What does Mawlana Hazar Imam do with Dasond

One of Canada’s most reputed news source, The Toronto Star has reported Aga Khan Foundation for “lack of transparency” and as one of the charities which do not release their audited financial statements to the public and refused to provide them to an independent agency that evaluates charities. The report can be seen here:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/11/15/audit_of_charities_encounters_resistance.html

Aga Khan Foundation is ‘ethically’ bound, if not legally

Charities are not legally bound to disclose their audited financial statements to the public, but it is considered ethical to do so because they take in public dollars, said Greg Thomson, director of research for charityintelligence.ca.

When charityintelligence.ca requested Canada Revenue Agency to dig up the The Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC), it was revealed that Aga Khan Foundation had “enough cash-in-hand to operate for up to 8 years without raising even a single penny.”

This is a staggering amount of cash-in-hand, and something major to consider for the donors whether they want to donate to a charity where their money could lie idle for almost a decade as compared to donating to charities which have immediate and sometimes urgent need for donations.

CharityIntelligenca.ca also reported that:

• Aga Khan Foundation received $41.9m in government funding in 2013.

• Aga Khan Foundation also gives away a salary between $300,000 – $350,000 to its Chief Executive Officer.

• Aga Khan Foundation holds significant ‘idle’ property valued at $346.2m in F2013, including $27.3m acquired in F2013 and $43.3m in F2012.

The monies collected by Aga Khan Foundation are distinct from those collected within the Ismāʿīlī Centers around the world from members of the Ismāʿīlī community in the name of tithe (also called dasond) to the Aga Khan. These collections too, are often cited for lack of transparency and allocation. While a small percentage of these funds collected in the name of tithe are visibly used for administrative costs for the Ismāʿīlī Centers, the whereabouts of a large chunk of these collections is unknown.

Many of the institutions established by the Aga Khan are profit-based such as Aga Khan Hospital and Aga Khan Museum. Both of these are run like any other business and Aga Khan Hospital in particular is reputed to be the most expensive hospital in the territories it operates – in Nairobi, Kenya and in Karachi, Pakistan.

Lack of transparency for the public charity like the Aga Khan Foundation, coupled with the same lack of transparency for the tens of thousands of dollars of tithes collected in the name of Aga Khan around the world in Ismāʿīlī Centers (also called Jamatkahanas) around the world, together with Aga Khan’s lavish lifestyle, has only increased the level of distrust towards the Aga Khan from within the community and from outsiders such as the Toronto Star.

One glaring example of such lavish expenditures by the Aga Khan is the hundreds of millions of dollars he has invested in a super-yacht called Alamshar which has been 13 years in the making. Aga Khan ordered the boat to be built to break the world speed record for super-yachts of 65 knots, as well as beat the transatlantic record of two days, ten hours and 34 minutes – an average speed of 53.1 knots – set in 1992. When the yacht was initially delivered, it only attained a speed of 30 knots during sea trials off Plymouth. The Aga Khan went on to hire a firm of top international maritime lawyers to handle any potential claim against boatbuilders Babcock Marine, who own Devonport naval dockyard where the Alamshar was built.

The Alamshar in which Aga Khan has invested $300 million.

During an initial test, the turbine blades in its three Rolls-Royce gaspowered engines – which were originally designed for Sea King helicopters – burnt out. They were replaced with engines made by Rolls’s US rivals Pratt & Whitney, which were used to drive water jets.

A source said: “This was supposed to reach 60 knots but it can go only half that speed, so the Aga Khan is taking legal advice. He’s not a happy man.” The boat has cost over US$300 million.

Another example of Aga Khan’s spending are the two divorce settlements. The recent one beingUS$75 million which he paid to his wife Gabriele zu Leiningen (formally known as Begum Inaara) as ordered by a French court after determining that Aga Khan was exclusively at fault due to having an extra-marital affair with an airhostess Beatrice von der Schulenburg.

Before this, Aga Khan paid US$30 million to his first wife Sally Crocker-Poole who was formally known as Begum Salimah during their marriage. She now lives in London with Philippe Lizop, the French lawyer who secured her divorce settlement.

A Bloomberg report in 2005 said that unlike the pope, who received $51.7 million in 2004 from Catholic contributions known as Peter’s Pence, the Aga Khan won’t say how much he raises from his followers each year or break out how the money is spent. Nor will he disclose all the sources of the $325 million that his development network, which has diplomatic status in 10 countries.

And he won’t give performance figures for the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development SA, a Geneva-based holding company that owns stakes in 90 companies. All profits and dividends from the companies and projects are reinvested, he says.

The original Bloomberg report can be found here:
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=aq1oK0lHLVgM

And it’ s mirror preserved on Ismaili.net can be found here:
http://www.ismaili.net/heritage/node/12292

In addition to money from his Ismaili followers, the Aga Khan obtains bank loans and grants from Western governments and aid organizations to finance his empire. The Aga Khan’s companies, with total sales in 2004 of $1.36 billion, stretch from Pakistan’s No. 2 lender, Habib Bank Ltd., to Kenyan bean farms, to the just-opened Serena Hotel in Kabul, where rooms start at $250 a night — about what the average Afghan makes in a year.
He also owns stakes in two car dealerships in Edmonton, Alberta: Mayfield Toyota Ltd. and T&T Honda Ltd.

A collage few of the companies and agencies owned by the Aga Khan under the guise of Aga Khan Fund for Enocomic Development. A large majority of these companies are for-profit institutions.

The Aga Khan has also expanded the institutions started by his grandfather into a nondenominational network of 325 schools, two universities, 11 hospitals and 195 health clinics in 30 countries. Most of the institutions charge their clients — even the poorest — fees.

