Prince Shah Rahim al-Hussaini (; born 12 October 1971), known as the Aga Khan V (), is a religious leader, philanthropist, and businessman. He is the 50th hereditary Imam of the Shia Nizari Isma'ili Muslims. The Qasimi Nizari Ismailis maintain that they are the only ShiâÂÂi group today led by a living, present, hereditary Imam.
He is the second of four children of Shah Karim al-Husseini, who went by the title Aga Khan IV, and succeeded as the Nizari Imam following his father's death on 4 February 2025. He is the fifth person in the family to hold the title Aga Khan. Upon assuming the Imamate, he inherited his father's estate, which had been valued at over US$13.3 billion by Vanity Fair in 2013.
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 Shah Karim al-Husseini (Aga Khan IV) and his first wife Salimah Aga Khan (née Sarah Croker-Poole), a British national.
Rahim was educated in the United States, receiving his secondary education at Phillips Academy Andover, Massachusetts from which he graduated in 1990, before 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.
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, Rahim has been involved for many years in the governance of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), where he chaired the AKDN Environment and Climate Committee.
In 2019, Rahim sat on either the Board or Executive Committee for several of AKDN agencies and affiliated structures, including the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, and the Aga Khan University Foundation.
In 2010, he established the Aga Khan Brown Workshop series at the Watson Institute.
Shah Rahim al-Hussaini, who had been designated successor by his father, was publicly announced as the 50th Imam following his father's death on 4 February 2025. The announcement took place after the reading of Shah Karim al-HusseiniâÂÂs will at the Ismaili Centre in Lisbon. According to Nizari Ismaili tradition, leadership passes through designation by the previous Imam.
Rahim married Kendra Irene Spears on 31 August 2013 in Geneva. They have two children: Irfan (b. 11 April 2015) and Sinan (b. 2 January 2017). In 2019, he bought a house in Unstad in VestvÃÂ¥gøy Municipality, Norway. The couple divorced in February 2022.
The titles Prince and Princess are claimed by the Aga Khans and their children by virtue of their descent from Fath-Ali Shah of the Iranian Turkic Qajar dynasty. The title was officially recognised by the British government in 1938.
Scholar 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 46th Imam, went with his mother to the Qajar court in Tehran to successfully obtain justice for his slain father, Shah Khalil Allah III, as those involved in the murder were punished. "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." Daftary additionally commented, "The title of Agha Khan remained hereditary amongst his successors." Fath-Ali Shah also gave his daughter, Princess Sarv-i-Jahan Khanum, in marriage to the young Imam.
The style of His Highness was granted to Rahim by King Charles III on 10 February 2025.
Shah Rahim al-Hussaini Aga Khan's patriline is the line from which he is descended father to son.