Her Highness The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III welcomes actress Shirley MacLaine to her villa Yakymour in Le Cannet, during the Cannes Film Festival of 1967.
Yakymour
Ex-Sadruddin Aga Khan Aston Martin DB5 for sale
The Aston Martin DB5 is an icon and a perfect example of superlative design – by Italian coachbuilder Touring. Hexagon Classics is proud to offer for sale a stunning DB5, previously owned by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan and and presented in fully restored condition.
Back in the day, the DB5 appealed to Hollywood actors, business magnates, and royalty. Arguably the most famous and loved Aston Martin ever made, the DB5 is one of the most desirable classic cars in the world. Over the years, it has made several starring roles in movies, its screen debut being in the James Bond film Goldfinger.
Supplied new on 7th February 1964 by official Aston Martin agents Mill Car Garages of County Durham to Levey’s Wallpaper Stores of Walstead, Northumberland, the DB5 at Hexagon Classics was ordered by a Mr D Levey who specified the colour of Goodwood Green.
In 1986 chassis number DB5/1406/4 was bought by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan for his personal use in Switzerland. At the point of export, His Highness commissioned a detailed restoration. The Aga Khan held ownership of the DB5 until February 1998 when he sold it to another Geneva resident who kept the vehicle for some 16 years until it was acquired by Hexagon Classics in 2015.
Since then, it has undergone a complete restoration that has included a full repaint in the originally manufactured colour of Goodwood Green and an interior re-trim in the original colour option of Connolly Leather Natural Hide. This re-trim has also included new, period-correct Beige Wilton carpets.
Under the skin, the DB5’s 4.0-litre straight-six-cylinder engine has had a mechanical refurbishment completed by Aston Martin specialists, Pugsley & Lewis Ltd, according to Hexagon. Quite what this refurbishment entails hasn’t been detailed, but we are assured that it is now capable of running on unleaded fuel (how modern!), and it also gets a new clutch, some new Avon Radial tyres, and new 15in Chromium wire wheels.
Further features include an engine compartment & vehicle underside prepared to concours standards. Which means it’s probably got somewhere close to the 282bhp and 280lb ft of torque Aston claimed it had in 1964. So equipped, it could deal with the 0-60mph sprint in 7.1secs, and rock on to a top speed of 142mph. But it’d be rude to do it in a car of such grandeur.
Accompanying this car is a comprehensive service history file which includes the Factory Build Sheet and all works invoices detailing the 1986 restoration and those just completed. The documentation also includes a 1964 Aston Martin Factory Brochure, Aston Martin DB5 Owner’s Manual and original factory jack among other items. The car will be sold with a full MOT and 12-month warranty.
This is, without doub,t one of the finest Aston Martin DB5s currently on sale anywhere in the world. Not only has it been the subject of a meticulous restoration but it also has a very prestigious previous owner. DB5s in such condition and with such provenance are very rare indeed. This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase an outstanding example of a true British motoring icon.
Paul Michaels, chairman of Hexagon Classics
But as it’s often the case with classic cars from this era, DB5s aren’t cheap at all. This specimen is priced at £799,995, a bundle of pounds sterling that translates to just over $1 million at current exchange rates. It’s a very beautiful thing, though; miles prettier than Aston’s present-day model.
Sadruddin Aga Khan’s former Aston Martin DB5 is available to view now at Hexagon Classics’ flagship showroom in north London. Come into the beautiful world of Hexagon Classics.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Curd Jürgens
During the Third Reich, Munich was slated to get another opera house. With Clemens Krauss, who served in the joint capacity of general manager and general music director, Munich was able to develop even further despite oppression and war. Clemens Krauss supplied highlights both in his career and in the history of the National Theatre with the world premières of three works by his friend Richard Strauss, three fantastic anachronisms which nevertheless became artistic reality: Friedenstag in 1938, Verklungene Feste in 1941, and Capriccio in 1942. During an Allied bombardment in the night of October 3 / 4, the National Theatre was turned into an eerie ruin. Further damage and destruction as well as the proclamation of ‘total war’ silenced the State Opera for a while.
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan at the Gala Premiere of the reconstructed München Opera House, Germany, with good friends Curd Jürgens and his wife Simone Bicheron, November 23, 1963. (pictures by C.P.H. van Heulen) (pictures from private collection).