A 74-acre (30-hectare) public park he opened in March 2005 in Cairo charges three Egyptian pounds (52 U.S. cents) to enter.

In 2003, the Karachi-based Aga Khan University got $4.5 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development to start a new, Western-style exam board for schools. That angered conservative clerics and politicians who view the U.S. with suspicion.

In Afghanistan, the development network, the Aga Khan’s umbrella organization, has built schools, hospitals, roads and bridges and owns 51 percent of Roshan, the country’s biggest cell-phone service company.

The Aga Khan’s personal fortune includes stud farms in France and Ireland that have yielded four English Derby and three Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winners since 1981. In the 1960s and 1970s, he developed a virgin strip of coast on the Italian island of Sardinia into Costa Smeralda, where Italy’s billionaire prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and others have vacation homes.

And in 1992, the Aga Khan and his friend Gianni Agnelli, the late Fiat SpA chairman, smashed the transatlantic speed record with their 220-foot (67-meter), 50,000-horsepower speedboat Destriero.

The Aga Khan currently owns an undeveloped piece of coast on the Spanish island of Ibiza, and he’s considering plans for a luxury development on Malta and a project to transform a military arsenal on the Italian island of La Maddalena into a harbor for big yachts, says Enzo Satta, 60, a Sardinian architect who says he has worked for the Aga Khan on the ventures.

Ismailis dismiss questions about the Aga Khan’s wealth and private life. “What’s important is the guidance he gives and the development of the unique network he has created,” says Naguib Kheraj, 41, a British Ismaili who’s chief financial officer of Barclays Plc, the U.K.’s third-biggest bank.

The companies held by AKFED (Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development) currently employ 30,242 people. It’s profits are undisclosed.

The Aga Khan owns all but seven of the fund’s 175,000 shares, according to the Registre du Commerce in Geneva. The fund is the economic arm of the Aga Khan Development Network, which also has units covering culture and social development projects such as schools and hospitals. The network employs 20,000 people.

The Aga Khan, who travels the world in a Bombardier Global Express jet, declines to comment on how much of the money for his philanthropy comes from his own personal wealth and how much from followers.

“I’ve never discussed my personal income, and I wouldn’t do that. Every generation of the family has made its investments, and fortunately, some of them have been very, very good indeed.”

– Aga Khan IV

Money Laundering – A Secret Religious Duty?

Cover of Memoirs of Aga Khan. The Aga Khan confesses that he keeps a “small fraction” of dasond and mehmani money for himself.

In “The Memoirs of Aga Khan”, published by Cassel & Co. in London in 1954, the present imam’s grandfather wrote that he kept a “small fraction” of his followers’ offerings for himself.

Lack of transparency got an Ismaili leader into jail in the U.S. On May 18, 1987, Nizamudin Alibhai, an Ismaili community leader in Texas, boarded an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to London’s Gatwick Airport with $1.1 million stuffed in a burgundy flight bag.

Prosecutor Stewart Robinson said Alibhai took $27.3 million out of the U.S. on a total of 33 journeys, breaking a law requiring transfers of more than $10,000 to be declared. Alibhai was charged in Dallas with money laundering for five specific transatlantic journeys, in which he took a total of $4.3 million to London from 1985 to 1987. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Alibhai’s lawyer said he was performing a secret religious duty. In his memorandum in support of the motion for a reduction of the sentence, defense lawyer Vincent Perini wrote, “A history of persecution by repressive African governments and fundamentalist Muslim groups have required the Ismailis to keep their activities private.”

The cash was deposited in London because there were no reporting requirements in the U.K. at the time, Perini wrote. His memorandum also included a letter dated March 8, 1990, from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, the imam’s Washington-based lawyers, which said the Aga Khan had set up a U.S. bank account for Ismaili tithes following the trial.

“Our client does not direct or control the system of offerings,” the letter said. “The contributions, and their collection, have always been conducted by volunteers. These offerings are then primarily used by the Aga Khan to support religious activities and to support a multitude of development projects in the third world.”

Funding Sources

The Aga Khan’s followers are unable to answer detailed questions about the sources of funds for their projects. Sher Lakhani, a Canadian Ismaili manager of Geneva-based Aga Khan Education Services SA, doesn’t know the breakdown of the $20 million used to build a high school in Mombasa on Kenya’s coast.

Mahmud Jan Mohamed, Nairobi-based managing director of Serena Hotels, doesn’t know how much of the $19.3 million plowed into the Kabul hotel in the Aga Khan’s name came from the imam and how much came from Ismailis. “All I know is, construction has never been stopped for lack of funds,” says Mohamed, 52, a Kenyan Ismaili.

Some of the money for the Aga Khan’s projects comes from grants and loans from Western governments through organizations like theU.S. Agency for International Development. In 2004, the Aga Khan Foundation, which kick-starts health, education and rural development projects, got commitments of $71 million from donors like the U.S. government, says Tom Kessinger, 64, the foundation’s American general manager.

Partnerships and Funding from World Bank and Blackstone

“The staff is among the most qualified in the region,” says Dwight Smith, USAID’s assistant mission director in Kenya. USAID granted $35 million to the Aga Khan’s projects in Asia and Africa from 1999 to 2004, says Harry Edwards, a Washington-based spokesman for the organization.

The Aga Khan’s companies borrow from commercial and development banks and raise funds from investors. In 2003, the World Bank’sInternational Finance Corp. unit lent $7 million to help build the $36 million Serena Hotel in Kabul.

Development funds owned by the Norwegian and Dutch governments also invested $5 million each in the hotel. In April 2005, Afghan mobile-phone company Roshan got $35 million from the Asian Development Bank, which is owned by a group of Asian governments.

