By RIZWAN MAWANI

Part 1: The Ismaili Community

Introduction

On the 4th of February 2025, news spread quickly about the passing of Karim al-Hussaini, the fourth Aga Khan and 49th Imam of the Shi’a Ismaili Muslims. For over 67 years, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan had occupied the singular office of guide, spiritual leader and interpreter of the Qur’an for millions of Ismailis from around the world living in more than 35 countries. In practical terms, this meant not only looking after the spiritual well-being of his community but also investing in improving their quality and standard of life regardless of where they lived.

Karim Aga Khan was designated as Imam by his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah, upon his passing in 1957 while still an undergraduate at Harvard University. His grandfather, in turn, inherited the more-than-one-thousand-year office of Imamat in successive generations from his lineal ancestor, Ali b. Abi Talib, the first Shi‘a Imam and the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad through his beloved daughter Fatima.

From a world of unravelling empires to a fragile global order of nation-states nearly seven decades later, Karim Aga Khan, the direct lineal descendant of Islam’s final prophet, stewarded his community through times of economic insecurity, political uncertainty and technological change. He saw how the ravages of war, instability and climate change impacted the lives of his community as well as their livelihoods. He witnessed large movements of Ismailis from rural to urban centres over this period, and their migration and displacement from Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas. He took a keen interest in the settlement of Ismailis in their newfound homes and shepherded them where he could, from states of uncertainty and crisis to stations of hope and opportunity.

These winds of change and demographic shifts often left Ismailis facing novel challenges, difficult choices and new horizons. Many looked to their Imam for guidance in finding ways to apply the spirit and ethics of Islam to the unfamiliar realities of their lives. And it was often with his keen sense of understanding, concern and dedication that Aga Khan IV was able to anticipate change. And with his prescient wisdom, he prepared his communities throughout the world for what was likely to come. He anchored them in the values and practices of their faith. He reminded them of their role as engaged citizens and their responsibility to each other as members of a human family. He urged them to seek the best education, to utilize it in the service of others and to use the intellect endowed to them by their creator ethically and responsibly.

The Ismaili Imam also took it upon himself to emphasize the mandate of his office to help others in need beyond the Ismaili community. Through the creation of strong institutions and through acts of quiet diplomacy and humanitarian action, Aga Khan IV made a lasting impact on his followers, global leaders of all persuasions, changemakers and the world at large — possibly more than any other spiritual leader of his generation. Through strong civil and governmental partnerships and by creating spaces for dialogue and discourse, the Aga Khan modelled those behaviours in his own work and through his own words so that those he came in contact with left from their exchanges inspired, touched and changed, often making attempts to enact his vision in their own lives.  The most far-reaching of these institutions is the Aga Khan Development Network, which continues to operate in more than 30 countries around the world with agencies dedicated to eradicating poverty, uplifting economic activity, providing educational opportunities and increasing tourism, to name just a few.

At 88 years old, Aga Khan IV had been the longest-living Ismaili Imam on record. In fact, the tenure of the Aga Khan’s immediate ancestors has been unmatched in history. Shah Karim’s predecessor, Sultan Mahomed Shah, Aga Khan III, had led the Ismailis through an Imamat period lasting nearly 72 years, the longest of any Imam. The first Aga Khan was Imam for 64 years. All in all, Aga Khan I, II, III and IV collectively were Imams of the Ismaili community for 207 years, more than 1/7th of the total period of forty-nine Imams in Ismaili history.

While many Imams have lived through periods of change and transition, none more than Imams Sultan Mahomed Shah and Karim al-Hussaini, Aga Khan III and IV. Their realities have been characterized by a world in constant flux and change. Aga Khan III was born into the world of empires in 1877 and left the same world at a time of their dismantling.

Aga Khan IV, born in 1936, saw the rise of independence struggles and the eventual emergence of nation-states and then observed many of them through periods of fragility, stability and crisis yet again. These crises were the result of both the strengthening and weakening of democratic institutions, changes in power politics such as the start and end of the Cold War, as well as the disproportional actions and rhetoric of individual leaders, many who long overstayed their mandates as heads-of-state.