The arduous tasks of restoring the theatre to life were assumed by General Manager Georg Hartmann and his General Music Director Georg Solti. After they had successfully introduced works by Paul Hindemith and Heinrich Sutermeister, and Werner Egk had established himself in 1948 with his Faust ballet Abraxas, Hartmann and Solti put on the first post-war Munich Opera Festival in 1950, creating on a firm foundation to pass on to their successors.
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
Rudolf Hartmann served as general manager for fifteen years from 1952 to 1967, working side-by-side with general music directors Rudolf Kempe, Ferenc Fricsay and Joseph Keilberth. Two significant events occurred during the Hartmann era: the return to the restored Cuvilliés Theatre with Le nozze di Figaro in 1958 and the reopening of the National Theatre on November 21, 1963. With the aid of the ‘Friends of the National Theatre’ it rose in old classicistic glory like a phoenix from the ashes in accordance the plans of Gerhard Graubner and Karl Fischer.
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and and Curd Jürgens
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Curd Jürgens
Her Highness Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan and Simone Bicheron wife of Curd Jürgens
Mata Salamat, The lady of Yakymour
Yvette Labrousse
Yvette ‘Yvonne’ Blanche Labrousse born in 1906, of a father who was a tramway driver and a town councillor for Le Cannet, and a mother who was a seamstress. Nothing in her modest upbringing told anything of the glorious destiny that was to be hers.
Today, 110 years ago, Yvette Labrousse was born Yvonne Blanch Labrousse in the small town of Sète, near Marseilles, France, on 15 February 1906. She was the daughter of Adrien Labrousse (October 25, 1874 – June 1, 1969) and Marie Brouet (December 26, 1870 – .. ) , a seamstress. When she was only six months old her family soon move to Cannes, where they lived in a flat in the Rue d’Antibes, and later on to Lyon where the young Yvette spent most of her childhood.
Yvette Labrousse
Yvette grew up tall, more than six feet, and vèry beautiful. Having stricktly raised, however, she showed no disposition to accept the film and modelling offers that cameher way, instead, she went to work with her mother, who was running a dress shop that time. She always told that her parents were very warm, kind and always openminded.
Yvette Labrousse
After being elected Miss Lyon in 1929, at the age of twenty-four, then Miss France in Paris in 1930, she joined the Miss Europe 1930 pageant in Paris, at the Paris Opera. The streets outside the hall were packed with people eager to see the beautiful participants from all over Europe… It was one of the most talked about events in the press.
Miss France, Yvette Labrousse, was always full of great story’s about ‘her time’ as Miss France. Talking about the girls, the fashion of that time, the make-up and the travels.
Yvette Labrousse, Paris, 1930’s
Yet Yvette Labrousse was no longer a provincial. As a beauty queen and a representatieve of France, she traveled to many countries around the world. She found herself particulary taken by Egypt and, in the late thirdies she moved to Egypt, she moved to Cairo and adopted the faith of Islam.
In Cairo, Yvette Labrousse met her future husband, the Sultan Aga Khan III, 48th Imam of the Nizari Shia Ismaili community, and they fell in love at first sight when they met at a royal dancing party in Egypt in 1938. They married thirteen months after the Aga Khan III and his third wife were divorcedby mutual consent, on 9 October 1944 in Switzerland.
Sir Sultan Mohamad Aga Khan III and Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan seated half-length portrait by Weinberg. Photograph signed and inscribed by Begum, “A souvenir – from an old friend – of the family Aga Khan”. Inscribed in the image, middle left and right. 8 1/2×6 1/2 inches; matted in original sterling silver frame bearing Khan’s emblem at top. Circa 1955
After her marriage she took the name of Om Habibeh (Little Mother of the Beloved) and became Begum, fully Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan. Her husband playfully nicknamed her ‘Yaky’, which was composed from the initials of ‘Yvette’, ‘Aga’ and ‘Khan’. In 1954, Om Habibeh was given the title of ‘Mata Salamat’, which literally means serene or peaceful mother. She was the foutyh woman in Islamic history with that title during last 13 centuries.
I have at last been granted the real and wonderful haven of finding in and with my wife a true union of mind and soul
Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah, Aga Khan III, in his Memoirs ‘World Enough & Time’, page 275
They settled in the Avenue Victoria villa at Le Cannet, in the hills above Cannes, on a hillside wich she had once looked on to from the flat in the Rue d’Antibes, for which planning permission applications had been submitted in 1937. They named it Yakymour: Y for Yvette, ak for Aga Khan, mour for amour. The French word for love. As is clear from such indications , the couple was very close and the two loved each other dearly.