Commercial partners include Blackstone Group LP, which is raising the world’s biggest buyout fund. In Uganda, the Aga Khan’sIndustrial Promotion Services is planning a $500 million hydroelectric dam with Blackstone’s Sithe Global Power LLC, a New York-based power producer.

In Afghanistan, the Aga Khan’s partners include a company controlled by Bracknell, England-based Cable & Wireless Plc, which owns 37 percent of Roshan. The Afghan cell-phone company has raised more than $160 million of loans since 2002, with $24.5 million coming from the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, says Altaf Ladak, Roshan’s chief marketing officer.

Roshan has 600,000 customers and 500 employees. The company is profitable, says Chief Executive Officer Karim Khoja, a Canadian Ismaili. He won’t say how much it earned on sales of $93 million in 2004.

In remote tribal areas, where women traditionally wear head-to-toe burqas and aren’t allowed out of family compounds, Roshan has found a way of boosting its sales and helping vulnerable women with no male relatives: The company uses them as sales representatives, selling them prepaid phone cards to sell to other women.

Nation Media is one of 16 Kenyan companies in which the Aga Khan’s fund for economic development owns stakes. The others include Frigoken, the bean exporter, and the Kenyan unit of Serena Hotels, Tourism Promotion Services Ltd., which is also listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

In Mombasa he has a $20 million school built out of white coral-rock bricks and modeled after Andover, Massachusetts-based Phillips Academy, whose alumni include U.S. President George W. Bush and the Aga Khan’s son, Prince Rahim.

Religion isn’t even part of the syllabus at the school, which opened in 2003 and has 525 students, ages 5 to 19. Fees at the academy are $2,700 a year — more than double the average Kenyan’s annual income.

Aga Khan also owns Property Deelopment and Management (PDM) – a luxury development company in Kenya which has built and manages high-profile projects such as Nation Centre in Kenya’s Central Business District, Courtyard along General Mathenge Drive, Westlands and the DTB Centre in Kampala.

PDM is also a part of Aga Khan Development Network, (AKDN), and its major shareholders are Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), Jubilee Holdings Limited, and Nation Media Group Limited, both of which are part of AKDN.

Conclusion

It appears that the Aga Khan’s confession of ‘keeping a small fraction’ of dasond (tithe) money for himself has grown more than just being a small fraction. Until there is transparency in the collection and disbursement of dasond (tithe) money, Ismailis as well as non-Ismailis will always be doubtful of where the dasond money goes.

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Cross Connections: Is the Aga Khani only half a Muslim?

Cross Connections: Is the Aga Khani only half a Muslim?

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Aga Khan III Claims That He Consumed “Oceans of Alcohol”

While only one aspect of Ismāʿīlī Imamat’s Guidance Against Drinking Alcohol is played repeatedly in front of the Ismāʿīlī community when Hazar Imām’s and his family’s pictures surface where they are consuming alcohol. In the age of internet, it is no secret that not only does Hazar Imām run a chain of Serena Hotels where alcohol is sold and consumed publicly, Aga Khan III himself has proudly told a number of his non-Muslim interviewers that when he consumes alcohol, he only consumes champagne.

Life – May 16, 1949, The Aga, The Aly and The Rita by Robert Coughlan

Above, Robert Coughlan writes in the interview with Aga Khan that:

“The Aga Khan looks back now with the satisfaction of a life devoted to high calling, by Ismāʿīlī standards. He remembers the brilliant evening at Mrs. Ronald Greville’s in London in the early years of the century. He remembers that wonderful balls at the Duchess of Devonshire’s in London during Edward VII’s time, and the one that Mrs. Ogden Mills gave for him in New York in 1906. He remembers that great conversationalists he has known, such as Lady Cunard; the oceans of champagne he has drunk (he drinks only champagne); the brave meals he has eaten on four continents, and with special favor he remembers the hundreds of beautiful women he has known. Of them all, he believes the most beautiful ‘without exception’ was Mary, Viscountess Curzon.”

Source: Life – May 16, 1949, The Aga, The Aly and The Rita by Robert Coughlan

Recommended reading:

1. Hazar Imam’s Alcohol Business at the Inside Ismailism Blog
2. The Secret Life of the Aga Khan at the Inside Ismailism Blog

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Akberally Meherally Threatened with Murder by Ismailis

Akberally Meherally is causing a furore among Ismailis. The 61-year-old Burnaby writer says he has received death threats since he published a book critical of Ismailis’ spiritual leader, the Aga Khan.

Meherally – who paid to have 5,000 copies of the book “Understanding Ismailism” (click to download) published – takes issue with Ismailis “worshipping the Aga Khan as a God” and other practices he calls “unislamic”.

“I was born as a Ismaili in a very devout family,” Meherally said yesterday. “But I am not now a practicing Ismaili because I do not approve of the prayers.” Meherally said the Ismaili Council of B.C. slapped a ban on his bok less than two weeks after it was released lat November. The council also ordered B.C.’s 8,000 Ismailis to shun Meherally.

He said his life has been threatened and he’s been summoned to appear before a council hearing in April to answer charges that his book is sacrilegious.

“Ismailis are professionals and businessmen but every community has its crackpots and fanatics,” he said. “One (telephone) threat was serious.”

But Ismailis say Meherally si just out for publicity to boost his book sales. “Some of his facts are quite valid,” said Ismaili Anwar Jeffra, a Vancouver optician. “But he’s just after publicity.”

Lawyer Don Houston, prepresenting the Ismaili council, said the Meheraly case is “an internal affair.” The hearing will be held before the arbitration and reconciliation board, a quasi-judicial Ismaili body.

