Ismailis contributed to Pakistan’s establishment, development

The echoes of the merciless terrorist attack on the Agakhani Ismailis, a major Shia community having presence in more than 25 countries of Africa, Europe, Australia and North America, will be heard for a very long time to come as over 15 million followers of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV have suddenly been left to mourn the tragic loss of dozens of precious lives in Karachi.
Born on December 13, 1936 in Geneva, Prince Shah Karim Al Hussaini or Aga Khan IV is the current and 49th Imam of Ismaili Muslims.
He has a deep emotional attachment with Pakistan because he happens to be the grandson of the Karachi-born Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah or Aga Khan III (1877-1957), who was one of the founders and the first President of the All-India Muslim League in 1906.
He had flashed headlines worldwide on March 10, 1946, when his followers had weighed him by putting plastic boxes full of gold, diamonds and platinum on the weighing scale in Bombay.
It was Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah who had called on the British Empire to consider Muslims to be a separate nation within India.
Hailing from the family of an 18th century Persian king Fath Ali Shah, the title of “His Highness” was bestowed upon Prince Karim Aga Khan by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth in 1957, when he had succeeded his grandfather at the age of 20.
Prince Karim Aga Khan’s father Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan (1911-1960) had served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, where he had also gone on to become the Vice President of the General Assembly and Chairman of the UN Peace Observation Committee. He had gained more fame by marrying famous American actress Rita Hayworth.
Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan was nominated by President President Iskander Mirza in February 1958 to represent Pakistan in the United Nations.
When Oman had agreed to sell Gwadar to Pakistan for Rs5.5 billion in December 1958, donations were raised and the biggest contribution had come from Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan.
“Aga Khan” is a name being used by Ismaili spiritual leaders since 1818. The current Aga Khan’s first wife Sarah Croker Poole or Begum Salimah Aga Khan had visited Lahore about 15 years ago and this correspondent had conducted her exclusive interview for “the News International.”
Begum Salimah Aga Khan, a former model, had received over $30 million as a divorce settlement, along with some $27 million worth of jewellery, after her 25-year marriage with Aga Khan had ended in 1995.
Research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network on the Agakhani Ismailis, by consulting author Farhad Daftary’s book “The Ismailis: Their history and doctrines,” the Encyclopedia of Islam, Al-Waiz Abualy Aziz’s book “A brief history of Ismailism” and writer Malise Ruthven’s book “The children of time: the Aga Khan and Ismailis” etc, reveals that the Ismailis were one of the entrepreneurial minorities who had helped innumerable businesses flourish in Pakistan after the country’s inception in 1947.
At partition, Pakistan had a very low industrial base that constituted just four per cent of the GDP because it had neither inherited an industrial economy, nor was its services sector developed to any desirable extent.
According to former World Bank Advisor Gustav Papanek, also a professor at the Boston University, almost all the major industrial families of the post-independent Pakistan belonged to five ethnic groups i.e. the Memons, the Dawoodi Bohras, the Khojas, Punjabi Sheikhs and the Chiniotis.
Having led the Harvard University Development Advisory Service, Professor Papanek had undertaken a study that had revealed that of the 42 major industrial houses that had met magnificent success in Pakistan after its birth, only a few groups such as Hoti, Premier, Packages, Ghulam Farooq, Colony and Noon etc had roots in this part of the undivided India.
This study, which was conducted a few decades ago, had found out that the Agakhani Isamili community had migrated to India in 1840, and had set up its headquarters in Bombay.
Other historians claim the Ismailis had migrated to Gwadar city in 1799. But centuries before that, the Ismailis had played a pivotal role in the establishment of the globally-acclaimed University of al-Azhar in Cairo.
Aga Khan’s philanthropic institutions spend about US$600 million per year - mainly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
In Pakistan, the Aga Khan Foundation has till date established a number of welfare projects to provide sustainable solutions to long-term problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy and ill health etc, besides focusing on goals like community participation, gender, pluralism and human resource development.
The first institution set up by the Aga Khan Health Service in Pakistan was a 42-bed maternity hospital formerly known as the Janbai Maternity Home at Karachi in 1924.
Today known as the Aga Khan Hospital for Women and Children Kharadar (Karachi), this initiative was funded by Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah or Aga Khan III and the philanthropic efforts of a local leather tycoon Seth Bundeh Ali Kassim, who was a member of the Ismaili Supreme Council. Kassim’s business extended to Europe through a Swiss company Messrs Volkart Brothers. Seth Kassim opened many branches of his firm in Sindh and had erected a big factory in Lyari quarter, Karachi to dye leather. In 1917, he had founded the Khoja Ismailia Trading Company with a reserve capital of Rs5 million.
And since then, the Aga Khan Health Service has financed 164 health centres, seven hospitals, maternity home, two medical centres, a physiotherapy unit and seven community dental units to reach over 581,000 people in rural and urban Sindh, Punjab and many parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Few projects undertaken by the Aga Khan Development Network in Pakistan since 1967 include the International Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development, the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, the Aga Khan Cultural Services Programme, the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy, the Balochistan Early Childhood Development Project, the Northern Areas Education Development Improvement Programme, the Building and Construction Improvement Programme, the Chitral Child Survival Project, the Water Supply and Sanitation Extension Programme in Northern Areas, the Northern Areas Community Health Programme and the Flood Relief Programme etc.
Today, several Ismaili community centres operate in London, Burnaby (Canada), Lisbon, Dubai, Dushanbe and Toronto.
Research shows that in 1979, the foundation stone of the first Ismaili Centre was laid in London by the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Several months later, the then Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had opened the second Ismaili Centre in Burnaby, Canada. Meanwhile, the Ismaili centre in Dubai is built on land donated by the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.
Part II
Wednesday carnage: Second act of violence against community in Pakistan
The deadly Wednesday morning attack on the Ismaili Agakhani community in Karachi is the second worst incident of its kind since 1982, when over 60 members of this minority sect were killed by a mob in the picturesque Chitral Valley.
Some 33 years ago, an enraged and unruly crowd had set ablaze the Ismaili community buildings in Chitral, including their “Jamaat Khana” or place of worship.
In August 2013, twin hand grenade attacks had killed at least two Ismailis and wounded 28 others in Karachi.
According to law enforcement agencies, some unidentified people had thrown hand grenades inside two different places of worship of Agakhanis in the port city.
Newspaper archives reveal that in February 2014, the Pakistani Taliban had announced an armed struggle against the indigenous Kalash tribe and Ismaili Muslims in Chitral, which was once dominated by members of this sect.
The 50-minute long Taliban video was released on February 2, 2014 on their media wing’s website.
In this video message, the Taliban had warned the Kalash tribe to convert to Islam or face death and had condemned the Aga Khan Foundation creating an “Israel-like” state in Chitral.
It is imperative to note that the famous Kalash tribe comprises of 3,500 members only and is currently plagued with gender-based violence and many women have consequently committed suicides in recent years.
It was due to this reason that in August 2013, the then Deputy Inspector General of Police, Malakand range, Haji Abdullah Khan, had established women desks in the Chitral police stations to check gender-based violence and reduce the rising tendency of suicide.
The Taliban video message had stated: “The Aga Khan Foundation is running 16 schools and 16 colleges and hostels where young men and women are given free education and brainwashed to keep them away from Islam. The Foundation’s schools and hospitals, which are free for members of the public, are espionage tools in the hands of foreign powers. Western NGOs are promoting Kalash wine and we warn all those individuals and hotels selling it, they should stop production and selling of wine otherwise they will be sent to hell by the will of God.”