Yakymour, Le Cannet, France
Within this property surrounded by parkland, Her Higness La Bégum used to assemble the members of the Cannes film festival jury, and many national and international movie stars. Some of them became friends for live. She wasn’t only Kees van Dongen’s muse, but with her husband’s encouragement, she also developed an active interest in painting and sculpture, herself becoming an accomplished artist and sculptor. She was also interested in the arts including classical music, opera and ballet.
I always appreciated beauty, but he (the Aga Khan) taught me how really to enjoy a lovely sunset, moonlight, to know the stars, the colours and scents of flowers, to like music, ballet and opera, to appreciate everything that is beautiful in life.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
She rarely left his side, and nursed him devotedly through the pains of old age until his death in 1957. But her duty was also a delight. She never ceased to be grateful for the manner in which he had widened her horizons, especially in music and in the arts. “Enjoy yourself”, he told her. “It’s later then you think”.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
Shortly before his death, the Aga Khan III chose a location on the West Bank of the Nile as his final resting place. The location was highly symbolic, for centuries earlier the Aga Khan’s ancestors had founded the Fatimid dynasty with its capital in Cairo. The Fatimids represented one of the apogees of culture, being patrons of the arts, liteature, achitecture, pluralism (the acceptance of racial, ethnic, cultural and intra-religious differences) and scientific endeavors, all fields that were equally dear to the Aga Khan III an Om Habibeh. The Begum was very supportive of her husband in his work during their thirteen years together. They both took a particular interest in issues affecting women’s welfare.
When her husband died in 1957, he had stated in his will that his successor, his grandson Karim, would have Om Habibeh as advisor for the first seven years of his reign. because she had been familiar for many years with the issues facing his followers and he had the confidence in her wise judgment. Immediatly, with the help of architect Farid El-Shafie and contractor Hassan Dorra, Om Habibeh started building at Aswan, on top of the hill above there house, a mausoleum to her husband, a task that took 16 months. “The Aga Khan wants to sleep in the hot sand overlooking the waters of the Nile”, Om Habibeh always said, “and when I die I want to lie beside him. We do not want to be parted”.
It was not in her nature either to forget, or to try to hide, her humble orgins. Her legacy remains in the Om Habibeh Foundation, whose programs have contributed to health, education and inclusion in some of the poorest areas of Egypt.
Her gesture of daily placing a red rose on her husband’s tomb while in Egypt (every day for 43 years, either the Begum or when she was away in Europe, Sheikh Ahmed Ibrahim, whom she hired in 1963 to spend eight hours a day chanting verses from the Koran over her late husband’s tomb, laid a fresh red rose there) enforced the reputation of the legendary romance between the Aga Khan III and Om Habibeh. After the death of her husband, she continued to live at Yakymour, though she always spent three months a year in the villa at Aswan, the site of her husband’s mausoleum.
As a widow, she travelled widely both for charity and for pleasure. She was a regular face at Ascot (she herself owned several horses), where she always caught the eye. In the 1950’s and 60’s she was a true fashion icon, and was a countless times on the cover of International magazines. Her advice on fashion was typically sensible: “Don’t choose what you like, but what suits you. To be elegant one must have discretion. The secret is in the details”. Often she was sitting front-row at the Paris fashion shows from Christian Dior, Lanvin, Jaques Faith and many others.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan by Gyenes
It wasn’t only beauty on the outside. She was dearly loved by her people because of her generosity to the poor, childern, women and the elderly, and, by her own husband as well. She had a big heart for everybody. Also for people outside the Shia Ismaili community. No matter what kind of religion, man or women, or even sexual oriantation, she was véry openminded, Yakymour and Nour el-Salam were both an open house.
We should take care of eachother, everybody should be loved!, we are here on earth to do good, and not to harm or judge people, so lets love.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
Begum Om Habibeh also loved annimals a lot. Over the years she had several dogs and cats. “Every person and every animal should be loved, we are all creations from Allah. “When a person is not good for animals, he can not be good to humans”. “We should take care of eachother, everybody should be loved!, we are here on earth to do good, and not to harm or judge people, so lets love”…. And that’s what she did!
