The Aga Khan's will passed over his son Aly Khan and made his 20-year-old grandson imam

Aga Khan III led the Nizari Ismaili Muslims for 72 years and died at Versoix on 11 July 1957. His son, Prince Aly Khan, owned stud farms in France and Ireland, served in the French Foreign Legion and the British Army in the Second World War, and was married to the actress Rita Hayworth from 1949 to 1953. The will named "my grandson Karim, the son of my son Aly Salomone Khan." It cited "the discovery of atomic science" and said the community should be led by a young man "brought up in the midst of the new age" who would "bring a new outlook on life to his office of Imam." Karim, 20, was studying at Harvard. Friends told Time that Aly called it "the worst blow he had received since his mother died." Aly became Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations in 1958. Time put his fortune at an estimated $800 million, with ten stud farms and stables, a Paris mansion, a Riviera chateau and other villas. In May 1960, near Saint-Cloud outside Paris, he took the wheel of his Lancia from his chauffeur, a Simca on the wrong side of the road hit it, and he died of a broken neck at 48. He was buried at his Riviera chateau and moved to Salamiyah, Syria, in 1972^†. Aga Khan III was reburied at Aswan, Egypt, in 1959^†. Karim died in Lisbon on 4 February 2025. His will, unsealed on 5 February, named his son Rahim the 50th imam.