Islamabad: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb will represent Pakistan in the funeral ceremony of Prince Kareem Agha Khan fourth.
The Finance Minister will represent Pakistan in the last rites of Prince Kareem Agha Khan, the fourth on the instructions of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Prime Minister office has issued directions to the foreign ministry for necessary coordination on the occasion.
Earlier in the day, spiritual leader of Ismailis Community Prince Kareem Aga Khan the fourth passes away today at the age of 88 years.
The billionaire Prince Karim Aga Khan died in Lisbon. His welfare organization, Aga Khan Development Network, has announced his death.
After the death of Sir Sultan Mohammad Aga Khan the third in 1957, his grandson Prince Karim was appointed at the age of 20, instead of his father Prince Ali Khan, the hereditary leader and the spiritual head of the Ismaili community.
The 49th hereditary imam or spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims, his name also became synonymous with success as a racehorse owner, with the thoroughbred Shergar among his most famous.
The multi-millionaire, perhaps billionaire, also enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, characterised by private jets, a $200 million super-yacht and a private island in the Bahamas.
Estimates of his wealth varied from $800 million to $13 billion, with his money coming from his family inheritance, his horse breeding business and his personal investments in tourism and real estate.
The international jet setter – who held British, French, Swiss and Portuguese citizenship.
Prince Shah Karim Al Husseini was born on Dec. 13, 1936 in Geneva and spent his early childhood in Nairobi, Kenya.
He later returned to Switzerland, attending the exclusive Le Rosey School before going to the United States to study Islamic history at Harvard.
When his grandfather Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan died in 1957, he became the imam of the Ismaili Muslims, a branch of Shia Islam, at the age of 20.
His grandfather chose Karim as his successor over his flamboyant son – Karim’s father Prince Aly Khan – who was once married to Hollywood actress Rita Hayworth.
He was the fourth holder of the title which was originally granted in the 1830s by the emperor of Persia to Karim’s great-great-grandfather when the latter married the emperor’s daughter.
The role included providing divine guidance for the Ismaili community, whose members live in Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and North America.
He mixed his development work with private business, owning for example in Uganda a pharmaceutical company, a bank and a fishnet factory.
He was married twice, first in 1969 to former British model Sarah Croker Poole, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. The couple divorced in 1995.
In 1998 he married German-born Gabriele zu Leiningen, with whom he had a son. The couple divorced in 2014.
