Pahlavi Dynasty | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The reign of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979) was a crucial and transitional period in Iranian history that began with Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944) and ended with his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919–1980). For Iran, this was a time of rapid Westernization, secularization, and foreign influence, all of which ultimately contributed to the government's demise. Many of the sweeping changes introduced by the Pahlavis were unacceptable to the population, particularly to the religious community, and after the fall of the dynasty a conservative backlash erased most of the Pahlavi achievements.

Known as Reza Khan, Reza Shah Pahlavi rose to power through the military, where he followed in the footsteps of his father, also a military officer. Reza Khan attained the position of colonel when he becamecommander of the elite Cossack Brigade. In February 1921, with the support of Britain, Reza Khan's forces marched into the capital and pressured the ruler of that time, Ahmad Shah Qajar, to appoint Sayyid Zia ad Din Tabatabai premier. Later Reza Khan was himself appointed premier after serving as defense minister. Due to his military victories Reza Khan was initially popular with the people, and as a result the Majlis (Parliament) eventually removed Qajar from power and named Reza Khan first regent (October 1925). Within two months he had been declared shahen-shah (king of kings) of Iran. In spring 1925 Reza Shah chose Pahlavi (the name of the Middle Persian language used in the seventh century, particularly in Zoroastrian texts) as his family name. With this symbolic gesture he began the Pahlavi dynasty, representing Persian rule over the Persian people after many centuries of foreign dynasties.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and Queen Saroya in Tehran in July 1951. (BETTMANN/CORBIS)

During his reign Reza Shah worked to modernize Iran and to strengthen its economy and transportation system by using the funds generated by oil revenues. He increased revenues by raising tariffs on imports, revoking the economic concessions previously given to European countries, and in 1932 insisting that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company increase oil royalties to Iran and decrease the company's concessionaire area by 80 percent. He created a national civil service and a police force and built 22,400 kilometers of roads as well as the Trans-Iranian Railway. This improvement in the transportation infrastructure was intended to strengthen the economy by fostering industrialization.

In terms of the cultural and religious environment of Iran's society, Reza Shah swung the pendulum from Islamic traditions to secularism. He reduced the number of clerics in the Majlis from 40 percent to zero over the course of elections. He increased the powers of the secular state courts while diminishing those of the Islamic law courts. In an effort to homogenize the diverse population, he instituted a law requiring all men to wear Western-style clothes, and he required all public places and educational organizations to be opened to women. As might be expected, these rapidly introduced Westernizing policies were not welcomed by the religious community.

Events outside the country led Reza Shah to hand over control to his son in 1941. Reza Shah had began to disrupt Britain's and Russia's political and economic hold on Iran by building ties to Germany in the 1930s. He declared Iran a neutral country when World War II broke out, because Germany had become a major Iranian trade partner by that time. This neutrality, however, was not respected by Britain and Russia, whose troops invaded Iran in August 1941 on five fronts. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his oldest son, Mohammad Reza, who came to power on 16 September 1941. Reza Shah left Iran for Mauritius and ultimately for South Africa, where he died in 1944.

Although his father had relinquished the throne, his son held power mainly due to the presence of British and Russian troops in Iran. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, known as "the Shah," was forced to permit the foreign troops to use Iranian territory as needed during World War II while the Shah worked to gain support from his people, including the disaffected clerics who had disliked his father's secular policies. When the war ended, first the British and then the Soviet troops withdrew from Iran in 1946. The latter forces, however, left the monarch to deal with Russian-incited and -supported uprisings in Kurdistan and Azerbaijan. The goal of both uprisings was to establish political autonomy for the rebels, but successful containment of these rebellions at last established the Shah's control over all of Iran.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ruled as an absolute dictator, partly in response to an attempt on his life in February 1949. The rapid movement toward modernization that he fostered, along with his powerful security buildup, his authoritarian rule, the growing distance between rich and poor, and opposition by the religious community led to his eventual overthrow.

A showdown with Iran's premier, Mohammad Mosaddeq (1880–1967), compelled the Shah to nationalize the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951. In 1953, further disputes with Mosaddeq forced the Shah to flee to Rome, but the United States and Great Britain used the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6 to bring about a pro-Shah coup. With Mosaddeq overthrown, the Shah returned to Iran.

Previously Russia and Britain had been the main outsiders involved in the power struggles in Iran, but the United States became the dominant actor in the region following the 1953 coup. The Shah encouraged this influence by brokering several economic and political deals with the United States. The National Iranian Oil Company gave U.S. companies a contract to run Iran's petroleum industry. Iran joined the pro-Western Baghdad Pact in 1955 and agreed to adhere to the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957. To silence internal opposition, the Shah created the Savak (Sazman-e Amniyat Va Ittilaat-e Keshvar—Organization of National Security and Intelligence), a secret security and intelligence force with strong connections to the CIA and to Israel's Mossad. In 1962, the Shah instituted a major land reform by allotting peasants land formerly in private hands; in 1951, he had begun to turn royal lands over to small farmers. Nevertheless the lives of most people did not benefit from the Shah's innovations; such luxuries as electricity and access to adequate health care were not available to them.

The U.S. influence in Iranian affairs created resentment and opposition. The Shah decided to dissolve the Majlis so that he could rule by decree and avoid opposition to his policies, an act that further alienated the population. In early 1963, the Shah introduced an economic and social program called the White Revolution, which apparently received 91 percent approval, mainly because the regime had ruthlessly quashed the opposition. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900?–1989) was particularly vocal in his objection to this program and was arrested as a result. The Shah had to use excessive force to quell riots that broke out in protest to the ayatollah's imprisonment, but this action caused a worldwide reaction. Human-rights organizations and Western governments pressured the Shah to adhere to democratic principles. When the Shah loosened his iron fist, the ayatollah's supporters regained strength, and the monarch exiled Khomeini.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and Iran grew increasingly important as the Middle East oil-producing countries made themselves felt internationally. As Iran's stature grew internationally, opposition to the Shah by the religious conservatives also grew. With Iran's oil revenues, the Shah launched ambitious economic five-year plans for rapid economic development in the agricultural and industrial sectors. Rapid growth, however, also resulted in housing shortages, inflation, pollution, and corruption; the distance between the wealthy few, including the Shah and his family, who enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, and the rest of the population grew greater. In the 1970s, the religious opposition managed to infiltrate the military and to bring the oil industry to a standstill through massive strikes. The Shah finally tried to placate the opposition by appointing one of their own, Shahpur Bakhtiar, as prime minister, but this effort was seen as too little too late.

Under the guise of taking a vacation in Egypt, the Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979. Soon after, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and established the Islamic Republic regime. The Pahlavi dynasty came to an end, along with a 2,500-year-old tradition of monarchy in Iran. The ayatollah insisted on extraditing the Shah, who had secretly entered the United States for medical treatment, but the United States denied his demand. Escalating hostility between the two countries led to the taking of hostages in the U.S. embassy in Tehran. In early 1980, after months of traveling from country to country in search of a place to stay, the Shah went to Cairo at the invitation of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and died soon after.