Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the fourth Aga Khan, is set to be buried on Sunday in Egypt, but headlines are now shifting to his son, Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini, who was named in his father's will as the fifth Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims. Rahim, 53, will be the 50th hereditary imam of the group of Shiite Muslims, a group 15 million strong that's spread across the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and parts of Africa, Europe, and North America.
The AP notes that the Aga Khan is thought to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and is treated as a head of state. Prince Rahim, the eldest son of the late Aga Khan, studied comparative literature at Brown University and has served on various boards of agencies tied to the Aga Khan Development Network, the philanthropic group his father founded. Rahim has especially been keen on working on the issue of climate change.
Per the New York Times, Rahim is set to inherit a "vast portfolio," with the fortune speculated to be anywhere between $1 billion and $13 billion. The paper notes that Ismaili Muslims have had "an outsize impact through their institutions—among them hospitals and universities—and humanitarian work." Rahim is expected to keep that mission going. "My expectation would be that there is a continuation of that legacy, because it is ingrained in Islam and it is substantiated in these institutions," says Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith America. (More Aga Khan stories.)
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