Credit: The Province, Wednesday, March 15, 1989

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Ismāʿīlī Fakelore: The Mystical Meeraj – Whose Hand Was It Anyway?

The Ismāʿīlī Fakelore section on the Inside Ismāʿīlīsm Blog contains those stories which are spread from generation-to-generation through word-of-mouth in the Ismaili community.

None of these stories have been proved through history or through witnesses. The so-called ‘englighened Ismāʿīlīs’ proudly pass on these fakelore down to the next generations.

Here is the first of these Ismāʿīlī Fakelore:

The year was 1939. Imame Zaman was Mawlana Sultan Mohammad Shah. The place is Hasanabad, Bombay, India. The occasion is Mawla’s padhramni for Deedar (where Aga Khan is physically seen by the Ismaili community).

Hasanabad compound is grandly decorated for padhramni. The Mausoleum where Imam Hasan Ali Shah is buried looked glorious. There are four pillars surrounding the parthar which are richly decorated with gold toppings. Thousands of Ismailis had gathered to meet with Imame Zaman. Those days the Ismailis there were very fortunate. They used to be able to meet with Mawla on one to one basis during a ceremony called ‘dast poshi’, an opportunity to pay homage to the Imam of the time on an individual basis.

This is a very significant event in a murid’s life. When Mawla was residing in Bombay and did not travel to Europe he used to meet with the jamat very frequently on a regular basis on Saturdays.
It was the time of such an event. Murids were waiting anxiously for Mawla’s arrival. Ginans and tasbih were recited for intazaari.
One missionary was making a vaez as a routine during the intazaari period.

He was talking at length about Prophet Mohammad’s very significant event of Meraj. The remarkable event when Prophet was given the fortitude of making a mystical journey to meet with God the almighty. The Missionary was describing the history to the jamat in a very vivid and impressive manner.

Among the thousands of murid there was a single mother carrying her six months old child in her arms.

She had traveled from Punjab for meeting with the Imam. The kid was beautiful. Due to the weather changes and long journey etc. the child developed very high fever. The woman was a very young mother. She had barely made it in time for the deedar. Being new to the area she thought soon after the deedar she will take the child to the doctor.

She decided she will fast unto the time she has the deedar. She however underestimated the seriousness of the fever in a child six months old.

She found a place closer to the stage and started praying for the child’s health. Soon the high temperature had adverse effect on the child’s brain, the baby became unconscious.

Soon he was non-responsive.

She tried to feed him wake him up, but he remained cold and non responsive. She started quietely in her heart an intense invocation of Ya Ali, Ya Ali, Ya Ali,with all her concentration.

She was a woman of great faith.

She thought Mawla is arriving in seconds. It was pointless to disturb thousands in their deedar in order to take the kid to the hospital. She was not very educated. She decided to just sit and call Ya Ali and have faith that he will save the child.

She indeed was very naive. Tears were running down her eyes and she kept reciting ‘Ya Ali’ tasbih with real faith and belief.
Here the Missionary was progressing in describing the event of Meraaj ‘…and Rasulallah saw that a hand came out from behind the curtain, to accompany the prophet to eat dinner.

Rasulallah was surprised to find the hand so familiar.

It resembled the hand of Ali, and Oh! even the fingers were same like Ali’s , same palm and same nails and even the color of the skin was same as Ali’s and above all he was stunned to see the same Ring on the finger.

(here this this guy tries to impress that Allah’s hand which came from behind curtain looked like Ali’s hand with Ali’s ring on (Allah’s) finger)

He identified the Ring to be the same one that he had given to the lion who met him on the way to the journey of Meraaj.

The Prophet (pbuh) was in a state of awe! He was indeed surprised with all the truth that he was witnessing. The gathered Ismailis were engrossed in the description of the scene of Meraaj as presented by the Missionary. And the whistle blew; signifying Mawla’s arrival .the leaders became alert.

The missionary stopped the Vaez.

Pretty soon Imame Zaman’s car entered the gate of Hasanabad. Missionary initiated the salvat tasbih.

And the wonderful voice of Mawla was heard saying ‘Khanavadan, Khanavadan’

Murids hearts were delighted; eyes were full of tears with emotions.
Imam the manifestation of same Noor as Ali was present right there and the believers were drenched with the rain fall of Noor and Rahemat. The true momins were engrossed in the holy deedar each one asking in heart and mind their own wishes to come true.

Mawla arrived on the member of Hasanabad the famous mausoleum and sat down and gave lots of blessings to the jamat and made a a firman and then asked:

‘Who was making the vaez when I arrived?’

The Missionary came forward humbly with hands joined in submission, ‘me Khudavind’, said he.

What was the subject missionary?’ asked Mawla.

‘Khudavind’ I was talking about the Meraaj’ said the missionary in a rather frightened voice.

‘Where were you in your description?’asked ‘I was at the point where the Prophet Mohammad reached the 7 th heaven and was presented with milk and honey and dates and the prophet said he had never eaten any of his meals alone,at that time a hand came from behind the curtain which supposedly was ALLAH ‘S hand but had a great resemblance to the hand of ALI!’

‘Mawla I was at this juncture in my vaez and I heard the whistle of your arrival so I stopped the vaez and I leaded the salvat tasbih.’ The missionary said.

‘Ok do you know whose hand was that?’ asked Mawla

‘Mawla you know it better’ said the missionary.