Through all this, the Imam made the safety, development and success of his murids (adherents) in tens of countries around the world his priority. Despite their various geographies, cultures and political contexts, the Imam navigated the complexities of their worlds to improve their lives, to better their futures and to infuse them with a generational hope. With and through this experience, emerged a capacity, knowledge and ability to also help others — often the most destitute and dejected in society. And not just in countries and regions where Ismailis lived, but in varying contexts and localities around the world where it was most needed.

Like his predecessors, Aga Khan IV’s impact may only be more fully known decades and generations from now with the hindsight and perspective that time and history provides. However, the following is a very humble, and impoverished attempt, to try and document some of the lasting legacy that his Imamat has bequeathed upon the Ismaili community, the Muslim ummah and the world-at-large.     

Laying the Foundation

In his first year as 49^th Imam of the Ismaili Muslims, which began in the middle of 1957, many of his broader interests which would become part of his life’s work and passions became apparent. Through the events that filled that year from his Takht-nishini ceremonies, to laying the foundation stones of Jamatkhanas, opening mosques, meeting his jamats around the world, and enabling institutions that were concerned with the welfare of his community and the communities in which they lived.

The late Imam was able to devote the attention and care to these areas without abandoning his final year of education at Harvard. For the next nearly seven decades, his early interests unfolded further and were deepened. To these were added his appreciation for the arts of the Muslim world, with a particular emphasis on architecture and the built environment. Together, many became hallmarks of Karim Aga Khan’s Imamat. The care and concern for his jamat’s material and spiritual well-being centred him. But it did not prevent him from also laying a path forward for others. These included the most marginalized and vulnerable populations in society, whether from amongst the Muslim ummah or elsewhere. For Aga Khan IV was acutely aware that the injection of hope and promise of a better life, through tangible action, would catapult them and their families away from previous generations of poverty. For the Imam, no one should be devoid of dignity, and for those whose dignity had been stripped, he saw it as his mission to restore it, for each person on the earth, each member of the human family, was ennobled as God’s creation.

In fact, the Imam’s far-sightedness and ability to reach into the future allowed him a vision of a better world: one in which humanity valued its responsibility and understood the importance of interdependence; one where intelligentsia and the common person were more conversant with the contributions and cultures of the ummah, one where an ummah was more aware and confident of its potential; and a stronger, more united and capable jamat (community of Ismaili believers) more readily aware of its history, traditions and diversity.

The following section highlights a number of areas in which Aga Khan IV made significant contributions in his role as Imam of the Ismailis. These include stewardship of the global Ismaili community, the strengthening of social governance instruments and establishment and expanse of Jamatkhanas as important hubs of community amongst the global community. It also includes instituting the Seat of the Ismaili Imamat. A second part will situate the wider work of the Ismaili Imamat through the Aga Khan Development Network, his efforts to dispel stereotypes of Islam and create opportunities to educate wider audiences about Muslim civilization’s contribution and heritage. It will also cover the Imam’s poignant discourses on the value of pluralism and cosmopolitanism.

Jamatkhanas

Under the Imamat of his grandfather, Sutan Mahomed Shah, the role and importance of the Jamatkhana in the lives of Ismaili murids had increased significantly. From modest buildings to architectural heralds of the community’s presence, the Jamatkhana served the religious, educational and administrative needs of the community in varying parts of the world. While the Jamatkhana had a presence in the lives of Ismailis of South Asian ancestry where it originated, other worship spaces and sites for gathering fulfilled those needs for Ismailis of other backgrounds in many parts of the world. While Jamatkhanas were introduced to Ismailis in different parts of the world as contact increased between Sultan Mahomed Shah and his dispersed community, it was during the Imamat of Aga Khan IV that we see a significant increase in the number of Jamatkhanas and in their locations.

