The Muslims loved by the West are usually the ones most hated by Muslims — such as Salman Rushdie, the Shah of Iran, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Muslims most quoted by the media — and courted by right-wing politicians, including the Stephen Harper Conservatives — are those who attack Muslims and Islam.

Conversely, many parts of the Muslim world cheer the most extreme anti-western voices.

The Aga Khan strides in between those extremes.

He is respected in the West as well as in the Muslim world. He speaks ill of neither. He sings the virtues of both, even while condemning Rushdie for gratuitously insulting the Prophet Muhammad. He has also berated the West’s “stunning lack of knowledge” about Islam that lets Islamophobe ignoramuses dictate public discourse disproportionately.

He particularly likes Canada, especially multiculturalism’s cardinal principle of conferring the dignity of equality on all citizens.

Canadians, in turn, like him, even Harper, who has invited the Aga Khan to address Parliament today — a rare honour given only a few, such as Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.

The Aga Khan, 76, is the imam of the Ismaili Muslims, a tiny minority within the Shiite minority among the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, an overwhelming majority of whom are Sunnis.

The divisions are political and theological. Prophet Muhammad had no sons and when he died in 632 A.D., his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib was passed over and became only the fourth caliph. For Shiites — literally, the partisans of Ali — this political skulduggery was a usurpation of the Prophet’s lineage, which continues only through Ali, their first imam.

The Shiites themselves were to split over his descendants. Some believe there were seven imams but most Shiites believe there were 12 imams. The Seveners are the Ismailis, named after the seventh imam, Ismail. The Twelvers constitute the majority in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain; they are almost half the population of Yemen and the largest religious group in Lebanon. They believe their last imam did not die but went into ghaeba, a transcendent realm from whence he would return one day. In the meantime, they must be guided by ayatollahs. The Ismailis, however, are led by a Hazar (present) Imam, a descendent of Ismail.

By contrast, the Sunnis — followers of the sunna, the teachings and deeds of the Prophet — believe in a more direct, individual relationship with God, with no intercessors.

By the 19th century, the 45th Ismaili imam was in Persia, married to the daughter of the ruler, and had the title of Aga Khan (the great chief). But he had a falling out with the ruler and in 1837 crossed over into neighbouring Baluchistan and Sindh, then part of British India, where there were already Ismaili converts. The Aga Khan and his cavalry helped the British in the First Afghan War and also in defeating rebels in Sindh.

(The Aga’s old mud villa by the Indus River, in the interior of Sindh, is still standing, at least was when I visited it in 1995).

The Aga was given a pension by the British and later the title of His Highness. In 1841, he moved south to Mumbai, where he established the Ismaili headquarters. He died in 1881 and was succeeded by his son who died within four years and was succeeded by his 8-year-old son, Sultan Mohammed. Aga Khan III was to become famous for his mediatory role between the British and the Indians. For the Ismailis, his great contribution was emphasizing modern education, including for women.

When he died in 1957, he bypassed his two sons, including the playboy Aly, and named his grandson, the Harvard-educated Karim, then 20, as his successor.

Aga Khan IV has since transformed the imamate as well as his community of 14 million, spread over Central and South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Persian Gulf, Syria and the West, including 90,000 in Canada.

From Geneva, he runs a worldwide non-profit development network of 300 institutions, which run schools, universities, hospitals and businesses worldwide, especially in developing countries, including Afghanistan. His is the world’s largest non-governmental development agency, one in which Canada co-operates with about $22 million a year.

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To his people, he provides both spiritual and worldly guidance and, in return, commands near-total loyalty and dedication, including the tithe of time and voluntary service. Nurjehan Mawani, former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board, is serving the Aga Khan network in Afghanistan. Firoz Rasul, former head of Ballard Power Systems, is president of the Aga Khan University in Pakistan. Toronto businessman Aziz Bhaloo does development work in Kenya.

In Canada, the Aga Khan has established a Global Centre for Pluralism, to distil the Canadian wisdom on pluralism and export it to the world, and he is developing an 18-acre site at Wynford Dr., visible west of the Don Valley Parkway, for a museum, an Ismaili centre and a park.

He was named honorary companion of the Order of Canada in 2005 and honorary Canadian citizen in 2009.

He is “perhaps the only person in the world to whom everyone listens,” says former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, who sits on the board of his pluralism centre. Harper calls him a “beacon of humanitarianism, of pluralism and tolerance throughout the world.”