Grandma ‘Yaky’, the Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan with her poodles at Yakymour, Le Cannet, France, January 1, 1985
Beauty was not only on the outside. It came from the heart. Highly popular, Her Highness La Bégum showed great generosity throughout her life. She made many donations to schools (‘education is the most impotant thing in life after being loved’ and ‘The highest result of education is tolerance’ she always said) and hospitals. But also donations to women’s shelters, Alzheimer foundation, and… Aids foundation.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan
Over four decades of widowhood (she never thought of remarrying) she was always out in the community helping the poor and elderly and would relentlessly encourage education for women. For over forty years, banquets were offered to the town’s elderly inhabitants. The Begum also ran a charitable foundation, the Om Habibeh Foundation, which tackled poverty in Aswan, Egypt, where she inherited her husband’s villa by the Nile. At home in Le Cannet, she established a home for the elderly. It was not in her nature either to forget, or to try to hide, her humble origins. In the last years of her life, she made an outstanding donation to the town, enabling it to renew its school property.
The last public appearance of Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ was in 1997, for the inauguration of the Jardin Des Oliviers, in Le Cannet Rocheville, for which creation she contributed.
She also contributed to the creation of the Jardin des Oliviers, for which the town showed its gratitude by erecting a bronze statue by Charles-Louis La Salle, unveiled by the mayor of Le Cannet Rocheville, in her image. She last appeared in public for the inauguration of this garden in 1997. She was also vèry happy that she could be present at the wedding of Princess Zahra Aga Khan with businessman Mark Boyden, June 21, 1997 in Paris.
Le Cannet, Le Jardin Des Oliviers, Avenue Thiers, bronze statue of Om Habibeh by Charles-Louis La Salle
Before her death, the late Begum arranged for Yakymour, the home of which she and her husband were so fond, to be retained for use by the Aga Khan family. She also planned that a large part of her estate be donated to two foundations closely associated with the family: The Aga Khan Foundation, Geneva, a non-profit organisation established by the current Aga Khan in 1967, which oversees and supports major international programmes in health, education and rural development, in some of the poorest regions of Asia and Africa, and the Bellerive Foundation in Geneva, established by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan in 1977, which is devoted to the protection of the environment, conservation of natural resources and the safeguarding of human and animal rights.
There was no doubting her enduring devotion. “Now all I have left to hope for”, she said shortly before her death, “is that Allah will take me to his side”. Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ aka Yvette Labrousse died on 1 July 2000, in Le Cannet, near Cannes, at the age of 94 years, and is buried next to her beloved husband at the Aga Khan’s sandstone mausoleum in Aswan. The couple had no children. She was survived by her stepson, Sadruddin Aga Khan, and three step-grandchildren, Karim Aga Khan the current Aga Khan, Amyn Aga Khan and Yasmin Aga Khan, who are the children of the late Prince Aly Khan, who died in 1960 and who was the eldest son of the late Aga Khan.
The jamat will recall with fondness and affection her support for the work of My late beloved grandfather, and also her devoted care and attention to Him particularly in the later years of His life. Throughout her lifetime Mata Salamat retained an abiding interest to the progress and well-being of the jamat world-wide
Mawlânâ Hazar Imam Karim Aga Khan IV
She has now been reunited with her husband, who has been resting, since 1957, in a mausoleum built on their Nour es-Salam property, near the river Nile, in Aswan, Egypt. ‘Till today she is very respected and loved. For her eternal love, her honesty, her help (she hated the word ‘charity’!) and being só openminded…..
by Jean Amr
The Om Habibeh Foundation
The Om Habibeh Foundation was established by the Aga Khan’s late step-grandmother, Om Habibeh, the Begum Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan. It is an Egyptian, not-for-profit organisation of long-standing that has been contributing to, and supporting, a number of institutions, in the Aswan area, which are involved in healthcare, education and income generation for disadvantaged communities. The Foundation draws on the support and technical expertise of the agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network to advance the newly announced initiatives.
The Aga Khan Foundation
For more information:
Farees Nathoo
Aga Khan Foundation
Tel. +20 (22) 506 1570
Email: info@akdn.org
Yakymour: A place of fashion, beauté, art, flowers, beauty and… love!