During his Imamat, Aga Khan IV continued to heavily invest in the building of permanent structures that served the needs of his community right across the globe. While some were modest in stature, others were ambitious in their scope and architecture. Regardless of their size, their function remained the same. They were hubs for the community, and as such the Jamatkhana brought Ismailis together, from Iran to America, to pray, to learn and to socialize. There was no doubt that it was the Jamatkhana that integrated and reintegrated the community and continued to define and redefine it.

With increasing migration and displacement, Ismailis, more than ever, established themselves in unfamiliar urban centres and in new countries where communities had not existed in significant numbers before. When it was clear that Ismailis would become integral to the fabric of a neighbourhood, a city or a country, a Jamatkhana took on the twin burdens of being ambassador for Islam as well as its Ismaili community through its architecture and its role in broader civic life.

Hundreds of Jamatkhanas were built during the Imamat of Shah Karim. A number of these took shape in countries like Afghanistan and Tajikistan whose Jamatkhana tradition had been severed or interrupted or where the political situation or lack of contact of community with the Imam had prevented it.

As Karim Aga Khan forged stronger and more regular ties with disparate communities during his Imamat, it was the Jamatkhana that kept the community together, anchored their faith and provided a vehicle for communal institutions to share announcements and programmes and to reiterate the community’s longstanding values. The Jamatkhana, in many cases, provided comfort, solace and even shelter during times of war, political change and uncertainty. It could be a community centre, a meeting ground, a place to socialize and be educated in addition to being a place to pray and express one’s faith through the religion’s practices and ceremonies.

Ismaili Centres

Other Jamatkhanas were built in the newly adopted countries of the jamat’s settlement. Such was the story of the first Ismaili Centres opened in London and Burnaby, Canada respectively. The Ismaili Centres envisioned the Jamatkhana as an integral part of a larger architectural jewel, which, in addition to serving the needs of the jamat in its religious, educational and administrative capacities also provided a conduit and site to engage with wider publics — whether government, civil society, the Muslim ummah or people of other faiths.

The architecture of these buildings were envisioned to be distinctive, to invite conversation about Islam and to provide a platform for the Ismaili community to engage with wider society by hosting events, programs and conversations with wider societies. This was in stark contrast to the ways in which many viewed the Jamatkhana as a space of privacy for the jamat to conduct its own rituals and observances. It was in this apparent contradiction — that of the invitation the building provided and a tradition of reticence of the community — in which the re-envisioning of the Jamatkhana, and the Ismaili Centre in particular took shape.

At the time of Aga Khan IV’s death, six Ismaili Centres had been completed in five different countries where the jamat lived and one was near completion in another. The United Kingdom (UK), Portugal and Tajikistan each had one in their nation’s capitals. The United Arab Emirates’ Ismaili Centre was located in its economic heart, Dubai. And the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Toronto had Ismaili Centres, one in the far west of the country and the other in the nation’s most populated city. Houston, the city with the largest Ismaili population in the United States had an Ismaili Centre nearly completed and once opened, would be the largest in terms of area.

While the UK had seen a settled Ismaili population for decades before the opening of its Ismaili Centre in 1985, the building gave the community a prominence and impact that they had never had before. Located amongst the hallowed stones of London’s museum district in the heart of the city, was now a Muslim institution of prominence. Less than a decade earlier, a purpose-built mosque of significant size opened in the city’s Regent’s Park, serving the needs of Muslims who lived and worked in the city. While both were built by international architectural firms of note, the Jamatkhana was the first purpose-built institution in London serving the expressed needs of a Shi‘a Muslim community. Its location on a prominent plot meant that it was viewed by passers-by on a daily basis.

The timing was conspicuous. Barely six years after the events of the Iranian Revolution and the transfer of power from the country’s then-Shah to Ayatollah Khomeini, the conception of a prominent Shi‘a Muslim space likely alarmed some given the stereotypes and fervour associated with Iran’s religio-political regime. Aga Khan IV saw it as an opportunity to educate the broader public about Islam and its Muslim civilizations, the ummah’s diversity and the Shi‘a faith of his own community not only by way of theological means, but also through Islam’s cultural heritage, its built environment and the values he aspired and championed for his community. The Ismaili Centre London embedded this vision in a very public way and not only in its architecture and mandate. It even included a public gallery in its early years hosting exhibitions focused on the cultures and arts of the Muslim world.

