At a ceremony in Porto Cervo on the evening of Thursday, 9 July, local officials formally named the piazza, or town square, in honour of Mawlana Shah Karim. A commemorative sculpture was also unveiled to acknowledge his pioneering work to develop the surrounding area in Sardinia into a thriving coastal region.
Mawlana Hazar Imam was in attendance along with Prince Amyn and Princes Irfan and Sinan. In his remarks, which he delivered partly in Italian, Hazar Imam thanked local officials for the posthumous honour bestowed upon his father.
“A piazza is a place of meeting, memory, and community,” he said. “To associate my father’s name with this one places his memory within Porto Cervo — among the people, the architecture, the landscape and the sea he loved so deeply. My family and I are profoundly grateful for this moving tribute.”
When the late Imam first visited in the early 1960s, the region of Monti di Mola in Sardinia was a barren landscape with no roads or electricity. With his support and guidance, it was transformed into La Costa Smeralda — the Emerald Coast — using local materials while preserving its natural heritage.
The project, Hazar Imam explained, “allowed him to bring together many of the things he cared about deeply: architecture, craftsmanship, landscape, beauty and long-term development.”
Arzachena Mayor Roberto Ragnedda recalled the late Imam’s first visit to the region and his promotion of an architectural approach designed to blend into the landscape rather than dominate it.
“Prince Karim,” he said, “began to love it and to see a prosperous and sustainable future for this corner of land — a future far removed from factories, industry, and the exploitation of raw materials. [He] had the foresight to understand that local identity and natural heritage could become the foundations of shared development.”
“The naming of this square and the unveiling of the commemorative sculpture are, therefore, acts of sincere gratitude.” The work of art, he added, “reflects the philosophy of the Founder. It does not impose itself in a monumental sense, but rather converses with the place.”
Mayor Ragnedda also announced that Hazar Imam is to be granted honorary citizenship of Arzachena, the same privilege bestowed on his father in 1965. La Costa Smeralda grew to become a premier tourist destination, with restaurants, hotels, and sporting facilities, all while adhering to strict architectural standards. A planning committee chaired by Mawlana Shah Karim helped develop the local infrastructure to attract visitors and uplift the leisure industry. They stipulated that new buildings should be kept low so as to blend into the existing landscape.
“Today we are inaugurating a plaza and a sculpture, but above all we are entrusting to the collective memory, a name and a vision that have profoundly shaped the history of contemporary Sardinia,” said Alessandra Todde, President of the autonomous region of Sardinia. She also noted the late Imam’s positive influence beyond the coastal architecture.
“His legacy also consists of a culture of entrepreneurship, innovation, investment, employment, and confidence in the potential of our island. It is a legacy that has involved entire generations of workers, entrepreneurs, professionals, and young people who have found new opportunities thanks to that vision.”
Over the years, the region has continued to pioneer sustainable ways to grow, switching to renewable energy, eliminating single-use plastics, and installing recycling stations. It has also experimented with solutions to sea pollution and helped to raise awareness of the challenges facing marine life. The project is well-regarded as the first example of environmentally conscious tourism development in the Mediterranean.
In closing, Hazar Imam expressed gratitude to the local officials, artists, and all those who have kept his father’s memory with such warmth.
“He would have been deeply moved by this honour. I know he would also have wanted this moment to be about the future: caring for this place with the same imagination, discipline, and sense of stewardship that inspired its creation.”
Additional photos at The.Ismaili
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The bond between Prince Karim Aga Khan IV and the Costa Smeralda began in the late 1950s, when the entrepreneur and philanthropist first came into contact with Sardinia’s northeastern coast.The Prince, 49th Imam of the Ismaili Muslims, applied here an approach he had already tested elsewhere: long-term investment, the creation of essential infrastructure, and the involvement of high-level architectural expertise to avoid invasive interventions. As a result, his presence in Gallura did not amount to a simple real estate operation, but to a complex territorial project.
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