Alberta NDP Leader Nenshi among those mourning Aga Khan’s death​on February 5, 2025 at 9:30 pm

As with many Ismaili Muslims, Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has felt the Aga Khan’s presence long before meeting him.

Nenshi said he has often navigated life using the moral compass of the principles of tolerance, pluralism and community that the Aga Khan stood for.

So when Nenshi finally had the chance to meet the spiritual leader, his usual volubility dissolved into a state of bewilderment.

“Every time I met him, I ended up saying something foolish in the few seconds that I had with him, instead of something deeply profound,” Nenshi said.

He still remembers the first time he saw the Aga Khan in Government House in Edmonton.

“I was quite nervous, and I remember I was wearing my dad’s 1974 watch, and I looked down at the watch, and kind of took a deep breath and got inspiration from my father, who had recently passed at that time, and just sort of said to him a little bit about my family,” Nenshi said.

Nenshi thanked the Aga Khan for helping Ugandan refugees like his parents in the early 1970s to find refuge in Canada.

“He said to me something along the lines of, ‘Not only did we choose Canada because of its pluralism, but we have worked hard to build that pluralism so that Canada can be an example for the world,’” Nenshi said.

“And that has always stuck with me — that we have a very special role to play as Canadians in showing the world how people of different faiths can live purposeful lives together.”

Aga Khan IV died on Tuesday at the age of 88. He had held the spiritual leadership since he was 20.

Considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and treated as a head of state, he was a student at Harvard University in 1957 when his grandfather named him as successor to lead the diaspora of Shia Ismaili Muslims, passing over his playboy father and declaring his followers should be led by a young man “who has been brought up in the midst of the new age.”

Aga Khan IV returned to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after his grandfather, Aga Khan III, became ill. Soon, his ailing grandfather unexpectedly made his grandson heir to the family’s 1,300-year dynasty as leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect. Two weeks later, Queen Elizabeth bestowed on him the title of “His Highness”.

The Aga Khan returned to school 18 months later with an entourage and a deep sense of responsibility.

“I was an undergraduate who knew what his work for the rest of his life was going to be,” he said in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair magazine. “I don’t think anyone in my situation would have been prepared.”