The Pahlavi Royal Dynasty of Iran lasted 54 years, from 1925, when Reza Pahlavi took over from the Qajar Dynasty, to 1979 when his son and successor was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. We saw the Iranian Revolution in the posting on this blog, "The Great Revolution Of Our Time". Our posting today is a revisit to the dynasty that was overthrown by that revolution.
We have seen the story of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris" and "Paris". We have seen the Romanov Dynasty in "St. Petersburg And The Romanovs". Here we have a third great story of royalty overthrown, which were the only one of the three to escape execution.
The Pahlavi Dynasty was actually the last of the ruling shahs of a throne that went back 2500 years. It was the oldest royal house in the world. The throne goes back to the days when Persia, the former name of Iran until it was changed by the Pahlavi Dynasty, emerged as a world power. The name Iran means "Land of the Aryans" and Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty and father of the final shah, said that this is the correct name of the country.
The Medes were a people in the ancient Middle East. They are actually the people who conquered Nineveh, the great capital of the Assyrian Empire. It is generally considered that the Medes and the Babylonians managed to sack Nineveh. But my information is that the Median army arrived at Nineveh before the Babylonians, and by the time they Babylonians arrived the battle was already over.
Assyria had been the greatest power in the world, but could only be described as barbaric and oppressive in their rule. After the Israelites had split into two separate nations, Israel and Judah, following the death of King Solomon, the Assyrians had conquered Israel, but left Judah as a vassal state. The population of Israel, ten of the twelve tribes, were taken off into captivity and scattered around the Assyrian Empire, where they have been lost to history.
The Assyrians displaced other people and settled them where the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel had been. These people intermixed with each other and the remaining Israelites, and by the time of Jesus were known as Samaritans in the region of Samaria.
Joy swept the Middle East at the news that the capital of the hated Assyrians had fallen to their enemies. But the Assyrians were replaced as the dominant power by Babylon, which was just about as cruel and oppressive. It was the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar II, who conquered Judah after it tried to resist paying tribute, destroyed Solomon's Temple, and took the Jews into captivity in Babylon.
The Medes had a vassal state, the Persians. The Persians rose up against the Medes and were victorious. So, the Medes and the Persians were still together but now the Persians were dominant.
Conflict began between Persia and Babylon. The city of Babylon was surrounded by great walls, but while the Babylonians were engaged in a drunken royal party, Persian engineers quickly built a dam across the Euphrates River, and the Persian soldiers were able to get inside the city's walls on the riverbed.
This made Persia into the ruling power in the Middle East, and likely the strongest empire in the world. But the Persians were different from their predecessors. While they certainly enforced their rule, they were not unnecessarily oppressive about it. When they got inside the walls of Babylon, resistance seems to have ceased. Perhaps the people welcomed them as liberators.
The founder of what is known as the Achaemenid Empire was Cyrus the Great. He defeated his Median grandfather, Astyages, to put the Persians in the superior position over the Medians. Cyrus respected his subject peoples, and the Cyrus Cylinder that we saw in the British Museum in our visit to "London" is considered to be the world's first declaration of human rights.
As Christians and Jews know, it was the Persians who conquered Babylon who allowed the Jews which had been taken captive by the Babylonians to return to their homeland and rebuild Solomon's Temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians.
The Tomb of Cyrus is a popular attraction at Pasgardae, which was built by Cyrus the Great as his capital. The following scenes are of Pasgardae and Cyrus' Tomb.
There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.
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The following scenes are of the Sadabad Complex, at the northern edge of Tehran in Iran. The buildings in this complex are actually the homes where the Shah and his family lived. Each building was a home of a member of the royal family. This complex was begun by the Qajar Dynasty, which preceded the Pahlavi Dynasty and ruled until 1925, and was added to by the Pahlavi Dynasty. The following scenes of the Sadabad Complex begin in the building where the Shah and the Empress lived. The Shams Palace was the home of Shams, the Shah's older sister. The current president of Iran lives next to this complex.
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This is another royal palace, used by both the Qajar and Pahlavi Dynasties, in the north of Tehran. This is called the Niavaran Palace Complex. You can see the Iranian fondness for mirrors as decorations as well as, of course, the carpets.
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This is the Golestan Palace, in Tehran. This was a Qajar-era palace that was so famously used by the Shah in the lavish 1967 coronation of the Shah as not just shah, but Shahanshah, or "King of Kings". This was a ceremony like maybe the world had never seen before. There are abundant photos of it online, if you want to see the ceremony just search for "Shah Coronation 1967". We have never seen so many jewels. There does not seem to be an image of the room in which the coronation was actually done, maybe it isn't open to the public.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6798334,51.4211164,3a,75y,118.45h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOauUG3d_bx49Nq51D50kdl7vbvrUSHOliPXBPB!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOauUG3d_bx49Nq51D50kdl7vbvrUSHOliPXBPB%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya133.7079-ro0-fo100!7i7168!8i3584
If the 1967 coronation was a ceremony like the world had never seen before, the Shah threw a massive celebration of the 2500th Anniversary of the Persian Empire in 1971 that was a party like the world had never seen before. It was held in the ruins of Persepolis, which had been a capital of the Achaemenid Empire, the original Persian Empire beginning with Cyrus the Great, after the original capital, Pasgardae. National leaders, or their representatives, from around the world attended this celebration.
The following scenes are of the ruins of Persepolis.
