Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
Reza Shah, who rose to power in the early 1920s, tried to modernize the country, but could not keep the British and Russians from occupying Iran during World War II. He was forced to abdicate in 1941 in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Shah. After the war, Americans fared no better than the British and Russians in gaining popular support. Imbedded in the Iranian psyche is resentment of America for backing Mohammad Reza Shah's despotic regime and for helping overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, who had nationalized British oil interests in Iran. The Iranians cannot forget American interference.
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919-80), king of Iran (1941-1979), was born in Tehran on October 26, 1919, the eldest son of Reza Shah. He completed his primary school in Switzerland. He returned to Iran in 1935, and enrolled in a Tehran military school, from which he graduated in 1938. In 1939 he married a sister of Faroq I, king of Egypt. The couple divorced in 1949. Mohammad Reza married two more times, in 1950 with Soraya Esfandiari and 1959 with Farah Diba.
Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, was forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran. In 1941, British and Soviet troops occupied Iran, and the first Pahlavi shah, who they regarded with suspicion, was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza. The new shah promised to act as a constitutional monarch but often meddled in the elected government's affairs.
She was the sister of the last king to rule Egypt, and married the last Minister of War before the July 1952 Revolution, just as she was the wife of the last Shah to rule Iran, whom she married in a legendary ceremony. Princess Fawzia was daughter of King Fuad I, and sister of King Farouk, the last king of the Muhammad Ali dynasty, whom Charles de Gaulle described in his memoirs as “the woman on whom God left his signature.” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said about her, “A woman of rare, mysterious beauty that forces you to contemplate it without boredom or fatigue. She is a sculpture of supreme beauty.”
Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran and her father-in-law, said about her: “When we wanted to look for a wife for the Crown Prince, we provided Iran’s ambassadors in countries around the world with pictures of princesses, noblewomen and aristocrats from all over the world, but we were amazed when we saw pictures of the Egyptian Princess Fawzia, sister of King Farouk, because of her dazzling beauty. The Crown Prince’s mother and I would look at her pictures for a long time, and we would never get tired of looking at them and asking ourselves, ‘Is this beauty really there in reality?’”
King Farouk, who was dreaming of the Islamic Caliphate at the time, found in his request to marry the crown prince of an Islamic state, even if it followed a different sect, a good opportunity to achieve the dream. According to the book King Farouk and the Islamic Caliphate by author Amal Fahmy, Sheikh Mahmoud Al-Maraghi, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, removed the obstacle of sectarian differences, as the bride was Sunni and the groom was Shiite, saying, “There is nothing in Islam that prevents it.” In her book, Fahmy monitored the position that the Islamic movement occupied within the palace during Farouk’s reign in order to gain popularity in the street at the expense of his most prominent political opponents at the time, the liberal Wafd Party. He tried to get closer to Islamic countries in every way, and his orientations found broad support from major parties and newspapers.
The legendary wedding took place in Cairo on March 15, 1939. The bride wore jewelry designed by the famous French jeweler Van Cleef, and Queen Nazli the Queen Mother chose for herself a crown studded with 719 diamonds. Farouk’s insistence on divorcing his sister Fawzia as his desire to divorce his wife, Queen Farida. He wanted not to be the only one in the Islamic state to take that step, and to keep Fawzia by his side to carry out the duties of his royal wife. The the divorce of Fawzia from the Shah and Farida from Farouk were announced together on November 19, 1948.
After a Communist plot against him was thwarted in 1949, he took on even more powers. However, in the early 1950s, the shah was eclipsed by Mohammad Mosaddeq, a zealous Iranian nationalist who convinced the Parliament to nationalize Britain's extensive oil interests in Iran. Mohammad Reza, who maintained close relations with Britain and the United States, opposed the decision. Nevertheless, he was forced in 1951 to appoint Mosaddeq premier, and two years of tension followed.
In August 1953, Mohammad Reza attempted to dismiss Mosaddeq, but the premier's popular support was so great that the shah himself was forced out of Iran. A few days later, British and U.S. intelligence agents orchestrated a stunning coup d'etat against Mosaddeq, and the shah returned to take power as the sole leader of Iran. He repealed Mosaddeq's legislation and became a close Cold War ally of the United States in the Middle East.
Farah Diba was the third wife of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Pahlavi. He married her in 1959, and her marriage was legendary, just as her life was legendary. Princess Farah was famous for her love of collecting everything that was rare and valuable. The life of luxury in the palaces of the Shah and Farah at a time when the people were suffering aroused the anger of the public and they expressed it in political slogans that were chanted by millions in demonstrations that did not stop until they overthrew the Shah.
In 1963, the shah launched his "White Revolution," a broad government program that included land reform, infrastructure development, voting rights for women, and the reduction of illiteracy. Although these programs were applauded by many in Iran, Islamic leaders were critical of what they saw as the westernization of Iran. Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric, was particularly vocal in his criticism and called for the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1964, Khomeini was exiled and settled across the border in Iraq, where he sent radio messages to incite his supporters.
In 1967 he crowned himself as King of the Kings (Emperor of Iran) and his wife, Farah Diba, as Shahbanoo (Eperess), which caused discontentment among diffrent levels of society. The shah saw himself foremost as a Persian king and in 1971 held an extravagant celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy. In 1976, he formally replaced the Islamic calendar with a Persian calendar. Religious discontent grew, and the shah became more repressive, using his brutal secret police force to suppress opposition. This alienated students and intellectuals in Iran, and support for Khomeini grew. Discontent was also rampant in the poor and middle classes, who felt that the economic developments of the White Revolution had only benefited the ruling elite. In 1978, anti-shah demonstrations broke out in Iran's major cities.
On September 8, 1978, the shah's security force fired on a large group of demonstrators, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. Two months later, thousands took to the streets of Tehran, rioting and destroying symbols of westernization, such as banks and liquor stores. Khomeini called for the shah's immediate overthrow, and on December 11 a group of soldiers mutinied and attacked the shah's security officers. With that, his regime collapsed and the shah fled.
Beset by advanced cancer, the Shah left Iran in January 1979 to begin a life in exile. The shah traveled to several countries before entering the United States in October 1979 for medical treatment of his cancer. In Tehran, Islamic militants responded on November 4 by storming the U.S. embassy and taking the staff hostage. With the approval of Khomeini, the militants demanded the return of the shah to Iran to stand trial for his crimes. The United States refused to negotiate, and 52 American hostages were held for 444 days. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi died in Egypt in July 1980.
The Shah's daughter Leila was found dead in a London hotel room on 10 June 2001. She was 31 at the time. Her mental health had declined and she started to slip into substance abuse and suffered from several eating disorders. She took an overdose tht was fatal. She was found emaciated, and with cocaine, barbiturates and prescription drugs in her system. Alireza Pahlavi, the youngest of five brothers, was born in Tehran in 1966 and attended schools there before traveling to the United States in 1979, where he earned degrees from Princeton and Columbia Universities. Ali Pahlavi committed suicide 05 January 2011 in his apartment in the West End suburb of Boston by shooting himself.
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