His legacy, embodied in the Aga Khan Development Network, stands as a testament to pluralism and social upliftment, offering a model of progressive faith

World at large is suffering from acute polarisation based on religious fervour laced with extremism, supremacism and revisionism, across all faiths. This aggressive phenomenon when conflated with politics conjures a dangerous admixture of hatemongering, intolerance and ‘othering’.

Very rarely do such dark times lead to the positing of alternatives that bear progressive and reformist interpretations of faith, inter-faith dialogues, and celebration of the proverbial ‘other’. One relatively small sect (estimated globally at about 20 million) that defied this regressive trend has been the Ismaili Muslims, led by their spiritual leader, Aga Khan, an honorific title held by the hereditary Imam of the Nizari Ismaili Shias.

Recently the 49th Imam, Prince Shah Karim al Husseini, Aga Khan IV (revered as Mawlana Hazar Imam, by his adherents), passed away peacefully, leaving the world poorer with the loss of the rare ‘bridge’ in the divided world of faiths. He was a shining and rare example of how faith could be led to coexist in complete harmony with modernity, tolerance and large purposes in life. He defied so many stereotypes of religious leaders as he seamlessly connected the seemingly disconnected world of Ummah (Muslim world) with other faiths, the proverbial ‘East’ with the ‘West’, and even the sense of........

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