‘Yes indeed’ said the Imam, then he stood up and raised his right hand and said, ‘Yes it was this hand, this very hand’

(Here Imam says his hand is same as Allah’s Hand)

The jamat witnessed in awe. He then sat on the chair and began the ceremony of Dast poshi, where the murids came one by one to the stage and got the chance to pay the homage in an individual manner.
In the meantime the Punjabi lady’s baby had stopped breathing she was holding him against her chest and saying zikr tasbih of Ya Ali , Ya ali.

She was in deep shock but she was a true believer .

She was debating in her mind what to do?

Cry loudly and make a show versus just keep praying and take the benefit of the deedar and not spoil the event for thousand others.
What ever is to happen will happen? She thought and surrendered herself to the will of Ali.

She decided she will go up to the stage so she can have better deedar but will not go right up to Mawla with the dead baby. Her heart was weeping. She collected all the strength and went on the parthar but stood away from Mawla tightly holding the kid in her arms against her chest.

She was about to move away when Imam’s kind voice struck her ears, ‘come here’

She was hesitant, but moved a step in the direction of Mawla
He said, ‘Come closer’

Mawla himself stood up halfway and placed his right hand on her head and then looked at the child and touched the child’s body with his hand and said ‘Say Haizinda’

Lady said ‘Khudavind, Haizinda’

‘Yes, now say Kayam paya’

‘Khudavind, Kayam paya’.

And at that moment the baby started crying!

‘Look your kid is crying. Khanavadan, now go and feed your kid and take him to a doctor’ .

The woman was overwhelmed with joy, love, and surprise shock and much more, she quickly collected herself and gratefully left the stage.

People in the line following her were wondering what happened!
What was bestowed on this woman!

Mawla sat back and continued as normal without any mention.

What was this?

A miracle or what?

Please recite the salvat.

From the Gujarati book “Mowla Ni Madhur Vatu“, Page 178 to 190
Authors: E. Valiyani and Sairab Abu Turabi
English translation by: Dolly Chandani M.D.
Los Angeles California, Feb 4th, 2008

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Ruling by Dar Ul Uloom Deoband on Creating Awareness About Aga Khanis

Darul Uloom Deoband has recently issued a ruling on spreading awareness about Ismailis and Ismailism. The ruling is produced here in it’s original form in Urdu, with English translation and transliteration below:

Original text of the ruling can be accessed by clicking here (Link opens in a new browser Tab/Window).

میں پہلے آغاخانی تہا۔ اب الحمدُاللہ مُسلمان ہوں ۔ ایک بڑی تکلیف یہ ہے کہ عام مسلمان، آغاخانیوں کو محظ اسلام کا ایک فرقہ سمجہتے ہیں۔ کچھ تو سمجھتے ہیں کہ آغاخانی لڑکیوں سے نکاح جائز ہے ، جبکہ آغاخانیوں کا اسلام سے کوئ تعلق نہیں کیونکہ وہ کلمہ، نماز، روزہ، زکوٰة اور حج سب کے منکر ہیں۔ علماے کرام نے انہیں کافر، زندیق اور واجب القتل کہا ہے ۔ اب جب میں کھلے عام، محفلوں میں، انٹرنیٹ پر، آغاخانیوں کے راز افشاں کرتا ہوں،اور علماے کرام کے فتٰویٰ بتاتا ہوں، تو میرے مسلمان دوست مجھے منع کرتے ہیں کہ تم ان کی دل آزاری کرتے ہو اور یہ طریقہ درست نہیں۔ براے مہربانی یہ بتایں کہ میرا یہ عمل امر بالمعروف کے تحت ہے یا نہیں؟ کیا کفار کی دل آزاری کے مدِنظر رسول اللہﷺ اور اصحاب رسول نے خاموشی اختیار کی؟ کیا ان کے خلاف کھل کر جنگ اور قتال نہیں کیا؟ کیا علماے کرام نے فتوے شاع نہیں کیے ؟ کیا یہ سب خاموش رہ کر ممکن تھا؟

  Sep 25,2014
Answer: 55556
Fatwa ID: 1470-1000/L=11/1435-U

اس میں کوئی شک نہیں کہ آغا خانی اپنے عقائد باطلہ کی رو سے خارج از اسلام ہیں، ان کا اسلام سے کوئی تعلق نہیں، آپ کا ان کے عقائد باطلہ کا افشا کرنا اور لوگوں کوعلمائے کرام کے فتویٰ بتانا درست ہے، آپ کا یہ عمل نہی عن المنکر میں داخل ہے جس کا امت محمدیہ کو حکم ہے۔

واللہ تعالیٰ اعلم

Translation

Question: I used to be an Aga Khani and am now alhdmolillah a Muslim. A big concern is that ordinary Muslims consider Ismaili Aga Khanis a mere sect of Islam. Some even believe that it is permissible to get married to Ismailis. Whereas in reality, Ismaili Aga Khanis have nothing to do with Islam since they are rejectors of testimony of faith, prayer, fasting, zakat and hajj. Scholars of Islam have unanimously declared them kafir (disbelievers) and zindeeq (those who hide their disbelief under the cloak of Islam).

Now when I speak up against Ismailism and expose their beliefs openly in gatherings, on the Internet and spread the opinions and rulings of Muslim scholars on Ismailism, my Muslim friends forbid me from doing this and say that I am hurting the feelings of Ismailis and this is not the correct methodology.

Could you please tell me if this method of mine is in line with amr-bil-maruf (enjoining good)? Did the Prophet (pbuh) and his companions stay silent in the face of kuffar so as not to hurt their feelings and emotions? Didn’t the Prophet (pbuh) and his companions fight wars against them? Didn’t our scholars issue rulings against them? Was this all possible by remaining silent?