Yakymour, Le Cannet, France
Playing as a child in the garden of Yakymour. A happy, innocent time, thanx to ‘Grandma’ Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ Aga Khan and to Sadruddin, where I could be fully myself and forget ‘the bad things’, and get some strenght
Yakymour, the house of the Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan. She was born Yvette Blanche Labrousse in 1906, of a father who was a tramway driver and a town councillor for Le Cannet and a mother who was a seamstress. Nothing in her modest upbringing told anything of the glorious destiny that was to be hers. After bieng elected Miss Lyon in 1929, then Miss France in Paris in 1930, she joined the Miss Europe 1930 pageant in Paris, won by Miss Greece. She started to travel around the world and settled in Egypt.
Yakymour, in her own handwriting, on the wall next to the gate of her home.
There Yvette Labrousse met her future husband, the Sultan Aga Khan III, 48th Imam of the Nizari Shia Ismaili community, whom she married on 9 October 1944 in Switzerland, and took the name of Om Habibeh (Little Mother of the Beloved) and became Begum, fully Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan. In 1954, Om Habibeh was given the title of ‘Mata Salamat’, which literally means serene or peaceful mother. She was the foutyh womn in Islamic history with that title! They settled in the Avenue Victoria villa at Le Cannet, above Cannes, on a hillside wich she had once looked on to from the flat in the Rue d’Antibes, for which planning permission applications had been submitted in 1937.
HH Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III
They named it Yakymour: Y for Yvette, ak for Aga Khan, mour for amour. Within this property surrounded by parkland, Her Higness La Bégum used to assemble the members of the Cannes film festival jury. When her husband died in 1957, he had stated in his will that his successor, his grandson Karim, would have Om Habibeh as advisor for the first seven years of his reign. Om Habibeh started building at Aswan, on top of the hill above there house, a mausoleum to her husband, immediately after his death, while finishing it took 16 months.
Her gesture of daily placing a red rose on her husband’s tomb while in Egypt (every day for 43 years, either the Begum or when she was away in Europe, Sheikh Ahmed Ibrahim, whom she hired in 1963 to spend eight hours a day chanting verses from the Koran over her late husband’s tomb, laid a fresh red rose there) enforced the reputation of the legendary romance between the Aga Khan III and Om Habebeh. After the death of her husband, she continued to live at Yakymour, though she always spent three months a year in the villa at Aswan, the site of her husband’s mausoleum.
Yakymour, Le Cannet, France
As a widow, she travelled widely both for charity and for pleasure. She was a regular face at Ascot (she herself owned several horses), where she always caught the eye. In the 1950’s and 60’s she was a true fashion icon, and was a countless times on the cover of big magazines. Her advice on fashion was typically sensible: “Don’t choose what you like, but what suits you. To be elegant one must have discretion. The secret is in the details”. She was dearly loved by her people because of her generosity to the poor, childern, women and the elderly, and, by her own husband as well. She had a big heart for everybody. Also for people outside the Shia Ismaili community. No matter what kind of religion, man or women, or even sexual oriantation, she was véry openminded, Yakymour was an open house.
She also loved annimals a lot. Over the years she had several dogs and cats. ‘Every person and every animal should be loved, we are all creations from Allah. When a person is not good for animals, he can not be good to humans’. ‘We should take care of eachother, everybody should be loved!, We are here on earth to do good, and not to harm or judge people, so lets love’…. And that’s what she did!
HH Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III
Beauty was not only on the outside. It came from the heart. Highly popular, Her Highness La Bégum showed great generosity throughout her life. She made many donations to schools (‘education is the most impotant thing in life after being loved’ and ‘The highest result of education is tolerance’ she always said) and hospitals. But also donations to women’s shelters, Alzheimer foundation, and… Aids foundation.
For over forty years, banquets were offered to the town’s elderly inhabitants. The Begum also ran a charitable foundation (Om Habibeh Foundation) which tackled poverty in Aswan, Egypt, where she inherited her husband’s villa by the Nile. At home in Cannes, she established a home for the elderly. It was not in her nature either to forget, or to try to hide, her humble origins. In the last years of her life, she made an outstanding donation to the town, enabling it to renew its school property. She also contributed to the creation of the Jardin des Oliviers, for which the town showed its gratitude by erecting a bronze statue by Charles-Louis La Salle, in her image. She last appeared in public for the inauguration of this garden in 1997
But there was no doubting her enduring devotion. “Now all I have left to hope for”, she said shortly before her death, is that Allah will take me to his side”. Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ aka Yvette Labrousse died on 1 July 2000, in Le Cannet, near Cannes, at the age of 94 years, and is buried next to her beloved husband at the Aga Khan’s sandstone mausoleum in Aswan. The couple had no children. She was survived by her stepson, Sadruddin Aga Khan, and three step-grandchildren, Karim Aga Khan the current Aga Khan, Amyn Aga Khan and Yasmin Aga Khan. She has now been reunited with her husband, who has been resting, since 1957, in a mausoleum built on their Nour es-Salam property, near the River Nile, in Aswan, Egypt. ‘Till today she is very respected and loved. For her eternal love, her honesty, her help (she hated the word ‘charity’!) and being só openminded…..
