Aga Khan V

Prince Rahim al-Husseini (Persian: رحیم الحسینی;‎ born 12 October 1971), known as Aga Khan V (Persian: آقاخان پنجم, romanized: Āqā Khān Panjum), is a religious leader, businessman, and socialite best known as the 50th hereditary Imam of the Nizari Isma'ili Shia Muslims, as he succeeded the 1400-years old family's dynasty, linked by heredity to Muhammad through his daughter, Fatima, and the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, the first Imam. Today, the Ismailis are the only Shi'i community who, throughout history, have been led by a living and present hereditary Imam of direct descent from the Prophet.
He is the second of the Aga Khan IV's four children and succeeded his father as per his testament upon his death on 4 February 2025 at his palace in Lisbon. He is also known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazer Imam "the present Imam" by his followers. He is the fifth Nizari imam to hold the title Aga Khan.
Prince Rahim Aga Khan was born on 12 October 1971, in Geneva, Switzerland. He is the eldest son and second oldest of three children born to the Aga Khan IV (Prince Karim Al-Husseini) and his first wife Princess Salimah Aga Khan (née Sarah Croker-Poole), a British national.
Prince Rahim was educated in the United States, receiving his secondary education at Phillips Academy Andover, Massachusetts (1990), and graduating from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in comparative literature in 1995. In 2006 he completed graduate studies in management and administration in Barcelona, Spain, at the IESE Business School University of Navarra.
In 2010, he established the Aga Khan Brown Workshop series at the Watson Institute.
Based in Geneva, Switzerland Prince Rahim has been actively involved for many years in the governance of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), where as of 2020 he chaired the AKDN Environment and Climate Committee.
As of 2019, Prince Rahim sat on either the Board or Executive Committee for several of the AKDN's agencies and affiliated structures, including the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, and the Aga Khan University Foundation.
Prince Rahim travels regularly to oversee programs and other projects of the Aga Khan Development Network.
Following the death of the Aga Khan IV, on 4 February 2025, Prince Rahim was named the fifth Aga Khan and the 50th hereditary imam of Nizari Isma'ilism, as prescribed in his father's will. His formal accession ceremony was held on 11 February 2025.
Prince Rahim married Kendra Irene Spears on 31 August 2013 in Geneva. They have two children: Prince Irfan (b. 11 April 2015) and Prince Sinan (b. 2 January 2017). In 2019, he bought a house in Unstad in Vestvågøy Municipality, Norway. The couple divorced in February 2022.
The titles Prince and Princess are used by the Aga Khans and their children by virtue of their descent from Shah Fath Ali Shah of the Persian Qajar dynasty. The title was officially recognised by the British government in 1938.
Author Farhad Daftary wrote of how the honorific title Aga Khan (from Agha and Khan) was first given to Hasan Ali Shah (The Aga Khan I) at the age of thirteen when he as the young Imam with his mother decided to go to the Qajar court in Tehran to obtain justice upon his father's death and was eventually successful. "At the same time, the Qajar monarch bestowed on him the honorific title (laqab) of Agha Khan (also transcribed as Aqa Khan), meaning lord and master...in due course simplified in Europe to Aga Khan". Daftary additionally commented, "The title of Agha Khan remained hereditary amongst his successors."
The style of His Highness was formally granted to the Aga Khan V by King Charles III on 10 February 2025. In accordance with long-standing tradition of the Ismaili Imams with the British Monarch and, to mark the accession of Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini Aga Khan as the fiftieth hereditary Imam of the Shi’a Ismaili Muslim community. Spoken style (second person, e.g. "His Highness" or "Your Highness")