prenuptial affair during April 1935 at the Hotel Ritz in Paris with Mrs.
Thomas Loel Guinness, the mother of Karim Aga Khan; his marriage to actress
Rita Hayworth; and his friendship with Lise Bourdin Bettina, Juliette Greco,
Gene Tierney, Kim Novak and other Hollywood personalities might be some of the
social reasons for the change of heart of his father, Aga Khan III.