It was the vision of Aga Khan IV, with a generational outlook, that facilitated a double-move. To provide an architectural face of Islam for the West and a permanent structure of beauty that showcased the artistic traditions of Islam was only part of it. The building also announced to his own community its civic and religious value. It effectively instructed them to consider to plant their roots much deeper and wider than they already had. It also gave them a sense of pride and a place of physical beauty by which to express and internalize their faith and values.

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Likewise Canada also saw the opening of its first Ismaili Centre and purpose-built Jamatkhana in 1985, later that same year. Located in a suburb of Vancouver, the Burnaby Ismaili Centre was not as prominently located as its London sibling. In fact, to allay any fears that the space’s Muslim “identity” and purpose might cause alarm in the neighbourhood, a concession was made to sink the building and surround it with shrubbery so it couldn’t be as easily noticed from the major thoroughfare that passed by it.

Despite the steadfast stereotypes of Islam and Muslims that were still in circulation at the time, the building did go ahead and was ultimately opened by then-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, in the same way that Margaret Thatcher opened the London Ismaili Centre in Aga IV’s presence. The profile that these two buildings received validated the Aga Khan’s commitment to the countries in which his communities were living, to his vision of sharing Islam through its heritage and culture — in this case architecture — and to create a space for his own community that they could be proud of for decades and generations.

Jamatkhanas — large and small — continued to be built during the tenure of Aga Khan IV and connected members of each local community. Jamatkhanas also provided a space for the community to gather when they were travelling outside their home communities. It helped to facilitate a comradery, a sense of community and pride as Ismailis from around the world came in closer contact with each other. The importance of the Jamatkhana in the life of the community cannot and should not be underestimated. In addition to their role as the site for the spiritual and religious aspects of the jamat’s expression, their integration into the fabric of every part of the community — from its social and educational dimensions to its interface with members of other communities — has been remarkable.

Social Governance

Continuing the legacy of his grandfather, Aga Khan IV continued to embolden the administrative institutions who were tasked with the responsibility of looking after each jamat. These institutions, known as councils and peopled by appointed volunteers were given the mandate and responsibility to provide the necessary guidance, programs and supports to the Ismaili community. Each council effectively represented a jamat, a localized community, with its own needs and priorities. The council included a range of committees, boards and portfolios that would look after the social, religious, health, and educational needs of the community and oftentimes many others.

In addition to supporting the various Ismaili communities and becoming vehicles to enact, interpret and apply the Imam’s guidance, councils also developed human resource capacity, professionalized volunteers and gave the community an important responsibility — a mandate to look after its own. The giving of one’s time and expertise as a volunteer on the council was ultimately seen as a way to both serve the Imam and to serve the community. Being appointed a member of the council was understood as a privilege rather than a burden; although it came with a significant obligation, and often blessing.

Over time the councils became more complex in their scope and remits. In addition to social governance, they also took on the role of being conduits to communicate and enact the Imam’s wishes for his jamats. And through their reach, they were able to ensure the Imam’s concerns could be addressed and acted upon so that all members of his community regardless of their family background, economic lot or social status could reap the benefits and opportunities made available by the council’s work.

Aga Khan IV in his tenure expanded the councils to include jamats outside South Asia and its diasporic communities. As it became increasingly clear that it was the independent nation-state that would become the primary configuration of the new world order, council structures began to align with the countries that the communities were citizens of, often with councils preserved at regional and local levels, for ease of administration, communication and understanding the diverse needs and realities of Ismailis in different localities. It was from this vision that councils provided the necessary knowledge of the daily ground realities to the Imam while he provided the insight and wisdom to address the jamat’s concerns.