Om Habibeh, ‘Yaky’ I love you! Thanx for everything you showed me and teached me! Love always!
Jean Amr
A family gatering at Yakymour
A family portrait. Prior to the marriage between Prince Aly Khan and actress Rita Hayworth, on May 27 and 28, a family gathering took place on April 1, 1949 in the south of France in Yakymour, Le Cannet. The whole family together at the house of Sultan Mohammed Aga Khan III and his wife The Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III, his childern Sadruddin and Aly with Rita Hayworth, his fiancée. His grandchildern Amyn and Karim.
From left to right: Begum Om Habibeh Aha Khan III, Amyn Aga Khan, Sadruddin Aga Khan, Aly Aga Khan, Karim Aga Khan. Sitting: Sultan Mohammed Aga Khan III and Rita Hayworth at Yakymour, Le Cannet, France, April 1, 1949
Aga Khan announces Om Habibeh Foundation grant for Aswan
His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, in Cairo, Egypt, December 2003.
His Highness the Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary Imam (spiritual leader) of the Ismaili Muslims today announced a grant of US$ 320,000 for medical equipment by the Om Habibeh Foundation established by the Aga Khan’s late step-grandmother, Om Habibeh, the Begum Sultan Mahomed Shah.
Following a meeting with the Governor of Aswan, H.E. Samir Hassanin, the Aga Khan announced the grant as part of a series of new development initiatives to benefit the people of Aswan. These included a plan for a social development training centre to have national reach, and programmes in the areas of nursing education, pre-school education and the strengthening of civil society organisations. The new initiatives in Aswan will complement an extensive social and urban development programme underway on the edge of the historic city of Cairo.
Aswan and the people of Aswan, have a place of deep affection in my heart and within my family.
His Highness the Aga Khan IV
The Aga Khan went on to state that the Aga Khan Foundation (Egypt) which was in the process being established as a national entity would work in Aswan through the Om Habibeh Foundation which is an affiliate of the Aga Khan Development Network.
The programmes announced today intend to both continue, and also to build significantly on, the work begun by Begum Sultan Mahomed Shah. Our objective, is to strengthen civil society at the grassroots by helping to improve community development organisations and by bringing to bear on critical needs in this area, the panoply of experience and resources of the Aga Khan Development Network.
His Highness the Aga Khan IV
Governor Hassanin expressed sincere gratitude on behalf of the people of Aswan and pledged to extend the Governorate’s full cooperation and support to the new initiatives which he said both responded to immediate and long-term needs, and reinforced the warm and close historic links that bound the Aga Khan, his family, and his community to Aswan and to Egypt.
Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ Aga Khan in Aswan
It is hoped that the Aga Khan University will be invited to provide the planned support for nursing education. The University operates programmes in this field in six countries in Africa and Asia. It also supports training in the healthcare field in Syria and its teaching hospital handles referral services through a presence in the United Arab Emirates. Early childhood education has been an area of expertise for the Aga Khan Education Services for many decades now. Besides facilitating and providing pre-school education on four continents, the Aga Khan Education Services has just announced that it will establish an Early Learning Centre in Dubai to offer broad, holistic, early childhood education on a secular and non-denominational basis at the highest international standards of excellence. The Aga Khan Foundation is active in a number of countries in promoting an ‘enabling environment’ for the emerging non-profit citizen sector, by providing advice and related institutional strengthening services and by helping to forge new models for partnerships involving government, business and citizen organisations to extend, improve and sustain health, education and welfare services for underprivileged populations.
The Om Habibeh Foundation is an Egyptian, not-for-profit organisation of long-standing that has been contributing to, and supporting, a number of institutions in the Aswan area involved in healthcare, education and income generation for disadvantaged communities. The Foundation will draw on the support and technical expertise of the agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network to advance the newly announced initiatives.