Answer: Aga Khanis are undoubtedly out of the fold of Islam due to their false beliefs. They have absolutely nothing  to do with Islam. You act of exposing their beliefs and spreading awareness about the ruling of our scholars is correct and is part of nahin an al munkir(forbidding evil) which is ordained for the ummah of our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Transliteration

Sawal: Mein pehlay Aga Khani tha. Ab alhamdolillah Musalman hoon. Ek badi takleef yeh hai keh aam Musalman, Aga Khaniyon ko Islam ka ek firqa samajhtay hain. Kuchh tau yeh samajhtay hain keh Aga Khani ladkiyon se nikah jaez hai, jab ke Aga Khaniyon ka Islam se koi taluq nahin kiyon keh woh kalma, namaz, roza, zakat aur hajj sab ke munkar hain. Ulema-e-karaam ne unhain kafir, zindeeq aur wajib-ul-qatl kaha hai.

Ab jab mein khulay aam, mehfilon mein, internet par, Aga Khaniyon ke raaz faash karta hoon, aur Ulema-e-karaam ke fataawa batata hoon tau mere musalaman dost mujhay mana kartay hain keh tum in ki dilazari kartay ho aur yeh tariqa durust nahin.

Baraay meherbani yeh batain keh mera yeh amal amr bil maruf kay mutabiq hai ya nahin? Kya kuffar ki dil azari ka khayal rakhtay huay rasool (saw) aur ashaab-e-rasool (ra) ne khamoshi ikhtiar ki? Kya kuffar ke khilaaf khul kar jang aur qitaal nahin kiya? Kya ulema-e-karaam ne fatway shaya nahin kiye? Kya yeh sab khamosh reh kar mumkin tha?

Jawab: Iss mein koi shak nahin keh Aga Khani apnay aqaid-e-batil ki waja se Islam say kharij hain. Inn ka Islam say koi taluq nahin. Aap ka in kay batil aqaid ko zaahir karna aur logon ko ulema-a-karaam kay fataawa batana durust hai. Aap ka yeh amal nahi an al munkir mein shamil hai jiss ka ummat-e-muhammad ko hukum hai.

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The Secret Life of the Aga Khan

 When the flamboyant Aga Khan, regarded as a ‘living god’ by his 15 million Islamic followers, collided with a snowboarder on the slopes of Courchevel last year, and was flown to hospital in Boston with serious injuries, the incredibly delicate issue of his succession was raised for the first time. As a result, the accident was kept secret for more than two months and hospital staff were under instructions not to disclose the identity of their famous patient.

When a rogue snowboarder crashed into the Aga Khan on the slopes of Courchevel, 15 million Ismaili Muslims were left pondering who would inherit the role of spiritual leader. ‘K’ has recovered, but his half-British children  have  been thrown into the spotlight, in particular Prince Rahim, who shares his father’s appetite for women and winter sports. Mark Hollingsworth on the new playboy of the Eastern world.

The Aga Khan, 71, made a full recovery, but ever since his advisers have been quietly focusing on the suitability of his eldest son Prince Rahim, 36, to inherit the title (although, ultimately, it is the Aga Khan’s decision).

Known jokingly as ‘Jesus’ or ‘the Son of God’ by his friends, the Prince is intelligent, capable and charismatic, but has inherited his father’s taste for the high life. ‘There some anxiety about the succession,’ a friend of the family said. ‘The Aga Khan only inherited the title because his own father was considered unsuitable because of his womanizing, self-indulgence and endless pursuit of pleasure. Rahim has some of those tendencies. There are a few nervous conversations going on.’

While a spokesman for the Aga Khan insists that ‘any speculation of this sort is very unhelpful to the Ismaili community’, other sources close to the family insist that Rahim’s playboy label is out-of-date and exaggerated. ‘He does go out with staggeringly beautiful women but so what,’ said one friend. ‘He is single. What’s more interesting is how he has moved from drifting and dabbling in his mid-twenties hippie period to today when he takes his responsibilities seriously. If he succeeds his father, then I think that he would make a great modernizing Aga Khan.’
Born in 1971, Prince Rahim is the second child of the Aga Khan and his first wife. When K, as the Aga Khan is known, proposed to Sally Croker-Poole in 1969, the former model and 1958 debutante was warned about his infidelities. But Sally, whose first marriage to Lord James Crichton-Stuart had been a disaster, was ready to settle down. She had had a series of boyfriends – financier Sir James Goldsmith, tipster Charles Benson and backgammon hustler Phillip Martyn – but all were gamblers and Sally wanted stability. She and the Aga Khan went on to have three children: Princess Zahra, 37, Prince Rahim, 36, and Prince Hussain, 34.

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The current Aga Khan’s life has been a remarkable paradox: he is both a serial philanderer and a ‘workaholic’ philanthropist, a jet-setter renowned for his hedonistic habits and yet leader of a powerful and progressive Shia Islamic group. It is his ability to straddle both the religious and secular worlds that makes the Aga Khan so intriguing.

He likes to be addressed as ‘Your Highness’ (based on a title bestowed on him by the Queen in 1957). He is not quite royal but, like the Dalai Lama, he has an iconic status with mysterious origins – legend has it that followers in Tanzania once bottled his bathwater. He also retains a quasi- diplomatic status and has a role as an interlocutor between Islam and the West. The Aga Khan enjoys the pleasures of the West while promoting himself as a philanthropic citizen of the world.

He hates publicity about his extravagant lifestyle but is keen to publicize his work in sponsoring education, religious tolerance and charities for the poor.

Home is a £50 million estate at Aiglemont (meaning ‘Eagle Mountain’) just outside Chantilly, 20 miles from Paris, where his offices and horse-racing interests are based.