As new realities emerged and countries such as Bangladesh and Tajikistan gained independence, they too would eventually adopt administrative institutions like the councils. And as Ismailis migrated to different countries in Europe and to North America and Australia along with different regions in Africa and Asia, councils in their own rights emerged in these regions as well. By the time of Shah Karim’s death, every Ismaili community of size was represented by a Council with the exception of China.

During his Imamat, council leadership of Central Asia, Iran, Syria, the America, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa mingled with each other. This provided umpteen and regular opportunities to learn from each other, and as importantly, to work together and support each other. This was further trampolined through the use of contemporary technologies to meet and interact.

However, it wasn’t enough to simply establish councils, they had to be equipped with skilled volunteers who had the capacity and know-how in a range of knowledge-areas and fields. Collectively, they also had to have a sympathetic understand of the diverse economic, educational, health-related and aspirational needs of their communities. And so the next step was to professionalize the institutions, their structures and mandates so they could survive change as well as encourage excellence in every field of human endeavour and reiterate that the purpose of education was not just self-serving but could benefit others.

This emphasis on education had far-reaching effects on the the Ismaili community leading to the emergence of exceptional leaders, thinkers and influencers in almost every field and industry where the jamat lived. This emphasis facilitated men and women gaining access to knowledge as well as helping Ismailis to extend their education even further — whether formally or informally — past a single degree or diploma. Whether through war or in times of strive, this worldview facilitated a view of education as something whose benefit was for the common good — and whose reach could change families, communities and nations — a vision put in place by Aga Khan IV himself.

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While each council worked at its own pace, it was often emboldened with assistance from members of the Ismaili community from different parts of the world. In time, Ismailis served communities outside their own and helped to strengthen the collective jamat across borders. They also volunteered and worked in the portfolios of the Aga Khan Development Network or other institutions of the Ismaili Imamat.

By professionalizing their remits and widening their mandates, in time the councils became important tools to serve the Ismaili communities’ various needs in its diverse contexts. By delivering programmes and providing knowledge and guidance to the jamats in fields as diverse as health, economics, social welfare, religious education, youth issues, seniors’ concerns and technology, values formation, jamats guided by their councils were able to turn their knowledge outwards and provide counsel and programming geared at external audiences. Much of this was due in part with the parallel process of education and professionalization happening within the Ismaili community in the countries in which they lived. As the Council’s constituent membership could draw upon strong volunteer resources, its recipients were the ultimate beneficiaries of those programs.

And as councils began to draw upon best practices and aid each other across borders, the community’s own capacity and ability to serve also improved. The councils drew upon the good will, time and expertise of tens of thousands of volunteers spanning 22 countries or jurisdictions where the jamats were of significant numbers.

In time, where there was need for oversight and consistency, international bodies were formed. These included organizations such as the International Conciliation and Arbitration Board which offered mediation and dispute resolution services and value-based alternatives to costly court battles. It also included the Leaders International Forum, a consultative body made partly of Council Presidents from the various jurisdictions. Global Encounters, the most recent international body is dedicated to youth experiences and includes international events ranging from camps, heritage tours, sports tournaments and art showcases.

A Global Constitution and Framework for Ismaili Muslims

By 1986, the time had come to develop an international framework by which to articulate the purpose and value of the institutions as well as the relationship of the Ismaili Imam and Imamat to the jamat. This framework took the shape of a global constitution which governed Ismailis around the world, spelled out the various institutions at various levels, outlined their commitment to their countries-of-citizenship and residence while at the same time carving a space for their allegiance to the Ismaili Imam-of-the-Time and his successors. Before this period, disparate rules and regulations dealing with everything from personal law to religious matters operated independently in various jamats.

The scope and reach of the global constitutional instrument should not be underestimated. For the first time, there was a framework — theological, legal, administrative — global in scope, but local in practice that articulated the subjecthood and status of Ismaili Muslims wherever they lived.

