Translated from French via Arts & Spectacles
An Imam except standard
Laura-Julie Perreault
The Press
It was midnight minus when the telephone sounded to the 24, walk Sussex, one evening of the summer 1972. The despot Idi Amin Dada had decided to expel 50.000 Indo-Pakistani of Uganda. The latter did not have nowhere where to go until Pierre Elliott Trudeau takes the call of Aga Khan.
Spiritual chief of the community ismaélienne, a branch of Islam Shiite, the prince and Imam asked Trudeau to accept the refugees. In exchange, it made him a promise. “He said to my father whom even if that represented several thousands of people, the latter would never represent a burden for Canada”, told with the Press Alexandre Trudeau, one of wire of the ex-first minister.
This telephone call, which showed an agreement, was the beginning of a friendship between the two men. With Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter, Aga Khan was one of the guests of honor to the funeral of Mr. Trudeau.
It was also the first step of the establishment of a community ismaélienne in Canada. Today, it counts 100.000 hearts in Canada, including 6000 in Quebec.
The Québécois ismaéliens all are awaited today at the Uniprix stage of the Jarry park to underline jubilée of gold of Aga Khan. Celebrations will take place also in the 25 countries where the ismaéliens are present. Aga Khan himself will celebrate in his stronghold, in Aiglemont in France.
Imam since 50 years
It is on July 11, 1957 that prince Karim, then old of 20 years and student in Harvard, succeeded his grandfather Aga Khan III. While reaching under Imam, it became responsible for 15 million people in the world. “For us, the Imam does not have only one spiritual function. It is also responsible for the material wellbeing of the community”, explains Amir Karim, a representative of the community ismaélienne in Canada.
The phone call of 1972 with the Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau thus fell under the divine responsibility of Aga Khan, descendant of Mahomet by the line of Fatima, the girl of the prophet and her husband, Ali; the economic integration of its flocks in Canada too.
This first experiment having been conclusive, Quebec did not hesitate to open the arms with more than 5000 other refugees ismaéliens in 1992. The latter then fled Afghanistan of the talibans and the ex-USSR in full change.
Businesses, philanthropy and Islam
During the first half-century of its reign, Aga Khan was made known as much for its exploits in businesses (it is with the head of one of largest fortunes of the world), its incomparable collection of horses of race, its life jet set and its projects of development. Religious man who carries with balance the complete ones of silk, it often repeated in interview that businesses, philanthropy and Islam do good housework.
In Afghanistan, for example, it put on its hat of businessmen to found the largest company of cellular telephones, Roshan, and to open a hotel five stars, Serena. At the same time, in Imam philanthropist, it injected million in the restoration of the legendary garden of Babour in Kabul, in the construction of schools and the opening of hospital and private clinics.
The countries in crisis do not benefit only of Aga Khan. Canada is one of the large building sites of its foundation. Within the framework of sound jubilée, the spiritual chief announced the opening of the world Center of pluralism in the old buildings of the national Museum of the war in Ottawa. The Imam also builds in the federal capital a building which will shelter the activities of the Canadian community ismaélienne and those of the Network of development Aga Khan. Moreover, the prince will be of passage to the country in the next year to give the blow of sending to the construction of an Islamic museum of art in Toronto.
Ismailimail 