Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah
1877-1957
Indian Muslim imam
1. Introduction
‘The Aga’ was the imam (spiritual leader) of Nizari Ismaili Shi’a Muslims for over 70 years. He was a founding member and first president of the All India Muslim League in 1906 which was later instrumental in the creation of Pakistan, partitioned from India in 1947. He represented India at the League of Nations (a precursor to the United Nations) and was president of the League’s assembly in 1937-38. He and Churchill were friends for over 50 years, despite their differing approaches to Indian self-rule. Upon his death, he conferred his titles and responsibilities on his grandson Karim, bypassing his playboy son Aly, ex-husband of Hollywood actress Rita Hayworth.
2. Stories
- Aga Khan III was the spiritual leader of around 12 million Nizari Ismaili Shi’a Muslims worldwide, distributing their donations and providing interpretations of the Koran.
- The Aga Khan and Churchill first met in 1902, aged 24 and 27, over a long weekend at Warwick Castle in central England.
- The Aga Khan had four wives, consecutively, over the course of his lifetime, including a former Miss France, whereas Churchill’s single marriage lasted for 56 years.
- Both the Aga Khan and Churchill struggled with a problem child: Aly Khan was a notorious womaniser and Churchill’s son Randolph was a tempestuous character.
- Aga Khan III and Churchill had opposing views about Indian independence, but maintained their friendship.
- The Aga Khan regretted that he had not been able to persuade Ottoman Empire leaders to remain neutral in World War I.
- The Aga Khan is buried in a prominent mausoleum on a hill overlooking the River Nile, in contrast to Churchill’s family gravesite in a section of a village churchyard.
Aga Khan III was the spiritual leader of around 12 million Nizari Ismaili Shi’a Muslims worldwide, distributing their donations and providing interpretations of the Koran.
The title or alias Aga Khan, meaning ‘older brother’ (aga) and ‘ruler’ (khan) in Turkic and Mongolian languages, was first conferred on Aga Khan III’s grandfather Hasan Ali by the shah (king) of Iran, Fath-Ali. The title passes together with the Nizari Ismaili* imamate (leadership), which is traced back to Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The third Aga Khan inherited the title and imamate in 1905 at age seven when his father died from pneumonia contracted while hunting.
Although hereditary, the transfers are at the discretion of the holder. Aga Khan III determined that they should pass to his 20-year-old grandson Karim, rather than to his son Aly, saying that a younger person was needed in a rapidly changing world. Karim became Aga Khan IV in 1957 and is now in his eighties. He has four children but has not disclosed who his successor will be.
Aga Khan III was a modernist in his time, encouraging Islamic interaction with Western society and improving the marital and political status of women, including banning purda (female seclusion) and the face veil. Using Ismaili tithes (ten percent of income), he developed various institutions for poverty alleviation, healthcare and education across India, Burma, the Middle East and East Africa.
The tithes were supplemented by other gifts such as his weight in gold and diamonds on the Golden and Diamond Jubilees of his imamate (50 and 60 year anniversaries). Despite his short stature of 5’5” (1.65 m), this provided 17 stones 5 pounds (243 pounds, 110 kg) of diamonds in 1946. A conversion factor was used for his Platinum Jubilee (70 years), providing 15 ounces (425 grams) of platinum. The current Aga Khan has continued his grandfather’s practice of celebrating jubilees, but without the weighing ceremonies.
Aga Khan III’s grandfather married Shah Fath-Ali’s daughter, meaning that Aga Khan III was the shah’s great-grandson. From 1938, the UK government has recognised Aga Khan I’s descendants as princes and princesses, although Aga Khan III chose to remain as ‘His Highness’ rather than ‘Prince’.
* Ismailis are a segment of Shi’a Muslims, with Nazaris being a sub-segment. See here for an overview of Islamic groups.
The Aga Khan and Churchill first met in 1902, aged 24 and 27, over a long weekend at Warwick Castle in central England.
Their wide-ranging discussions covered sport, poetry and human achievement. Churchill argued that polo is superior to hunting, while the Aga Khan claimed the opposite, coming from a family of keen hunters. The Aga Khan was impressed by Churchill’s memorisation of literature, on this occasion quoting extensively from Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a translation of some Persian poetry.
As a young cavalry officer, Churchill had visited the Aga Khan’s residence in Poona (now Pune), India, in 1887 to see his horses, but the Aga Khan was ill. Churchill met his cousin Shamsuddin who reported that Churchill was ‘boyish-looking, eager, irrepressible, and already an enthusiastic, courageous and promising polo player’.1
As well as pursuing his interest in horseracing, the Aga Khan helped to develop the sport of hockey in India. It had been introduced by British regiments and he had played it in his teens at Eton, where he went to school. As a young dignitary, he arranged competitions and handed out prizes, instigating the Aga Khan Cup in Bombay in 1896, the second oldest hockey competition in India.
