Reza Shah Pahlavi رضا شاه پهلوی |
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Reza Shah Pahlavi
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Shah of Iran | |||||
Reign | 15 December 1925 – 16 September 1941 | ||||
Coronation | 24 April 1926 | ||||
Predecessor | Ahmad Shah Qajar | ||||
Successor | Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi | ||||
Prime Minister of Iran | |||||
Term | 28 October 1923 – 1 November 1925 | ||||
Predecessor | Hassan Pirnia | ||||
Successor | Mohammad-Ali Foroughi | ||||
Monarch | Ahmad Shah Qajar | ||||
Born | Reza Khan 15 March 1878 Alasht, Savad Kooh, Mazandaran Province, Persia (Iran) |
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Died | 26 July 1944 Johannesburg, South Africa |
(aged 66)||||
Burial | Shah-Abdol-Azim shrine, Rey (reburied in 1979 in Cairo, Egypt) | ||||
Spouse | Maryam Khanum Tajmah Khanum Safiah Khanum Tadj ol-Molouk (queen consort) Qamar ol-Molouk Esmat ol-Molouk |
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Issue |
Princess Hamdamsaltaneh Princess Shams Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Princess Ashraf Prince Ali Reza Prince Gholam Reza Prince Abdul Reza Prince Ahmad Reza Prince Mahmud Reza Princess Fatimeh Prince Hamid Reza |
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House | House of Pahlavi | ||||
Father | Abbas Ali Khan | ||||
Mother | Noush-Afarin Ayromlou | ||||
Religion | Shia Islam |
Full name | |
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Reza Shah Pahlavi Persian: رضا شاه پهلوی |
Styles of Reza Shah of Iran |
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Reference style | His Imperial Majesty |
Spoken style | Your Imperial Majesty |
Alternative style | Sir |
Reza Shah Pahlavi (Persian: رضا شاه پهلوی; pronounced [reˈzɑː ˈʃɑːhe pæhlæˈviː]; 15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944), was the Shah of Iran (Persia) from 15 December 1925 until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on 16 September 1941.
Four years after conducting a coup against the pro-British government, the 1921 Persian coup d'état, in 1923 Reza Pahlavi was selected as Iran's prime minister by the National assembly of Iran. In 1925 Rezā Pahlavi was appointed as the legal monarch of Iran by decision of Iran's constituent assembly. The assembly deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and selected Reza Shah and Pahlavi dynasty instead, by amending the Iran's 1906 constitution. Reza Shah was the first democratically elected monarch of Iran. He founded the Pahlavi dynasty. He established a constitutional monarchy that lasted until overthrown in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. Reza Shah introduced many social, economic, and political reforms during his reign, ultimately laying the foundation of the modern Iranian state.
His legacy remains controversial to this day: his defenders assert that he was an essential modernizing force for Iran (whose international prominence had sharply declined during Qajar rule), while his detractors assert that his reign was often despotic, with his failure to modernize Iran's large peasant population eventually sowing the seeds for the Iranian Revolution. Moreover, his insistence on ethnic nationalism and cultural unitarism along with forced detribalization and sedentarization resulted in suppression of several ethnic and social groups.