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by Lamia Radi
CAIRO, July 2 (AFP) - The widow of Aga Khan III, who died Saturday, will be buried next to her husband in southern Egypt on whose grave she had a red rose placed every day since he died 43 years ago, officials said here Sunday. Begum Om Habibeh, whose ritual gave her the name "Red Rose" among the people of the Nile town of Aswan where she will be laid to rest Tuesday, was the fourth wife of the legendarily rich Sultan Mohamed Shah Aga Khan. He was the 48th Imam or spiritual leader of the Shiite Ismaili Muslims and grandfather of the current Aga Khan. Since her husband's death in 1957, the people of Aswan could see her climbing the hill to his white marble tomb with the flower in her hand to place on the tomb of the man with whom she spent 16 years of her life. Her gardener continued the custom when she was abroad and after illness prevented her at age 91 from visiting the tomb behind the Nubian style villa Nur al-Salam (Light of Peace) where the couple used to pass the winter. According to her wish, Om Habibeh will be laid beside her husband in the solid marble Fatimid Islamic style tomb in Aswan, 930 kilometers (580 miles) south of Cairo, on whose walls she had her husband's name and her own name inscribed, leaving a space for the date of her death. A representative of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will attend the funeral, officials were quoted as telling the state-owned news agency MENA. Thousands of Ismailis were due to attend the ceremony, according to MENA, a report that was not possible to confirm. The begum, a former Miss France, was born Yvette Blanche Labrousse in February 1906 in Sete, southern France, and married Aga Khan III in Switzerland in October 1944, becoming his fourth and last wife. They had no children. She died Saturday at Cannet in southern France at age 94. Mohamed Shah Aga Khan, an adviser to the monarchs of Britain, was considered the richest man in the world and was weighed in diamonds on his diamond jubilee in 1945. Aga Khan is the honorific title of the spiritual leaders of the Nizari Ismailis, a Muslim Shiite sect with around 15 million followers in Pakistan, India, east Africa and Syria. The son of Aga Khan III, who died before him, married the American actress Rita Hayworth. |
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