In his memoirs, the Aga Khan highlighted Churchill’s successful combination of normally conflicting personality traits: ‘the romantic, the deeply emotional and poetic interpreter of history’ and ‘the common sense, practical, down-to-earth realist, the hardheaded and coolly calculating strategist’. To him, this explained Churchill’s romanticised view of the British Empire as well as his eventual acceptance of its decline and the transition to the Commonwealth. He believed that Churchill’s most valuable characteristic as a statesman was ‘his capacity to learn by experience and, having learned, to wipe the slate clean’.2
Churchill was among the top seven statesmen that the Aga Khan had known but not the best, which according to him was Mohamed Ali Jinnah, founding father of Pakistan. The other five were Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, George Curzon, Benito Mussolini and Mohandas Gandhi. He wrote that ‘None of these men in my view outshone [Jinnah] in strength of character and in that almost uncanny combination of prescience and resolution which is statecraft’.3
The Aga Khan had four wives, consecutively, over the course of his lifetime, including a former Miss France, whereas Churchill’s single marriage lasted for 56 years.
The Aga Khan’s marriages took place in India, Egypt, France and Switzerland, with the sequence ‘divorced, died, divorced, survived’, after 11, 18, 14 and 13 years. His first wife, Shahzadi Begum, was his first cousin, followed by Teresa Magliano, a French ballerina, then Andrée Carron, a French sweet shop saleswoman and hat shop owner. His last wife was Yvette Larbousse, a tram conductor’s daughter who had been Miss France in 1930 and the Aga Khan’s social secretary prior to their marriage in 1944.
Signs of the Aga Khan’s favour included the naming of a horse or a Riviera villa after his then-favourite woman: a mare Teresina for his second wife Teresa, Villa Jean-Andrée for his third wife Andrée, and Villa Yakymour for his fourth wife Yvette. ‘Yakymour’ was derived from her nickname Yaky (from the initials of Yvette Aga Khan), combined with amour, French for ‘love’. Another sign of favour, reputedly, was an attaché case of a million French francs. The Aga Khan is said to have placed such a sum in front of Yvette, declaring that it was hers, whether or not she wanted to become his partner, but that there would be plenty more to follow if she did.
Churchill, on the other hand, had a single marriage of 56 years, to Clementine from 1908 until his death in 1965. Their correspondence is a testimony to their lifelong commitment and affection, although not without tensions, including when Winston omitted to tell Clementine that he was buying their home Chartwell in Surrey until after he had committed to the transaction. Their golden wedding anniversary in 1958 was commemorated with a book of original watercolours of golden roses and the establishment of the Golden Rose Walk at Chartwell. The Aga Khan’s last wife Yvette, who outlived her husband by 43 years, also chose roses as a sign of affection, having a red rose laid on his grave daily.
Both the Aga Khan and Churchill struggled with a problem child: Aly Khan was a notorious womaniser and Churchill’s son Randolph was a tempestuous character.
The Aga Khan’s main concern was the indiscreet nature of Aly’s numerous liaisons. He was named in the divorce case of Loel Guinness, a member of the well-known Guinness dynasty, against his wife Joan, whom Aly then promptly married. The relationship soon ended, partly due to Aly’s affair with Pamela Churchill (née Digby), Randolph’s ex-wife. Aly then married Hollywood star Rita Hayworth, but it was not long before he was seeing another Hollywood actress, Gene Tierney, and several other women.
The Aga Khan disapproved of Aly’s actress relationships, despite having been married to a performer himself. Similarly, Churchill disapproved of his daughter Sarah’s marriage to an entertainer (Vic Oliver), despite having various stage types as friends. At the reading out of his father’s will, Aly was stunned to discover that he had been skipped over in the Aga Khan succession. He died three years later after a car accident in Paris, aged 48. His pregnant fiancée, fashion model Bettina Graziani, survived the crash but had a miscarriage.
Father and son shared a keen interest in equestrianism, and Aly’s memory of individual horses redeemed him for a while in his father’s eyes. Aga Khan III inherited his family’s stables and studs in India and developed others in Ireland and France. His horses in France were stolen by Nazis during the Second World War but were spotted by Aly by coincidence in Germany shortly before the end of the war. They were recovered by stealth, preserving valuable blood lines. The Aga Khan went on to win the prestigious Epsom Derby five times and was the British flat racing Champion Owner (most prize money in a season) 13 times. Aly was also Champion Owner on one occasion and Aga Khan IV continues the tradition, having gained the title twice. The latter’s horse Shergar was stolen for ransom in 1983 but was never recovered.
