Princess Yasmin Aga Khan Celebrates Her 74th Birthday on December 28, 2023: Her Initiatives Over Past 40 Years Have Helped Raise Over US$86 Million in Fight to End Alzheimer’s (2024)

December 24, 2023January 10, 2024 Malik Merchant, Editor

Compiled and prepared by MALIK MERCHANT

Special thank you to Princess Yasmin Aga Khan who founded the event in honor of her mother, silver screen icon Rita Hayworth — one of the first celebrities to publicly share her diagnosis — please see Tweet below

2023: Princess Yasmin Aga Khan at 74

Born in 1949 in Lausanee, Switzerland, to Prince Aly Khan and Rita Hayworth, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, younger sister of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan, and Prince Amyn Aga Khan, celebrates her 74th birthday on December 28, 2023.

Last year, the French government decorated the Princess with France’s Knight of the Legion of Honor at a ceremony held in New York (see photograph of the Knighthood published below on the auspicious occasion of her 73rd birthday). Princess Yasmin Aga Khan has also received numerous awards and recognition for her unwavering commitment to Alzheimer’s advocacy, including the prestigiousAlzheimer’s Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Her initiatives through the Rita Hayworth Gala, which she founded in 1984 in New York and which was expanded later to Chicago, and the Imagine Benefit have raised more than $86 million in the fight to end Alzheimer’s.

We present the following tweet from the Imagine Benefit that was held in New York in October 2023, as we wish Princess Yasmin a very happy 74th birthday. We wish her good health, happiness and succcess in the coming years, as the battle against Alzheimer’s continues. We invite our readers to read our special piece Yasmin Aga Khan: A Princess With a Mission.

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2022: Princess Yasmin Aga Khan at 73

“Princess Yasmin Aga Khan decided at the age of twenty to make the fight against Alzeihmer’s disease her life’s work, marked by the dementia that gradually took her mother, the famous actress Rita Hayworth, in the 1980s. She helped found Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) in 1984 and, later, Alzheimer France. Under the leadership of Princess Aga Khan, ADI advocated for the development of national plans and supported the efforts of the European Commission. The princess also contributed to the unanimous adoption of the global action plan on dementia in May 2017 at the World Health Organization (WHO)” — Knight of the Legion of Honor

On the auspicious occasion of Princess Yasmin Aga Khan’s 72nd birthday on December 28, 2021, Barakah had published a brief feature piece on the Princess (see next section, below), followed by a much longer article entitled Princess with a Mission as part of Barakah’s support through its readers worldwide for the Rita Hayworth Gala that took place on April 22, 2022.

A year later, as we wish Princess Yasmin a very happy 73rd birthday, we are pleased to report that in October 2022, the French Ambassador to the United States, Mr.Philippe Etienne, and the Consul General of France in New York, Mr.Jérémie Robert, made four Americans Knights of the Legion of Honor. Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, younger sister of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan, and Prince Amyn Mohamed was among the four that were knighted along with scientist Olivia Flatto, writer Adam Gopnik, and art historian Professor Roberta Bernstein (please read article at the Consulat général de France à New York website in English HERE and in French HERE).

We extend our greetings to Princess Yasmin on her 73rd birthday as well as congratulate her on the knighthood that she has been bestowed with by the French government. We wish the Princess good health, and that she may continue to be an inspiration to millions around the world through the work that she has done for the cause of Alzheimer’s and to persist with finding a cure for the disease.

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Princess Yasmin Aga Khan at 72

Alzheimer’s, a disease that was first discovered in 1906, still has no cure after 115 years. Mawlana Hazar Imam’s and Prince Amyn Mohamed’s younger sister, Princess Yasmin, has been at the forefront of raising public awareness about the disease, which contributed to the death of Princess Yasmin’s beloved mother, Ms. Rita Hayworth, on May 14, 1987 at the age of 68. However, Ms. Hayworth’s onset of the disease had begun much earlier, and it took more than ten years before Princess Yasmin found the doctor who diagnosed her mother with Alzheimer’s.

Princess Yasmin turned 72 on Tuesday December 28, 2021, and we are honoured and happy to publish a photograph of the Princess with the Late American President Ronald Reagan. Princess Yasmin graciously shared the signed photograph with Barakah, through Mr. Sadruddin Noorani, a long time supporter of Princess Yasmin’s mission and a member of the Rita Hayworth Gala Steering Committee.

We are also pleased to include a lovely portrait photo of the Princess taken by Bernard Gotfryd in New York 1984. We had published the portrait in an earlier piece as part of a collection of photographs of Mawlana Hazar Imam, Begum Salimah and Princess Yasmin that appear on the website of the US Library of Congress (please click HERE to see Bernard Gotfryd’s photographs in Barakah).

We would like our readers to note that in March 2019, Princess Yasmin spoke on Alzheimer’s at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, following which Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, conducted an interview with her. We invite our readers to read the interview, “There’s Hope,” by clicking HERE; it is available free of charge but requires the creation of an on-line account on the Globe and Mail website or by providing your Facebook or Gmail credentials.

We once again invite our readers to read an excellent piece under the title Yasmin Aga Khan: A Princess With a Mission.

Date posted: December 27, 2021.
Last updated: December 24, 2023.

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