Shah Khalil Allah III (Persian:شاه خليل الله سوم‎; 1740–1817) was the 45th Imam of theNizariIsmailiShia Islam community. Khalilullah Ali III was born in 1740 in the city ofKerman. His upbringing inMahallat, Iran, began under the care of his uncle, Mirza Muhammad Bakir at the age of two years, and got rudiments of his formal education at home. In 1792, he succeeded his fatherAbū-l-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Qāsim ‘Alī as Imam, as his eldest son. He moved the seat of the Imamate fromKirman toKahak, from where he led for 20 years. His name of Shah Khalil Allah was aNi'matullāhīSufi name, which reflected the close relationship between the Nizaris and Ni'matullāhīs. In 1815, Shāh Khalīlullāh moved toYazd in order to be closer to hisIndian followers.^[1]

Shāh Khalīlullāh died at the age of 77 in 1817 (along with several followers) as a result of a fanaticalTwelver Shia cleric called Mulla Husayn Yazdi inciting a Twelver mob to attack the Imam's house as a follow-up to a dispute between some Nizaris and some Twelver shopkeepers. However, Yazdi's real aim may have been to weaken the spreading influence of the Nizaris. The Imam's house was also plundered in the attack. Mulla Husayn Yazdi was punished for his actions byFat′h-Ali Shah Qajar (the secondQajar king of Iran), since the king and the Imam had been on good terms.^[2]

The Imam was buried in the holy city ofNajaf, Iraq, in a mausoleum that also contains the bodies of some of his relatives and descendants. The Imam was the last to have spent his entire Imamate inPersia. He was succeeded by his eldest sonShāh Ḥassan ‘Alī, who was the first Nizari Imam to use the titleAga Khan, a practice that continues to the present day.

Following the Imam's death, the Ismailis of Iran were in a strong enough position to finally come out publicly and cease their use oftaqiyya, which had been in force for over five hundred years.^[3]

• Daftary, Farhad (2007).The Ismāʿı̄lı̄s: Their History and Doctrines (Second ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-61636-2.

• Nizari imams
• Iranian Ismailis
• Assassinated Shia imams
• 1740 births
• 1817 deaths
• 18th-century Ismailis
• 19th-century Ismailis

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