He owns houses on five continents, numerous cars, a Gulfstream private jet and vast yachts. His fortune is based on donations from millions of Ismaili Muslims, the second largest Shia community in the world, who regard the Aga Khan as the 49th direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed and pay him upwards of 12 per cent of their income. In return he provides spiritual guidance and facilities for his faithful, such as hospitals and schools.

He  was  born in  Geneva in  1937 as  plain Prince  Karim and,  like  George VI  during King Edward VIII’s reign, did  not  expect to inherit.  At the  time the  title was  held   by his  grandfather. But because  of  his  father Prince Aly Khan’s outrageous playboy antics and   marriage to Rita Hayworth, the   title skipped  a  generation.  Darkly  handsome, urbane and aristocratic (his mother Joan Yarde-Buller, daughter of the 3rd Lord Churston, later became the Viscountess Camrose by marrying press baron John Berry), at 20, while still an economics student at Harvard, Prince Karim became the Aga Khan, a position for which he was ill-prepared. He had wanted to be a businessman and ski for Britain (he nearly made the team for both the 1960 and 1964 Olympics). Now he was responsible for the spiritual well- being of millions of Ismaili Muslims (around 11,000 of them in the UK).

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Fortunately for the Aga Khan, Ismaili Muslims do not believe that material comforts and luxury goods are inconsistent with their religion. The Aga Khan has three passions – women, horses and skiing. He keeps hundreds of race horses, brood mares and foals at Aiglemont and in Ireland. The Aga Khan’s greatest horse was Shergar, winner of the 1981 Derby, who was later kidnapped and never found. He has since produced three more Derby winners – Shahrastani(1986), Kahyasi (1988) and Sinndar (2000). ‘I think the racing public like continuity,’ he once said. ‘They like to follow a set of colors like mine, to watch the sons and daughters of horses they remember.’

‘Continuity’ is not a word associated with the Aga Khan’s relationships with women. For the Aga Khan, women must be both subservient and decorative. ‘There is no discussion on this,’ he told his second wife, the Begum Inaara, at the beginning of their marriage. ‘I determine things. You obey.’

In 1968 he had met Sally Croker-Poole. Seduced by the Aga Khan’s attentive courtship and gifts of expensive jewelry, Sally, the daughter of a colonel in the Bengal Lancers, accepted his proposal of marriage, converted to Islam and took the title of the Begum Salimah. ‘I don’t envy the Begum,’ said Yvette Blanche Labrousse, the fourth wife of the Aga Khan’s father. ‘She will need to be someone with a great deal of character and self-discipline, ready to accept second place to her husband and remain in the background.’

The wedding reception was at the Aga Khan’s 13th-century Paris home at 1 rue des Ursins on the Ile St Louis and the guest-of-honor was Princess Margaret. The bride wore a white sari and pearls were thrown at her feet.

The Aga Khan in Norway in 1966.

But it was not long before the Aga Khan took mistresses and the couple assumed separate lives. The pattern was always the same: at the beginning of a romance, he lavished presents and attention but then his interest waned. One mistress, Italian beauty Milena Maffei, hung around for years in the hope that he would divorce Sally. Then there was Austrian Pilar Goess who had posed nude for Playboymagazine. And later Ariane Soldati, an Egyptian who came under the Aga Khan’s spell after her husband died in a polo accident.

His mistresses stalked the couple. ‘She’s always shadowing me,’ Sally remarked of Milena Maffei. ‘I go to the races and there she is, a few yards away.’ By the time Sally was moved from Paris to Geneva in 1984, the marriage was all but over. That summer the family holidayed in the Greek islands and Sally resented Pilar Goess, who not only made a move on the Aga Khan but also her children.

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‘What I particularly disliked about her, apart from her being with my husband, was the way my children were integrated into the affair,’ she recalled. ‘K and Pilar used to go for walks along the Bois de Boulogne, taking my sons with them. She kept appearing on board his yacht,Shergar, and made a great fuss of the boys. Rahim and Hussain were very flattered by her attention. She would read to them and look after them.’

In 1994 came the inevitable divorce. Sally emerged with £20 million and auctioned off her jewelry for £17.5 million through Christie’s. Now 67, she now spends her time between her £25 million mansion overlooking Lake Geneva and her 10,700sq ft. £15 million London apartment at Hyde Park Gardens, known as the ‘Palazzo Apartment’. She has since remarried. Her husband, French lawyer Philippe Lizop, is deputy chairman of David Linley and Co. Her eldest son Rahim was educated at the £45,000-a-year Institut Le Rosey, the boarding school for the European elite and royal families, based in the Swiss village of Rolle. The pupils are heirs to the world’s great private fortunes and royal titles: the Shah of Iran, King Albert II of Belgium and Prince Rainier III of Monaco all attended.

When Prince Rahim was a pupil in the early Eighties, the school was like a club. ‘The great thing about Le Rosey,’ recalled the journalist Paul Klebnikov in 1999 for Forbes magazine, who taught there briefly, ‘is the old boy network that it produces – uniquely tight, wealthy and international.’

Prince Rahim left Le Rosey with an excellent academic record and in 1985 attended Phillips Academy, one of America’s oldest boarding schools. Based just north of Boston, it prepares students for the Ivy League and alumni include former US Presidents. In 1990 Prince Rahim enrolled at Brown University, Rhode Island, one of America’s most social colleges.

At Brown, Rahim is remembered for his sharp intellect and bohemian lifestyle. He wore his hair in a ponytail and sported tattoos and a beard. In 1995, aged 24, the Prince graduated and spent an aimless few years, relocating to San Diego.

