Begum Aga Khan, Is Young Imam’s Guide

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28343, 31 July 1957, Page 2

Begum Aga Khan, Is Young Imam’s Guide

[By

SUSAN VAUGHAN]

Karim Aga Khan, aged 19, the new Imam of 12,000,000 Ismaili Moslems, is being guided in his duties by the woman with the greatest knowledge of Ismaili affairs —his grandmother, the Begum Aga Khan. For 12 years, the Begum shared in her late husband’s religious work. A year after her marriage she became a Moslem and began a life of travel all over the world with the Imam.

Their marriage was a remarkably happy one, not blemished by the discrepancy in their ages. She entered fully into the activities at her husband and shared all his interests —music, ballet, gardening, racing, even chess. The Aga Khan was not happier than when in her presence, and during his illnesses of recent years-his favourite pastime was to listen while she read to him.

The Begum is a woman whose beauty and elegance have become a legend in her own lifetime. And yet hardly anyone had heard ot Miss Yvette Labrousse before 1944—except those who remembered that she had been “Miss France” in 1930. . It was in 1944 that this strikingly good-looking woman, 6ft with dark chestnut hair and deep brown eyes, married the Aga Khan. She was his fourth wife and the wedding was held quietly in Switzerland.

As a girl, the Begum lived in Cannes, where she learned to make her own clothes. Later, she had her own dress shop in Lyons. She first met the Aga Khan when she was on holiday with her parents in Cairo. A woman of tall, stately beauty, the Begum has an oval face with a flawless complexion, perfect teeth, expressive eyes and hair drawn smoothly back, usually from a centre parting. Forbears the Begum has been