The exigencies of his position are such that he must be at all times a one-man triumvirate: the meditative spiritual leader, the jovial prince of top-hatted elegance, the shrewd entrepreneur and administrator of a family fortune too staggering to contemplate. This is the three-cornered existence of His Highness the Aga Khan IV, Prince Karim, direct descendant of Mohammed the Prophet and patriarch of 15 million Ismaili Moslems.

The odds were all against Prince Karim ever inheriting such overwhelming power. The rambunctious Aly Khan, Prince Karim’s father, was a more likely candidate; so was an uncle, Prince Sadruddin Khan. But both were bypassed in the will of Prince Karim’s grand-father, the Aga Khan III, who favored a younger man “brought up in the midst of the atomic age.” Now Prince Karim, who was 20 and an honor student at Harvard at the time, is celebrating the 10th anniversary of a reign in the responsible manner of his grandfather.