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                The Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims affirm the Shahadah 'La- ilaha illa-llah, Muhammadur Rasulu-llah'. the Tawhid  therein and that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Salla-llahu alayhiwa-sallam) is the last and final Prophet of Allah. Islam, as revealed in the Holy Quran, is the final message of Allah to mankind, and is universal and eternal. The  Holy Prophet (S.A.S.) through the divine revelation from Allah prescribed rules governing spiritual and temporal matters.
 
                In accordance with Shia doctrine, tradition, and interpretation of history, the Holy Prophet (S.A.S.) designated and appointed his cousin and son-in-law Hazrat Mawlana Ali Amiru-l-Mu'minin (Alayhi-s-salam), to be the first  Imam to continue the Ta'wil and Ta'lim of Allah's final message and to guide the murids, and proclaimed that the Imamat should continue by heredity through Hazrat Mawlana Ali (A.S.) and his own daughter Hazrat Bibi Fatimat-az-Zahra, Khatun-i-Jannat (Alayha-s-salam). In the holy Quran the family of the Prophet (S.A.S.) has been declared pure, and Prophet Muhammad at the historical incident known as the Mubahila, he identified these to be Hazrat Ali, Bibi Fatima and their children Hazrat Hassan and Hazrat Hussein - the Panj Tan Paak.

               Ali's descendants, known as the Fatimids, founded Cairo in the tenth century, making it their capital. Their  200-year-long dynasty marked one of the great flowerings of Islamic culture, due in part to its patronage of  scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, jurists, artists, and poets-the work of these brilliant thinkers influencing  Europe's scholars and intellectuals for centuries. Bent on territorial expansion, the Fatimids brought all of North  Africa, Syria, and Sicily under Islamic control. But they were overthrown in the twelfth century by Saladin, the great Muslim commander who had defeated the Crusaders, then waging their own "jihad" for Jerusalem. The Ismailis regrouped in Persia, flourishing until the thirteenth century, when their lands were overrun by the Moguls. Today, 20 million faithful are scattered throughout the Muslim world, in Asia (particularly India and Pakistan), North and East Africa, and the Middle East; there are communities in the West as well.

               Since the days of the Fatimids, Ismaili Imams have encouraged intellectual freedom and tolerance. For them, like the Aga Khan today, the Koran and its teachings were open to each individual's interpretation and could never be dictated. The Ismaili Imamat neither defines spiritual not political practice. These are up to the individual. All the Aga Khan asks is that Ismailis believe in Allah and be good citizens of their countries.
 

               While the Ismailis are a Shia sect, they are entirely different from Iran's fundamentalist, U.S.-hating Shi'ites. Their  hostility arises not so much from their Muslim faith, but from its translation into nationalist politics. For at the crux of Islam is the conviction that Din and Dunya (Faith and World) are inextricably linked; thus, all Islamic political and social action should be in accordance with the ethical framework of the Koran. For the Ismailis, this is an  ideal world scenario. But for the fundamentalist Shi'ites, it is a real world goal, and Western materialism and its illicit freedoms threaten its achievement. Islam then is not necessarily antidemocratic, nor antagonistic to either  Judaism or Christianity. In fact, Abraham is considered one of Allah's prophets, as is Jesus.
 

               Prince Karim assumed the Imamat when he was a 20-year-old undergraduate at Harvard in 1957, after the death  of his grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, a respected Indian statesman and former president of  the League of Nations. His father, Prince Aly Khan, was Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, though  he's probably better known as the flamboyant playboy who married Rita Hayworth; the Aga Khan's mother was  the daughter of an English lord. His own ex-wife was a British model, and his three children have all been  educated in the United States. Attempting to enhance the status of women, the Aga Khan often travels in the Muslim world with his Harvard-educated daughter, Zahra, who works on social development issues for the Imamat. Although deeply involved with Ismaili communities throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, he makes his home in an eighteenth-century chateau in Chantilly, France. A man who belongs to both the East and West, the Aga Khan defies just about every Western stereotype of an Islamic religious leader.