“It came as a bit of a shock, and I don’t think he really felt ready for it,” an associate says. As it turned out, his playboy father, Prince Aly Khan, was deemed unsuited to the role (marriage to the Hollywood star Rita Hayworth may have had something to do with it), and the honour, or burden, fell to Karim when he was only 20, and an economics student at Harvard. Their imams, or spiritual leaders – regarded as direct descendants from Mohammed – have carried the hereditary title Aga Khan since the Shah of Iran first conferred it on the 46th Imam in the 19th century.When the present Aga Khan was born in Geneva in 1937 – as plain Prince Karim – he might not have expected to inherit the supreme title, then held by his grandfather, until he was well into adulthood. The second largest Shia community is comprised of the Ismaili Muslims, for centuries noted for their contribution to Islamic thought and culture.

Islam, the religion based on the word of God as handed down to the prophet Mohammed, has two main divisions – Sunnism and Shiism. But at the other extreme, the name evoked is George Soros, the man whose financial instincts help to shape entire economies.To understand who the Aga Khan is – more to the point, why he is – requires a brief excursion into Islamic history. Comparisons have been made with the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism, and with the Pope. You could spend a long time trying to reconcile all these roles.Even those well versed in global hierarchies have difficulty explaining exactly who the Aga Khan is, the significance of his status, or how he manages to straddle both religious and secular worlds with such apparent ease.

Businessman, sportsman, jet-setter, philanthropist, and quasi-diplomat with an indeterminate role in the current crisis between Islam and the West, he is doted on by some 15 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide who are also understood to be one of the main sources of his incalculable wealth. It becomes a matter of honour, and he doesn’t like it infringed.”As a fixture in the gossip columns, a byword for discreet opulence, and with the added frisson of a touch of the divine, the Aga Khan seems to exist in another realm altogether – self-styled citizen of the world, not quite royal but more than human, a man who is everywhere but comes from nowhere. “If he makes his mind up about something he will be very firm He likes things his own way. Not a man to shrug off such experiences, the Aga Khan has announced that his priceless collection of paintings and artefacts – which he planned to house on a site owned by King’s College, part of London University, until it refused to sell to him – will now find a home in Toronto, just as on the earlier occasion he took all his horses out of Britain in protest, and only recently returned them.”There is a lot of pride there,” a long-time associate says. Such is the case with the Aga Khan, who for the second time in 13 years has reacted to a perceived slight by turning his back on Britain and looking elsewhere for a welcome.
There is a clear parallel between what happened last week when the Aga Khan lost out in his attempt to set up a London centre for his Islamic art collection and an episode in 1989 when he became embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Jockey Club after two of his horses failed dope tests.

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