Like Aly, Randolph caused paternal despair, as well as moments of pride. He too was known for his various affairs but did not have Aly’s consistent charm, frequently having blazing rows with his father and others. He died from heavy drinking and smoking, aged 57.
Aga Khan III and Churchill had opposing views about Indian independence, but maintained their friendship.
The Aga Khan was the co-founder and first president of the All India Muslim League in 1906, which initially focussed on improving education and political representation for Muslims in the British Raj, now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In India in Transition (1918), he argued for power sharing and ultimately Indian self-governance, pointing towards the examples of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, in particular, South Africa. He advocated a devolved power structure in a federalist India and proposed a ‘South Asiatic Federation’ at an international level, incorporating India, Afghanistan and Persia. He made a claim for East Africa to become a colony of India, based on the presence of an influential Indian community already there. His view on how Indians could civilise the natives was similar to the Victorian notion of the civilising role of the white man.
The Aga Khan was battling on two fronts for Muslim autonomy: one formed by the UK government which was highly resistant to relinquishing any control and the other by the Gandhi-controlled Indian National Congress which did not wish to give separate political rights to India’s Muslim communities. Under Mohamed Ali Jinnah, the League later successfully pushed for the creation of a separate Muslim state (now Pakistan and Bangladesh), gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
Churchill was strongly against any diminution of the British Empire and was disparaging about Indian resistance to British rule in a way that still causes some resentment today (see Mohandas Gandhi). The Aga Khan attributed this attitude partly to Churchill’s lack of political familiarity with India and regretted that Lloyd George had ignored his recommendation that Churchill should be appointed viceroy of India in 1921. He believed that ‘If Churchill had had direct and recent Indian experience, his whole outlook […] would, I am certain, have been different. And the effect of that changed outlook would have been felt throughout the whole later history of Anglo-Indian relations.’4 He added, idealistically, that with this experience Churchill ‘might have found other and far less terrible means of bringing about the downfall of Hitler and the saving of Germany for Western civilization’.5
The Aga Khan regretted that he had not been able to persuade Ottoman Empire leaders to remain neutral in World War I.
Another ‘what-if’ scenario in the Aga Khan’s memoirs relates to the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the Great War in November 1914. He wrote that British authorities, including Prime Minister Asquith and King George V, were supportive of Field Marshal Kitchener’s request for him to approach his influential Turkish contacts to persuade the Ottoman Empire to stay neutral. His negotiations failed partly because of Ottoman suspicions about Allied reassurances and, more significantly, a German-supported raid by two Ottoman vessels on Russian ports, leading to declarations of war.
Forty years later, the Aga Khan still regarded this as ‘a tragic turning point in modern history. Had Turkey remained neutral, the history of the Near East and of the whole Islamic world […] might have been profoundly different.’6 Instead, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers and was defeated, resulting in its breakup.
The conflict incorporated the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaign, which led to Churchill’s temporary political demise (see Mustafa Kemal Atatürk). The Aga Khan noted that ‘To a strategist like Churchill this decision [by the Ottomans to enter the war] offered an opportunity (which was never fully seized) of ending the slaughterous deadlock on the Western Front and of striking at Germany and Austria from the southeast’.7
He makes no further comment about Churchill’s role, as his main concern was with the use of the war by some as a declaration of jihad (holy war) against Christendom, which he viewed as ‘irreligious folly’. ‘I joined with other Muslim leaders in an earnest appeal to the whole Islamic world to disregard the so-called jehad [sic], to do their duty and stand loyally with and beside the Western Allies – especially Britain and France in whose overseas possessions the Muslim population could be counted in many millions.’8 The appeal had a calming effect, and the call to identify the war with jihad was soon forgotten.
The Aga Khan is buried in a prominent mausoleum on a hill overlooking the River Nile, in contrast to Churchill’s family gravesite in a section of a village churchyard.
The Aga Khan died at his home near Geneva in 1957, aged 79. From 1935, he had often spent some of the winter in the city of Aswan by the Nile in Egypt. During a trip on the river, his attention was drawn to an empty villa, Noor al Salaam, opposite the city. He bought it on the condition that he could build a mausoleum nearby. He left its design to his wife Yvette, who commissioned an Egyptian professor of architecture at Cairo University.
His first burial was in the grounds of the villa, with a funeral service at a mosque in Aswan, attended by family. A month later, a memorial service was held at Woking mosque, south-west of London, attended by the lord chamberlain on behalf of the UK government. After construction of the mausoleum, Aga Khan III’s reburial took place in February 1959.