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Also to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the throne, the Shah had what is now known as the Azadi Tower built. It was constructed in 1971, and the original name was "The Gate of Cyrus", to link back to the founder of the Persian Empire. It was renamed after the Shah was overthrown in the 1979 revolution. We see the influence of the French Revolution here, as described in the posting on this blog "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris". The Eiffel Tower was constructed to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, and then this tower was built to mark the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. The following scenes begin below the tower.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6997005,51.338072,3a,75y,38.32h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipP3dNPQCT1AhruidquUelADdoy8qpr34XUDZJIA!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipP3dNPQCT1AhruidquUelADdoy8qpr34XUDZJIA%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya209.69012-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120
But it is certain that all of this lavish spending, along with westernization, made the Shah many enemies within Iran. This ultimately led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which overthrew the Shah and ended the 2500 years of the Persian Royal House, going back to Cyrus the Great. The Shah and his family left the country for Egypt where Anwar Sadat, who was himself facing the same kind of opposition as the Shah and would be assassinated two years later for making peace with Israel, gave the Shah's family the Koubbeh Palace to stay in.
An important factor in the course of the Pahlavi Dynasty, and which ultimately led to the Iranian Revolution, is the reforms of Ataturk, in neighboring Turkey. The reforms undertaken by Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty and father of the final Shah, paralleled those of Ataturk, but didn't go as far. Ataturk abolished the Ottoman Empire and the last Islamic Caliphate, adopted the Latin script for the Turkish language, and made the country into a republic.
There is, of course, somewhat of an Islamic counter against the extensive westernizing reforms of Ataturk, in the form of the present Turkish President Erdogan. My opinion of the major differences in the courses of neighboring Turkey and Iran in modern times is what is commonly known as the "Resourse Curse". Iran is blessed (or cursed) with oil, while Turkey isn't. After the end of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey was mostly left alone by outside powers while Iran, due to it's oil, wasn't.
We must never forget the kindness and hospitality of the Iranian people. Even though struggling themselves, they took in vast numbers of Polish refugees during the Second World War.
The exiled Shah by this time was in the advanced stages of cancer. He went from one country to another in search of both a new home and treatment, from Egypt to Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, the U.S., Panama, until finally being welcomed back to Egypt, where he would die. While in Mexico, the Shah stayed in Cuernavaca, which we saw in our visit to "Guadalajara And Southeastern Mexico".
The Shah's autumn 1979 entry into the U.S. for cancer treatment is, of course, what brought about the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the Iran Hostage Crisis. The Iranians who seized the embassy were demanding that the Shah return to face trial. The Shah had visited U.S. President Harry Truman in 1949, and during that visit had stopped for a medical checkup at New York City Hospital. Thirty years later, when the Shah arrived for cancer treatment, my information is that he had the same hospital room as before, on the 17th floor.
Just as the tomb of Cyrus the Great, in Pasgardae, is the symbol of the beginning of this 2500-year royal line, a tomb in the Al Rafa'i Mosque, in Cairo, is the symbol of it's end. We saw the Al Rifa'i Mosque in our visit to "Cairo", on this blog. The Al Rifa'i Mosque was built in the Nineteenth Century, by the Pasha Dynasty that ruled Egypt, next to, and to complement, the much older Sultan Hassan Mosque. Both mosques are next to the Cairo Citadel, and the tomb of Pasha Dynasty founder Muhammad Ali, which were all built by the Pashas.
The Shah's father and predecessor, Reza Shah the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, also has his tomb here. He was also driven into exile, where he died in Johannesburg. His body was first brought here, to Cairo, but then reburied in a mausoleum in Tehran. My information is that his body was reburied in Cairo after the 1979 Revolution, and the revolutionaries dismantled his mausoleum. But there is another story that this is not true, and his body is still in Iran. But the final Shah, his son, is definitely buried at Al' Rifai. The final Shah died one day, July 27, 1980, after the anniversary of his father's death.
Ironically, not far from the Shah's tomb, in the same mosque, is the tomb of the last ruler of Egypt's Pasha Dynasty, King Farouk. Not only had his sister been the Shah's first wife, but he had suffered a fate similar to what would later befall the Shah. Farouk was overthrown by a group of military officers, led by Gamel Nasser who was the predecessor of Anwar Sadat who welcomed the Shah, he left Egypt for Europe on the royal yacht, and ultimately collapsed and died while dining at an Italian restaurant.
The Shah's wife, Empress Farah Diba, and their four children also left Iran, along with other members of the royal family. A lot of Iranians also left. It could be that there is so little of a monarchist movement in Iran today because all the supporters of the Shah left.
I have an autographed portrait of Empress Farah on my wall here.
As we might expect, the overthrow and sudden flight into exile, the Shah's illness and death, and the search for a country that would give them exile, took a heavy toll.
The youngest princess was Leila, nine years old at the time of the overthrow, and was clearly very much affected. She graduated from college in the U.S., but developed a dependence on medications. At age 31, she was found dead in a London hotel room.
Ten years later her brother, the younger prince Alireza, died a suicide in Massachusetts.
That leaves the Empress, Farah, the oldest son and heir to the throne, Reza Pahlavi, and the oldest princess, Farahnaz, who lives such a quiet life in New York City that she never seems to be in the news. Which, I suppose, is a good thing.
The Shah had two older sisters who left, Ashraf who was outspoken in defense of her brother's government and was famous for her fondness for the French Riviera, and the much quieter Shams.
Ashraf once said of the monarchy "It's passed now, only memories. But there were 50 years of grandeur, of glory". (New York Times 01/08/16).
I would say that it was even a lot more than that. This is a royal story like no other, and it was 2500 years of grandeur and of glory.
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