and, hence, to Ali. It appears that the affiliation between the Nimatullahis and the Nizari Imams can be traced at least as far back as the 18th century to the 40th Nizari Imam, Shah Nizar, who had close connections with the order. Prior to going to India, Aqa Ali Shah had developed close relations with the leader of one of the Nimatullahi branches, Rahmat Ali Shah, who had been a guest of Aga Khan I in Mahallat in 1833. After Rahmat Ali Shah's death in 1861, Aqa Ali Shah often sent money from India for the recitation of the Qur'an at his grave in Shiraz. Aqa Ali Shah also had close ties with Rahmat Ali Shah's uncle as well as one of Rahmat Ali Shah's successors, Munawwar ‘Alī Shāh (d. 1884). Aqa Ali Shah received a number of important visitors belonging to the Nimatullahi order, including Rahmat Ali Shah's son Muḥammad Ma‘Ṣūm Shīrāzī, who visited India in 1881 and stayed with Aqa Ali Shah for a year. Another prominent figure of the Nimatullahi order received by Aqa Ali Shah was Safi Ali Shah, who first went to India in 1863 at Aqa Ali Shah's invitation. Marriages and children Not much is known about Aqa Ali Shah's first two wives, both of whom died in Bombay. His first marriage with Maryam Sultana had two sons. The eldest, Shihab al-Din Shah (also known as Aqa Khalil Allah) was born around 1851-2 and wrote some treatises in Persian on Muslim ethics and Ismaili spirituality. He died in December 1884 of a chest complaint while still in his early thirties, and was buried in Najaf. The second son, Nur al-Din Shah, who was the full-brother of Shihab al-Din Shah, died around 1884–5 in a riding accident at Poona while still in his youth. It was said that, having lost two of his sons, Aqa Ali Shah died of a broken heart. After the death of his first wife, Aqa Ali Shah married a second time, but lost his second wife as well. In 1867, Aqa Ali Shah took as his third wife Shams al-Muluk, the daughter of Khurshid Kulah Khanum (one of the daughters of Fat′h Ali Shah Qajar by Taj al-Dawla) and Mirza Ali Muhammad Nizam al-Dawla (a nobleman of great influence in the Persian court), the grandson of Muhammad Hussain Khan Ispahani, the Prime Minister of Shah Fateh Ali Qajar (d.1834) of