Yvette died in 2000 and was buried next to him. The Aga Khan’s father and great-grandfather are buried in a mausoleum in Najaf, Iraq (a holy city for Shia Muslims), on the bank of the Euphrates. The remains of his grandfather Aga Khan I are in a shrine in Mumbai, India, and his son Aly’s final resting place is in his mausoleum in Salamiyah, Syria.
Churchill’s family graves are much more geographically concentrated. Many ‘lesser’ Spencer-Churchills (including Sir Winston) are buried in the inconspicuous graveyard of St Martin’s church in Bladon, Oxfordshire, near the grounds of Blenheim Palace. ‘Senior’ Spencer-Churchills, the Dukes and Duchesses of Marlborough, are nearly all buried in Blenheim Palace’s chapel. The St Martin’s cemetery includes the graves of Churchill’s parents, five children*, younger brother and various other family members. Winston and Clementine have a combined headstone.
* An exception was Churchill’s daughter Marigold, who died aged two in 1921 when Winston lived in London and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery, northwest London. Her remains were re-interred in Bladon in 2020, ninety-nine years later.
3. Biographical summary
| Occupation | 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili group of Shi’a Muslims |
| Country | India, Switzerland |
| Career | Became Aga Khan and 48th Nizari Ismaili Shi’a Imam at age seven (1884). First president of the All India Muslim League (1906-12). Indian representative to the League of Nations (1932, 1934-37). President of the Assembly of the League of Nations (1937-38). |
| Born | 1877 in Karachi, British India; name Moḥammed Shah (three years younger than Churchill) |
| Father | Aga Khan II (Aga Ali Shah) (1830-85); died from pneumonia |
| Mother | Shams al-Muluk (Lady Ali Shah) (c.1850-1938); former Persian princess; Aga Ali’s 3rd wife (first two wives died) |
| Siblings | Two step-brothers from his father’s first marriage, both of whom died before their father, leaving Mohammed as the sole surviving son: – Aga Shihab al-Din Shah; died in his early thirties from a chest problem – Nur al-Din Shah; died in his late twenties in a riding accident |
| Education | Home schooling; Eton College; Cambridge University |
| Spouses | 1. Shahzadi Begum (c.1880-unknown), first cousin, m. 1896, div. 1907 2. Teresa Magliano (1889-1926), Italian artist and ballerina, m. 1908, d. 1926 after an operation 3. Andrée Carron (c.1898-1976), dressmaker, m. 1929, div. 1943 4. Yvonne ‘Yvette’ Larbousse (1906-2000), daughter of a tram driver; dressmaker; Miss France 1930; Aga Khan’s social secretary; m. 1944 until Aga Khan’s death |
| Relationships | Various (discreet) |
| Children | By Teresa Magliano: 1. Giuseppe (c.1909-1911), died in youth 2. Ali ‘Aly’ (1911–1960); married Joan Guinness (son Karim, Aga Khan IV), then Rita Hayworth By Andrée Carron: 3. Sadruddin (1933-2003), UN High Commissioner for Refugees |
| Died | 1957 at Villa Barakat, Versoix, near Geneva, Switzerland, aged 79 (eight years before Churchill) |
| Buried | Mausoleum of Aga Khan, Aswan, Egypt |
| Chartwell | Visitors’ book: no recorded visits |
| Other Club | No |
| Nickname | The Aga |
| Height | 5’5½” (1.65 m) |
4. See also
Ottoman Empire and Turkey
- Atatürk, Kemal
Asian nationalists
- Aung San (Burma)
- Bose, Subhas Chandra (India)
- Gandhi, Mohandas (India)
- Jinnah, Mohamad Ali (Pakistan)
Churchill controversies
- Dardanelles/Gallipoli
- Imperialism
- Race
Churchill’s funeral
- Queen Elizabeth II
5. Further reading
Aga Khan III
- Aga Khan III, The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time (Simon & Schuster, 1954)
- British Pathé, ‘Aga Khan’s Platinum Jubilee’, YouTube: British Pathé Channel, 1954
- Poor, Daryoush Mohammad, Authority without Territory: The Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili Imamate (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014)
Aly Khan
- Lovell, Mary S., The Riviera Set: 1920-1960: The Golden Years of Glamour and Excess (Little, Brown, 2016)
Churchill and Islam
- Dockter, Warren, Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East (Bloomsbury, 2015)
6. References
1. Aga Khan III, The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time (Simon and Schuster, 1954), p. 115.
2. Aga Khan III, Memoirs, p. 118.
3. Aga Khan III, Memoirs, p. 311.
4. Aga Khan III, Memoirs, p. 120.
5. Ibid.
6. Aga Khan III, Memoirs, p. 167.
7. Aga Khan III, Memoirs, p. 165.
8. Aga Khan III, Memoirs, p. 166.