THE AGA KHAN
GIVES AWAY HIS WEIGHT IN GOLD This year Aga Sultan Sir Mahomed Shah, best known among us as the Aga Khan, and head of the Ismaili Mohammedans, has invited his followers to rejoice with him on the completion of fifty years of his sultanate.
At his jubilee the Aga Khan sat in a scale to measure his weight in gold. This was the princely way of Hindu chiefs. The old rajahs were weighed against gold coins, which were afterwards distributed among the priests and holy men, with a share left for the poor.
But India’s gold coinage, like that of Britain, has long since disappeared into hidden places, or has been melted down. Some of it, we may suppose, lies frozen in the vaults of the National banks of America, France or Great Britain.
So it is that in the scale which the Aga Khan tipped gold bricks and not coins were piled. The treasure needed to balance him weighed 16 stone, in value about £ 25,000.
As he is one of the five richpst men in the world he can afford this handsome gesture, and we may rest asured that the £25,000 thanksgiving gift will be put to good purpose.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TAWC19360525.2.11
Bibliographic details
Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3760, 25 May 1936, Page 3
Word Count
203THE AGA KHAN Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3760, 25 May 1936, Page 3
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Te Awamutu Courier. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.