But in 1998 the Prince moved back to Europe, and shook off his hippie leanings. He secured a business degree from the University of Navarra in Barcelona and moved to Paris, where he still lives in an elegant apartment on boulevard Jean Mermoz in Neuilly- sur-Seine.

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In April 2003, he launched his own company, Beyond Hotels Ltd, which aimed to provide films and recreational facilities to hotels. His partners included Christopher Naess, the son of the Norwegian mountaineer Arne Naess Jr, Diana Ross’s second husband. The shares were owned by two offshore companies: Baron Ventures Ltd, based in Nassau, Bahamas, and IBH Trust Inc, registered in the Caribbean island of Nevis. But it was not a success. Beyond Hotels never traded and was dissolved in November 2005.

Rich, clever and nearly the Aga Khan, Prince Rahim holds all the aces. Throughout Europe, he is seen with exotic women at glitzy nightclubs, most notably the Billionaire Club in Sardinia.

And although Prince Rahim still likes to squire beautiful women, he is becoming increasingly involved in his father’s work – keeping up the family tradition of juggling pleasure and industry. He has learned Urdu and  now executive director of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, an international agency dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in the developing world. Via a network of affiliates with 90 companies and annual revenues of $1.5 billion, the fund is active in 16 countries. Projects include the Serena Hotel Chain, which has 33 hotels, safari lodges and resorts in Kabul, Islamabad, Zanzibar and elsewhere. A spokesman says that the ‘Prince is very hands-on, particularly in West Africa’. But it is unclear how much of the Aga Khan’s personal wealth – an estimated £2.5 billion – has been invested. The Aga Khan’s private projects have not always been successful, notably a disastrous investment in a hotel chain, Ciga, in Italy.

The Prince is also active in the Aga Khan’s Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS). ‘Unfortunately, in some parts of the world, hostility to diverse interpretations of Islam, and lack of religious tolerance, have become chronic and worsening problems,’ he told a graduation ceremony at the IIS on Cromwell Road, South Kensington, last year. ‘Sometimes these attitudes have led to hatred and violence. At the root of the problem is an artificial notion among some Muslims and other people that there is, or could ever be, a restricted, monolithic reality called Islam.’

Rahim’s commitment to his father’s work is a relatively new phenomenon, whereas Princess Zahra has been at her father’s side since leaving Harvard, choosing to live with him when her parents divorced in 1994, and focusing on social development projects in Asia and Africa, while also remaining close to her mother and accompanying her to social functions.

She is universally popular, and often travels with her father on his Grumman Gulfstream III private jet. Like her brothers, she was educated at Le Rosey. After taking a course in nursing at Massachusetts General Hospital, she graduated from Harvard with a diploma in Third World studies and, much to her father’s delight, made the polo team. She also owns race horses and has registered her own dark green and brown colors. But Princess Zahra’s personal life has been less successful. In 1997 she married Mark Boyden, the then 27-year-old British management consultant and son of a farming family in Dorset. They have two children, but separated in 2004.

Despite being the oldest and the most capable, Zahra is disqualified from the succession because of her sex – to the frustration of some family friends. ‘Zahra has the nicest personality of the three children,’ said one courtier. ‘Rahim will eventually succeed but she will be a great asset. She has a tremendous sense of humor and is a lot of fun to be with.’

Her other brother, Prince brother, Prince Hussain, is also unlikely to accede, being the youngest. At 16 he broke his left arm while jet-skiing, just three years after he was partially paralyzed on the same side in another jet-ski crash. Hussain went to boarding school at Deerfield College in the US and then university at Williams College, Massachusetts. Based in France, he is passionate about skiing, as well as working for the Aga Khan’s Trust for Culture. In 2006, he married Kristin White, an American health consultant whose father is an academic and mother a psychologist. Meanwhile, the current Aga Khan shows no signs of retiring from either his philandering or philanthropy. After divorcing Sally Croker-Poole, he took up with the London-based German lawyer Gabriele zu Leiningen, 26 years his junior. A former pop singer, she had a degree in international law and a previous relationship with Muck Flick, heir to the Daimler-Benzfortune. Gabriele was introduced to the Aga Khan by the King of Spain in 1998 and, after a whirlwind romance, they were married in a near-secret ceremony.

But within two years, the Aga Khan had lost interest. ‘He has always been this way,’ a lifelong friend told the German newspaper Bild. ‘At first he cannot take his hands off the woman. No present is too expensive. But when he loses enthusiasm, his heart turns to ice.’

In 2004, Gabriele, now known as the Begum Inaara, filed for divorce and told friends that her husband ‘didn’t give enough love’, suggesting he had taken another mistress. K blamed ‘the influence of Gabriele’s socially ambitious German mother-in-law’. The most likely new Begum is another blonde: 40-year-old Beatrice von der Schulenberg. Her father, Frederik van Pallandt, was a Sixties folk singer and half of Nina and Frederik, who found fame with ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’. He later became a member of a drug syndicate and in 1994 was shot dead by a contract killer. Beatrice grew up with her mother in London and attended the Academy of Live and Recorded Art, and Elmhurst Ballet School. She married Jeffrey von der Schulenberg, a German management consultant who was ten years older. They divorced in 2005. The Aga Khan met Beatrice at a party in Paris in early 2006. Since then they have been photographed together on his yachts in the Mediterranean. More recently, they have kept a low profile, although they were at a museum opening which was also attended by the King of Spain. By all accounts, she is more easy-going and relaxed than many of K’s previous wives and mistresses. But the 71-year-old shows no signs of slowing down, not least on the ski slopes, and his children may have to wait a few more years before anyone succeeds to the coveted title.

Credit: Mark Hollingsworth (www.markhollingsworth.co.uk), published as “Aga in Waiting”

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