Om Habibeh, the Begum Sultan Mahuhammad Shah was born Yvette Blanche Labrousse in 1906, of a father who was a tramway driver and a town councillor for Le Cannet and a mother who was a seamstress. Nothing in her modest upbringing told anything of the glorious destiny that was to be hers. After bieng elected Miss Lyon in 1929, then Miss France in Paris in 1930, she joined the Miss Europe 1930 pageant in Paris, won by Miss Greece. She started to travel around the world and settled in Egypt.
There Yvette Labrousse met her future husband, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, 48th Imam of the Nizari Shia Ismaili community (the present Aga Khan’s grandfather and predecessor as Imam), whom she married on 9 October 1944 in Switzerland, and took the name of Om Habibeh (Little Mother of the Beloved) and became Begum, fully Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan. In 1954, Om Habibeh was given the title of ‘Mata Salamat’, which literally means serene or peaceful mother. She was the foutyh women in Islamic history with that title! They settled in the villa Yakymour at Le Cannet, above Cannes, on a hillside wich she had once looked on to from the flat in the Rue d’Antibes, for which planning permission applications had been submitted in 1937.
She and her husband, Sir Sultan Mahuhammad Shah Aga Khan spent also many happy times at their home Noor El Salam by the banks of the Nile at Aswan. When her husband died in 1957, Om Habibeh started building at Aswan, on top of the hill above there house, a mausoleum to her husband, immediately after his death, while finishing it took 16 months. After the death of her husband, she continued to live at Yakymour, le Cannet, France, though she always spent three months a year in the villa at Aswan, at the site of her husband’s mausoleum.
Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ Aga Khan in Aswan on the river Nile.
As a widow, she travelled widely both for charity and for pleasure. She was dearly loved by her people because of her generosity to the poor, childern, women and the elderly, and, by her own husband as well. She had a big heart for everybody. Also for people outside the Shia Ismaili community. No matter what kind of religion, man or women, or even sexual oriantation, she was véry openminded, Yakymour was an open house.
Every person and every animal should be loved, we are all creations from Allah. When a person is not good for animals, he can not be good to humans’. ‘We should take care of eachother, everybody should be loved!, We are here on earth to do good, and not to harm or judge people, so lets love’….
Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ Aga Khan
And that’s what she did! Beauty was not only on the outside. It came from the heart. Highly popular, Her Highness La Bégum showed great generosity throughout her life. She made many donations to schools (‘education is the most impotant thing in life after being loved’ and ‘The highest result of education is tolerance’ she always said) and hospitals. But also donations to women’s shelters, Alzheimer foundation, and… Aids foundation.
For over forty years, banquets were offered to the town’s elderly inhabitants. The Begum also ran a charitable foundation, the Om Habibeh Foundation, which tackled poverty in Aswan, Egypt. At home in Cannes, she established a home for the elderly. It was not in her nature either to forget, or to try to hide, her humble origins. In the last years of her life, she made an outstanding donation to the town, enabling it to renew its school property. Begum Om Habibeh ‘Mata Salamat’ aka Yvette Labrousse died on 1 July 2000, in Le Cannet, near Cannes, at the age of 94 years, and is buried alongside to her beloved husband at the Aga Khan’s sandstone mausoleum in Aswan in whose design she was closely involved.
The family’s historic connections with Egypt go back to the Aga Khan’s ancestor, the Fatimid Caliph-Imam al Mui’zz who founded the city of Cairo in the 10th century.
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture is currently engaged in an extensive range of cultural, social and urban development projects on the edge of the historic city . They encompass: the creation of the 33-hectare Azhar Park that will be the city’s largest green space; community leisure and recreational areas; rehabilitation of the 12th Century Ayyubid Wall; restoration for re-use of selected historic buildings and monuments; and social development projects that include the provision of microfinance and microenterprise support in the Darb al Ahmar district.
The Aga Khan’s visit to Egypt comes at the end of an extensive tour covering Pakistan and the Middle East, including visits to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
For further information about the and the Om Habibeh Foundation, please contact:
The Information Department
Aiglemont
60270 Gouvieux, France
Téléphone: +33 3 44 58 40 00
Fax: +33 3 44 58 42 79
E-mail: amyn.ahamed@aiglemont.org
Website: www.akdn.org
Yakymour 