Imam Sultan Muhammed Shah, the Aga Khan III, was born on Friday, the 2nd of November, 1877, in Karachi, Pakistan during the Imamat of his grandfather Imam Aga Hasan Aly Shah. He went to Europe in 1897, and spent most of his life there (Aziz, 1974).

Mowlana Imam Aly Shah had married five wives one after another, the third of which promised the Imam his successor, Sultan Muhammed Shah. Within a span of less than one year, his two eldest sons died, and the Imam himself fell sick and died also in the same year, vesting the Light of Imamate in his young eight-year old son, Aga Sultan Muhammed Shah (Aziz, 1974).

Mowlana Imam Ali Shah, the Aga Khan II, was born in 1830AD, in Mahalat, Iran. During the Imamate of his father, he himself had been appointed the Pir. During this time, he had travelled alongside the Imam and had visited the jamats all over India.

After the death of the King, Imam Hasan Aly Shah continued to enjoy the good pleasure of the newly enthroned grandson, much to the chagrin of the other political bodies. After such envy turned into rising political tension and armed conflict, the Imam was forced to leave Iran for good and travelled through Afghanistan to Sind, Pakistan, and finally choosing to settle down in Bombay, India. In due course, Imam Hasan Aly Shah was conferred the title of His Highness by Queen Victoria of Britain.

Mowlana Imam Hasan Aly Shah was born in Mahalat, Iran, in 1805AD. He would succeed his father, who had been murdered by a group of fanatics, at the young age of thirteen years. King Fatehali Qachar sentenced the assassins and their leader and became a great source of comfort to the young Imam and his followers. He gave the Imam his daughter in marriage and bestowed upon him the title of Aga Khan, meaning Lord of the Chiefs. He became known as Aga Khan I (Aziz, 1974).

Shah Fatehali ascended the throne of Iran in 1798AD. Imam Khalilillahi Ali had four sons and two daughters. He was murdered at the age of eighty years by some Ithnasheri fanatics in Yezd in 1817AD. He was buried in Najjaf, and was succeeded by his son Agha Shah Hasanali. His Imamat had lasted a period of thirty-nine years.

Imam Khalilillahi Aly was born in Kerman in 1749AD. At the age of two years he joined his father in Mahalat, and was brought under the care of his uncle Pir Mirza Muhammed Baqir. He would marry his uncle's daughter, Bibi Maryam Khatoon, by whom he would have his son, Agha Hasanali Shah (Aziz, 1974).

Imam Abyl Hasan Ali moved to Shahr-i Babak in Kirman, mainly to ensure the safety of the Ismaili pilgrims from the plundering tribesman who had thus far posed much difficulty to the pilgrims as they were on their way to the Anjudan and Mahallat regions where the Imam had previously resided. Sayed Fateh Ali Shah who had visited the Imam in Shahr-i Babak alludes to the Imam's location in northern iran ('sehentar deep') in one of his ginans. Mowlana Imam Abyl Hasan Ali passed away in Mahallat and was buried in Najaf, Iraq (Sadik Ali, 1997).

Imam Qasim Ali appointed his teenaged son Sayyid Abul Hasanali as the Pir. The latter, also known as Pir Shah Hasan Baig, was the forty-second Pir of the Ismailis, and at his father's death, was appointed as the next Imam in the succession of the Holy Imams (Aziz, 1974).

Imam Qasim Ali, also known as Agha Jafer Shah, was born in Kahek in 1675 AD, and succeeded to the Throne of Imamat at the age of twenty years (Aziz, 1974).