Aga Khan III (redirected from Mahomed Shah Aga Khan)

Aga Khan III 

(Aga Sultan Sir Muhammad Shah). Born Nov. 2, 1877; died July 11, 1957. The 48th imam (beginning in 1885) of the Ismaili sect; political figure connected with the bourgeois landlord circles of India. Received his higher education in England.

From 1902 to 1904, Aga Khan was a member of the viceroy’s council for India; he was chairman of the All-India Muslim League, 1906–13. He left the league in 1913 after it moved somewhat to the left. He headed the Indian delegation to the round-table conference in London (1930–32) and to sessions of the League of Nations (1932 and 1934–37). He owned a great deal of landed property and was a businessman with enterprises in many countries. His religious beliefs were based on advocacy of bourgeois modernism in Islam. The first bourgeois reforms in the Ismaili sect took place under his leadership.

WORKS

Aga Khan. India in Transition: A Study in Political Evolution. London, 1918.
The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time. London, 1954.

REFERENCES

Greenwall, H. J. His Highness the Aga Khan, Imam of the Ismailis. London, 1952.
HRH the Aga Khan. Dacca, 1957.

S. F. LEVIN