Iran's last shah was crowned prince at six and exiled at 59
The day before his father's coronation in April 1926, six-year-old Mohammad Reza was proclaimed heir to the brand-new Pahlavi dynasty. He would inherit the throne in wartime, reign for 37 years, push Iran through rapid industrialisation under tight authoritarian control, and leave the country for good in January 1979.
Born in Tehran in 1919 with a twin sister, Ashraf, he was the eldest son of Reza Khan, a Cossack Brigade officer who later made himself shah. His father nicknamed him 'bird of good omen' but was a remote, formal parent whom the son later called one of the most frightening men he had known. Once named crown prince he was separated from his mother and sisters and raised under military officers. In 1931 he became the first Iranian heir sent abroad to study, at Le Rosey in Switzerland, where he reportedly began by demanding that classmates stand to attention. He graduated from a Tehran military academy in 1938.
His first marriage, to Princess Fawzia of Egypt, grew out of regional diplomacy: Atatürk suggested the match, hoping it might draw Egypt into the Saadabad Pact of 1937. It produced a daughter, Shahnaz, and was unhappy on both sides. In 1941, during the Second World War, British and Soviet forces invaded Iran and forced Reza Shah to abdicate in his son's favour.
The young shah's early reign was shaped by Mohammad Mosaddegh's nationalisation of oil and the 1953 coup that removed him, after which power centred on the throne and foreign firms returned under a 1954 agreement. From 1963 the White Revolution redistributed land, nationalised key industries and gave workers profit shares. Tariffs and cheap loans nurtured domestic car and appliance makers, and real income per person roughly tripled between 1950 and 1979. By 1977 Iran's military ranked as the fifth strongest in the world.
Rule was authoritarian, and human rights were frequently curtailed, feeding opposition that swelled in the late 1970s. After Western allies concluded at the 1979 Guadeloupe Conference that the monarchy could not be saved, he left Iran, and the Islamic Revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini abolished the monarchy. He died in exile in Egypt in 1980, having been granted asylum by Anwar Sadat. His legacy remains sharply divided.
Source: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