The preamble of this constitution, a single page, attempted to give shape to their sentiments, attachments and belief to the Ismaili Imam-of-the-Time as well as the hereditary office of Imamat — the most distinctive feature of the Ismaili community. Over time, the tone and tenor of the preamble became the de facto language by which an Ismaili was and would be defined. In many ways it provided an outward articulation — in legal terms — of an inward commitment and relationship of the Ismaili adherent to his faith as a Shi‘a Muslim and adherence to the Ismaili path within it centred on Allah, the Prophet and the hereditary living Imam.

In doing so, the constitution also provided a legal and administrative framework to the national and regional bodies in which the jamat lived. It situated every Ismaili’s unambiguous status as a citizen of the countries in which they live while revealing their Shi’a Muslim faith outlining their religious and spiritual relationship to their Imam and their religious tenets.

In 1998, an updated version with a number of revisions was promulgated. These revisions primarily reflected the changing nature of the administrative complexity of the institutions of the Ismaili community including the introduction of new council jurisdictions, new programs and institutions.

On February 11, 2025, Aga Khan IV’s successor and present Imam of the Ismailis, Shah Rahim al-Hussaini updated the constitutional framework with a further revision reflecting the changing landscape of the world, his community and more recent developments and institutional changes — including situating the most far-reaching of The Diwan or Seat of the Ismaili Imamat.

The Diwan of the Ismaili Imamat

While Geneva was the base of the Aga Khan Development Network, Aga Khan IV spent most of his life headquartered in France where his Secretariat was also located. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and previous Imam, France seemed to offer the right conditions and was also conducive to a major stable for training and breeding horses, a familial and personal passion of Karim Aga Khan. From 1977 to 2018, Aiglemont or Eagle Mountain, a reference to the post-Fatimid stronghold of Alamut, located just outside Paris in Gouvieux served as the seat. In 2015, a landmark agreement was signed by the Government of Portugal and the Ismaili Imam, for the establishment of a new headquarters for the Imamat and its work.

The agreement formally recognized and gave status to the Ismaili Imamat as a hereditary and long-standing Muslim institution of leadership at whose helm was the Imam-of-the-Time. Previous to the Seat, the Government of Portugal had recognized a Delegation, or representative office of the Imamat and the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). A Delegation was also recognized and established in Canada in the same year — 2008.

With its formal recognition as a legal personality, the Ismaili Imamat was now able to engage with countries and other organizations through treaties, agreements and memoranda. It was able to send and receive diplomats and delegates in a similar way to that of the Holy See of the Catholic Church. And as a legal entity, it could now have representatives in the same way the British Monarchy has various royals deputed by its Head, representing the interests of the institution. Previously, many of these agreements were made through the Aga Khan Development Network. On July 11, 2018, this became a further reality with the formal establishment of the Seat of the Ismaili Imamat in Lisbon. Since that time, the Seat has hosted special guests, envoys, and national delegations and has also been able to send representatives elsewhere.

Through the recognition of this Muslim institution of moral leadership and spiritual authority by a sovereign state and affording it the diplomatic privileges that other sovereign states and international organizations, the Ismaili Imamat can now formalize and entrench its work globally in ways that it hasn’t been able to. While the Seat of the Ismaili Imamat has been previously acknowledged by the Ismaili community over its more than 1425-year history, this is the first time where it is recognized legally in its own right by others — not as a caliphate or through the work of subsidiary organizations such as the AKDN or even via the personal work and efforts of an individual Ismaili Imam. 

Academic Studies of Ismailism and Religious Education within the Ismaili Community

During the Aga Khan Case of 1866, the history and lineage of the Ismaili community was presented to the courts using the work, research and writing of European scholars. These works were crucial to the courts’ understanding of the Khojas, as belonging to a larger community-of-believers tracing their allegiance to a lineage of Shi‘a Ismaili Imams. While the research was monumental for its time, it was not without inaccuracies nor devoid of orientalist readings of the Muslim other. The research and its presentation, in keeping with its time, also privileged Arabic and Persian texts, separating it from the lived experiences of communities such as the Khojas. In doing so, it unwittingly both generated and drew upon biases and understandings of Islam and Ismailism — which did not always coincide with the articulation of Shi‘ism and Satpanth — Ismailism’s South Asian expression — in British India.

