THE AGA KHAN

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21200, 24 August 1940, Page 11 (Supplement)

THE AGA KHAN

Leader of Millions :: A Picturesque Personage

r THE AGA KHAN, one of the world’s ■*" wealthiest men, with an annual income of £600,000, is reported as stranded in Switzerland. “ You might say I am almfist penniless,” he told a reporter. “ What’s the use of money if you can’t get it? ” " The Aga Khan and His Millions— Why He Refused a Throne.” Such were the captions on a long story published in the Chicago Tribune shortly before the war. To the world at large, the Aga Khan, most picturesque figure among princes of the Orient, is known chiefly as the millionaire owner of famous racehorses. He has had a career upon the turf in three countries—lndia, France, and England, and one at least of his possessions has made racing history. Mumtaz Mahal, which, being interpreted, means “ Pearl of the Palace,” broke all records for sprint races. In 1930 the Aga Khan crowned his racing career by winning the Derby with Blenheim and the Cesarewitch witn Ut Majeur, and also the Champion Stakes, the Eclipse Stakes and the Steward’s Cup. His winnings of £46,259 gave him top place among winning owners that year. His racehorses a few years ago were estimated to be worth £1,000,000. He had vast investments, worth millions more. When he was single it was the custom for his personal servant to give him £BO every day for pocket money ! The Aga Khan is Spiritual Head of the Ismaili Sect of the Mohammedan faith. From his coreligionists in India alone this Mohammedan Pope receives in offerings £500,000 every year. Real estate and other investments bring in additional sums which no one can estimate. This enormously wealthy man gives away every year more than his weight in gold The greater part of the £500,-! 000 income from the Mohammedan faithful he gives to charitable work among his people, and charity organisers everywhere look to the Aga Khan for substantial help. It has been said that the Aga Khan feeds annually 10,000 of the depressed classes. The responsibilities and privileges attaching to his position are immense. He exercises a vast and absolutely unquestioned influence over his followers, not only in India, but in East Africa, Centra! Asia, Egypt, and Morocco. This great influence has never been abused. He has wielded his power well, and has rallied to his side the best elements among his co-religionists. Aga Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah, G.C.5.1., G.C.1.C., LL.D.. was born in 1872, and succeeded his father in 1885. His family is said to be Descended From The Prophet, and from the Royal House of Persia. Ancestors of his ruled in Egypt at the time of the Crusades. In a country like India, where pride of birth, enshrined in the sacred institution of caste, is the basic foundation of the social community, the Aga Khan is regarded as a sacred individual. In India the very water in which he bathes is preserved, so that it may be sprinkled over his followers. When he

celebrated his jubilee, not long ago, hi* ceremonial bath, scented with the original attar found in the bath of the great Mogul queen Mumtaz, in whose memory was built the great wonder of the world, the Taj Mahal, was one of the principal rites. Thia precious attar was acquired for a fabulous price from a Persian merchant, by the rich Khoja followers of the Aga Khan. On the night of the bath ceremony, a grand procession miles long set out from the palace to the pearl mosque. The goldplated coach was drawn by well-performed racehorses. Thousands prostrated themselves, and the Bath Water Was Sprinkled over them as the supreme blessing from their representative of God on earth, the direct descendant, through the line of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, of Mohamet himself. Contrasting with these pre-medleval rites was the action of the Aga Khan in multiplying several times the number* which he customarily feeds. In celebration of his jubilee, durbars were held in various places to which came Mohammedans from all parts of the Orient. The kitchen of the Aga hall was required to feed all who came within the gates, in conformity with Moslem tenets. Also, the house in which he was born, in Karachi, was turned into an up-to-date maternity hospital. English racing crowds, to whom the portly figure of the Aga Khan is familiar, seem never to realise that the smiling man in the grey top-hat, leading in a winner, la the greatest religious and political force east of Suez. Those who seek admittanoe to his presence come barefooted. His residence in Bombay is no whit less holy ground than is the Vatican. This acknowledged leader of 70,000,000 Mohammedans is the trusted guide, counsellor, and friend of the British Government. In the critical days of the autumn of 1914 he appealed successfully to Mohammedans everywhere to support the British Raj, and when relationship* were critical on the signing of the Turkish Peace Treaty his eloquent f manifesto to Islam was a public Service of Inestimable Value. His remarkable book, “ India in Transition,” had a profound effect. The story which concerns Britain’s refusal to give the Aga Khan a kingdom in India, in 1934, when he asked for some sort of temporal i ower, is bound up with the “ playboy doings ” of his son, Aly Khan, who has had notorious love affairs, one of which brought him to the role of co-respondent in the Guinness (of the beer millions) case. Aly was the son of the Aga Khan’s second wife, the Italian Princess Theresa, who died in 1926. He married the princess in 1908. An earlier marriage was dissolved many years before. His third wife, Mile. Andree Carron. a Parisian dressmaker, he married in 1930. Nominally she remained a Roman Catholic after her marriage, which was both civil and Moslem. As the Aga Khan's first wife did not die until 1934, the Frenchwoman’s marriage was not, of course, recognised by the Church.