PAHLAVI, REZA SHAH

Batoota — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 17:16:30 +0000

PAHLAVI, REZA SHAH (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944), Iranian monarch and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. Of modest origins and without a formal education, Reza joined the Cossack Brigade at an early age. In February 1921, with the support or approval of the British military and civilian personnel in Iran, Reza (then a brigadier general and known as Reza Khan) launched a coup together with Sayyid Ziya’ al-Din Tabataba’i, a pro-British journalist who briefly became prime minister before being forced into exile. Following the coup, Reza Khan became war minister and commander of the army, and he concentrated his efforts on creating a unified standing army and consolidating his own position, eventually assuming the premiership in October 1923.
From the outset, Reza Khan betrayed a contempt for constitutional procedures and principles. In the face of mounting, primarily religious opposition, he abandoned the republican campaign which he had instigated in 1924 and concentrated instead on establishing a dynasty of his own. His success in suppressing regional contenders and rebellions enhanced his power to the detriment of his parliamentary opponents, who failed to block his assumption of the throne in late 1925.
Enjoying the support of a large section of the intelligentsia, Reza Shah embarked on reforms which embodied ideas that had long been in the air. The strengthening of the army and the centralized bureaucratic state proceeded, as did efforts to disarm and settle the pastoral nomadic population coercively. Public health care and secular primary and higher education received particular attention. Substantial reform in the institutions of justice, together with the promulgation of modern legal codes enabled the government to terminate the capitulations [see Capitulations]. Measures to expand urbanization, strengthen and modernize the Iranian economy, build factories and roads, extend electrification, modernize transportation and communications, and construct a trans-Iranian railroad, among other things, went hand in hand with the imposition of modern dress and headgear for men, the abolition of traditional honorific titles, the adoption of surnames, and the persianization of the calendar.
Many of these reforms, particularly the secularization of education and the legal system, directly encroached on the privileges of the `ulama’ (community of religious scholars). The outlawing of the veil in January 1936 in defiance of religious and traditional sensibilities aggravated the situation. Reza Shah, however, tolerated no opposition. He was inspired by a nationalism which sought its mythological repository in the pre-Islamic era of Iranian history and affected the whole ethos of his rule.
Despite socioeconomic reforms, the power of the shah remained arbitrary and no institutions were developed to depersonalize the state. Parliamentary politics was reduced to a mere facade. Rarely courteous toward subordinates, the quick-tempered shah ruled by fear and by rewarding docile loyalty. Those whom he perceived to be capable of endangering his own power or his son’s subsequent assumption of the throne often met a tragic end, even if they were his closest aides. Reza Shah was deeply suspicious of the Russians and particularly of the British; toward the end of his reign, with the outbreak of World War II, Iran’s close economic ties with Germany, and refusal on the grounds of neutrality to expel German nationals, prompted the Allied occupation of the country in August 1941. Reza Shah abdicated and was exiled to South Africa, where he lived until his death. Reza Shah rarely made public speeches; he had a remarkable ability to absorb and remember details, was frugal, and was very keen on amassing a personal fortune, particularly through the acquisition of land. He was essentially pragmatic, espousing no coherent intellectual creed, and yet nationalism, etatism, anticlericalism, and a desire to modernize Iran were important elements in his political outlook.
[See also Iran.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
No scholarly biography of Reza Shah exists in English. For a slightly dated but still useful account of developments during his reign, see Amin Banani, The Modernization of Iran, 1921-1941 (Stanford, Calif., 1961). On his early political career and rise to power, see Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, 1918-1925 (Portland, Ore., 1990), and Michael P. Zirinsky, “Imperial Power and Dictatorship: Britain and the Rise of Reza Shah, 1921-1926,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24.4 (November 1992): 639-663. See also E. Eshraghi, “Anglo-Soviet Occupation of Iran in August 1941,” Middle Eastern Studies 20.9 (January 1984): 27-52.
FAKHREDDIN AZIMI

PAHLAVI, MUHAMMAD REZA SHAH

Batoota — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 16:53:55 +0000

PAHLAVI, MUHAMMAD REZA SHAH (26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980), last ruling monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran. Born in Tehran, Crown Prince Muhammad was elevated to shah in August 1941 by the British and Russians who had invaded Iran and ousted his father in fear of growing German influence in Iran. The shah never managed to convince the Iranian people that he was their legitimate ruler. Throughout his rule, many perceived him to be serving foreign interests.

This view of the shah was heightened in August 1953 when the British and Americans staged a coup to oust Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and restore the shah to the throne.
In 1963, the shah launched his White Revolution to accelerate social change and guarantee the security of his throne. At that period of social turmoil, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a cleric with a burgeoning reputation based more on his political activism than religious scholarship, began to criticize the Pahlavis and their alleged worship of the West. The ayatollah was arrested and mass protests broke out in cities throughout Iran. Hundreds of his followers were shot. The ayatollah was released and rearrested but finally exiled in the fall of 1964.
With his most vociferous clerical opponent apparently silenced, the shah continued his reforms. But the reforms did not transform Iran as much as the sharp rise in oil prices of December 1973, which he did much to engineer. The result was an explosion of oil revenues and of government spending. Tehran experienced a massive building boom. Property speculation swept the country and inflation spiraled. Industries, universities and schools, hospitals and roads were all built. But the economic boom spawned chaos and social turmoil. Corruption was unchecked. The shah also had the wealth to realize another dream-to make Iran a major military power-and spent billions of dollars to buy U.S. arms.
After an article lambasting Ayatollah Khomeini appeared in the Iranian press in early 1978, demonstrations broke out in the religious city of Qom. Young clerics were killed by the police. The revolution was on. After a year of escalating violence, the shah fled Iran on 19 January 1979, never to return. Ayatollah Khomeini flew back in triumph to destroy the remnants of the shah’s regime and create an Islamic republic.
No country would offer asylum to the shah, and he was shunned by his former friends. But when the cancer that had been diagnosed in the early 1970s began to burgeon, President Jimmy Carter relented and allowed the shah to enter the United States for medical treatment. The clerics in Tehran responded by urging their followers to seize the U.S. embassy and hold captive American diplomats. The ensuing hostage crisis was not to be resolved until 1981 and U.S.-Iranian relations were to be poisoned permanently.
The shah was no longer welcome in the United States and spent the remaining year of his life continuing to search for a home until his cancer finally killed him. He was buried in Cairo; not even his remains were welcome in the country that he had ruled for so many years. [See also Iran; and Iranian Revolution of 1979.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bill, James. The Eagle and the Lion. New Haven, 1988. Critique of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran, with important attention to the second Pahlavi shah.
Cottam, Richard. Nationalism in Iran. 2d rev. ed. Pittsburgh, 1979. Classic work on the subject, with major focus on the Pahlavi period.
Gasiorowski, Mark. US Foreign Policy and the Shah. Ithaca, N.Y., 1991. Emphasizes the client relationship between Iran and the United States during the second Pahlavi period and examines its impact on internal Iranian politics.
Lenczowski, George, ed. Iran Under the Pahlavis. Stanford, 1978. Essays on various aspects of politics, economics, and society by scholars generally sympathetic to the cause of the Pahlavis.
Zonis, Marvin. Majestic Failure. Chicago, 1991. Analysis of the shah, with emphasis upon the political psychology of the ruler and stressing the gap between an insecure monarch and the exigencies of his sovereign rule.
MARVIN ZONIS

PAHLAVI – Hybrid Learning

PAHLAVI, REZA SHAH

PAHLAVI, MUHAMMAD REZA SHAH