When Pakistan’s Senate rose on Friday to honour the Aga Khan family, it was doing more than greeting Prince Rahim al-Hussaini Aga Khan V on his first official visit since becoming the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim community. It was acknowledging a relationship that has lived through Pakistan’s politics, disasters and quiet acts of service.

The reception has been fittingly warm. The prime minister has spoken of expanding cooperation with the Aga Khan Development Network in climate-vulnerable northern Pakistan. The president has honoured the family’s contribution to healthcare, education, heritage conservation, climate resilience and community development. Politicians continue to pay tribute to decades of service rendered without discrimination of faith, ethnicity, colour or creed.

However, as tributes flow through the capital, I can’t help but think of thousands of living rooms and the lives quietly shaped by a family which never sought political power in Pakistan yet ended up building some of its most cherished institutions.

In climate-vulnerable mountain valleys where government services appear late, the network’s presence meant that roads were cleared, children were vaccinated, and families were not forced to choose between survival and debt.

In climate-vulnerable mountain valleys where government services appear late, the network’s presence meant that roads were cleared, children were vaccinated, and families were not forced to choose between survival and debt.

The relationship is older than Pakistan itself. Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, heir to an 800-year-old Ismaili Imamate, became the first permanent president of the All-India Muslim League in 1906 and argued for Muslim representation in a Hindu-dominated independence movement. At the 1906 Simla deputation, he pressed the British for separate electorates, setting the stage for later constitutional debates. His support for education at Aligarh transformed the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College into Aligarh Muslim University, producing many of the scholars who later led the Pakistan movement. At the Round Table conferences in London (1930-32), he chaired Muslim delegations and advocated constitutional safeguards alongside Mohammad Ali........

© Daily Times