To address this, a number of research institutions, libraries and committees were set up under the patronage of Sultan Mahomed Shah, the 48th Ismaili Imam. Scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, were employed by a number of these institutions including the likes of Wladimir Ivanow, Jawad al-Muscati and others. Their research went on to inform Ismaili understandings of its own heritage and history and set the stage for The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), established in 1977 by Aga Khan IV. Almost half a century later, the IIS has produced two generations of Ismaili Muslim scholars, academics, teachers and other resources through its various diploma and degree programmes. These individuals, have in turn, contributed to the programmes, religious education and efforts of the council and self-understanding and knowledge that Ismailis have of their own intellectual and spiritual traditions in more than two dozen countries around the world. In addition, the largest collection of materials related to Ismaili Studies and related fields, covering all periods of its history, is housed at the IIS’ library in London including a significant collection of manuscripts, objects, photographs, oral histories and other primary materials.

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The IIS has also commissioned and supported hundreds of academic studies of Ismailism, Shi‘a Studies, Qur’anic studies and related fields. Many of these studies have been published as monographs, edited volumes and short studies. In addition, the IIS has sponsored and contributed to hundreds of conferences. Its broader research agenda has given both a voice and weight to Ismaili Studies, and arguably, even established it as a discipline of study. While the first decades of the IIS focused on unearthing the history, literature and doctrines of Ismailism — more recent studies have started to bring to light additional historical periods, the lives of communities from various regions, contemporary issues and Islam’s built environment. The IIS has also supported and continues to expend energy on enlivening the diversity and vibrancy of the rich interpretive communities that make up the Muslim ummah. 

Beyond its academic agenda, the IIS has prepared a global curriculum of educational materials for Ismaili children and youth, available in 10 languages, as well as supporting educational materials for adults. This curriculum, intimately guided by Aga Khan IV, standardizes the content for the global Ismaili community and helps to provide a consistent language and articulation of key concepts and ideas. It is founded on a civilizational approach to understanding Islam and provides frameworks beyond the theological to help understand the history, experiences and doctrinal development and its Ismaili expression throughout time and across history

Central to the delivery of the curriculum, at least in its secondary component, was the professional training of a cadre of teachers from around the world who would return to their home countries to teach the curriculum. Drawing upon educational best practices, creative pedagogies and contemporary approaches to learning, these teachers are part of a vision in which content is not only instilled amongst students, but is done so through a philosophy of education that also privileges critical inquiry and thinking skills, core values of the community and an appreciation of its history and diversity.

The result will likely be generations of Ismaili students — across the world — given access to a sophisticated approach to Islam and Ismailism whose secondary education is of a quality and substance comparable to other religious communities — and even to the secular school system. The fruits of these efforts remain to be seen. What we have seen so far suggests a much more engaged approach to religious life, a posture of critical enquiry and curiosity and a facility to better understand the values and faith of a revealed and practiced Islam and Ismailism throughout the globe.

Date posted: March 3, 2025.

NEXT: In Part 2, Rizwan Mawani will explore some of Aga Khan IV’s contributions beyond his own community through the work of the Aga Khan Development Network, the importance he placed on knowing the foundations and diversity of Islam, engagements with others in the Muslim ummah, and his wider contributions to deepening understandings of pluralism and cosmopolitanism.

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About the author: Rizwan Mawani has a background in Anthropology and Religious Studies and is the author of Beyond the Mosque: Diverse Places of Muslim Worship (I. B. Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2019). Rizwan has written for a wide variety of audiences, and his work has appeared in academic publications and encyclopedias, as well as in the Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post. He has also previously contributed a piece to this website titled The Aga Khans, the Ismaili Imamat and the British Crown. Rizwan was previously the Website Content Editor and Research Coordinator in the Department of Constituency Studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. His current research focuses on the past two centuries of global Ismaili history, focusing on the Jamatkhana and its development during that period.

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