Reza Shah

## Reza Shah Pahlavi

**Reza Shah Pahlavi** is the Shahanshah of Persia since he overthrew the Qajar Dynasty and established an Empire. Reza Shah, son of Abbas-Ali Khan, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty was born in Alasht, Mazandaran on March 15, 1878. His father, Abbas-Ali Khan is rumored to be a paternal descendant of Cyrus the Great.

At the age of 16 he joined the Cossack Brigade, and also served in the army. In 1911 he was promoted to First Lieutenant, by 1912 he was elevated to the rank of Captain and by 1915 he became a Colonel. He with the aid of Japan and Germany overthrew the Qajars who were unpopular due to them not doing a good job in enforcing Persia's neutrality and the chaos that occured.

## History

### Early Life

Reza Shah Pahlavi was born in the village of Alasht in Savadkuh County, Mazandaran Province, in 1878, to Major Abbas-Ali Khan and Noush-Afarin. His mother was a Muslim immigrant from Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), whose family had emigrated to Qajar Iran when it was forced to cede all of its territories in the Caucasus following the Russo-Persian Wars several decades prior to Reza Shah's birth. His father was a Mazandarani, commissioned in the 7th Savadkuh Regiment, and served in the Anglo-Persian War in 1856. Abbas-Ali Khan himself is believed to be a paternal descendant of Cyrus the Great (which was a myth created to legitimize Reza Shah as Emperor of Persia). Abbas-Ali died suddenly on 26 November 1878, when Reza was barely 8 months old. Upon his father's death, Reza and his mother moved to her brother's house in Tehran. She remarried in 1879 and left Reza to the care of his uncle. In 1882, his uncle in turn sent Reza to a family friend, Amir Tuman Kazim Khan, an officer in the Persian Cossack Brigade, in whose home he had a room of his own and a chance to study with Kazim Khan's children with the tutors who came to the house. When Reza was sixteen years old, he joined the Persian Cossack Brigade. In 1903, he is reported to have been guard and servant to the Dutch consul general Fridolin Marinus Knobel. Reza was 25 years old then.

He also served in the Imperial Army. His initial career started as a private under Qajar Prince Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma's command. Farman Farma noted that Reza had potential and sent him to military school where he gained the rank of gunnery sergeant. In 1911, he gave a good account of himself in later campaigns and was promoted to First Lieutenant. His proficiency in handling machine guns elevated him to the rank equivalent to Captain in 1912. By 1915 he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. His record of military service eventually led him to a commission as a Brigadier General in the Persian Cossack Brigade. He was the last commanding officer of the Brigade, and the only Iranian commander in its history, succeeding to this position the Russian colonel Vsevolod Starosselsky, whom Reza Shah had helped, in 1916, take over the brigade.

### Persian Coup

The Japanese and Germans met with Reza then known as Brigadier General Reza Khan Mir Panji. Reza Khan joined the Japanese and Germans as he united the tribal irregulars and the Persian Cossack Brigade into one army. Their coup had started when Ahmad Shah Qajar was assassinated after having a stroke and his father Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar returned to the throne to end the constitution and turn Persia back into an feudalistic autocratic monarchy to appease the Allied powers and root out any influence they don't like.

The coup was successful as the people supported Reza and his forces in their rise to power and overthrow of the Qajar Dynasty and prevent Persia from becoming a client state of the Allied powers. Reza overthrew the Qajars with success as his army with the aid of Germany and Japan had fought off the British, Russian and Ottoman Soldiers occupying the nation. However stabilizing the rule of Reza Shah was not easy as the British, Ottomans and Russians were working hard to overthrow the Reza Pahlavi dictatorship, but they failed when the Bulgarians sacked Constantinople and the Russian Revolution.

### Creation of an Empire

Persia had gained help from the Germans and Japanese who drilled their armies, naval forces and air force with German and Japanese Military drills. After these drills and during the Russian crisis, Persia had conquered the Caucasus region, Turkmenistan and Tajikstan as a way for Persia to border British India. The Japanese and Persian Naval Forces both attacked South India as Persian Army units conquered the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, the Punjab States Agency, Sindh and the Baluchistan States Agency. Persia surrounding Afghanistan made resulted in Afghanistan easily gaining independence and it becoming a Puppet State of Persia.

The Emirate of Bukhara, Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, Grand Duchy of Georgia and Khanate of Kalat became Persian Puppet States. The Mughal Maharajahnate became a Puppet State of Persia after being restored. Later on the Persian and Japanese invaders then continued their invasion of India which was easy due to Indians causing disorder against the British to stop the British from forcing Indians to fight in a war that is not a threat to India and defend their homeland from the Persian invaders. The Princely States decided to join sides with the Persians due to them not wanting to be seen as British agents in the eyes of their people.

## Personal life

Reza Shah married, for the first time, Maryam Savadkoohi, who was his cousin, in 1894. The marriage lasted until Maryam's death in 1904, the couple had a daughter:

* Princess Hamdamsaltaneh Pahlavi (b. 1903), married Marquis Yoshimaro Yamashina (b. 1900)

Their daughter married Marquis Yoshimaro Yamashina (b. 1900) who is three years older than her as an arranged marriage after the war to make an alliance with Japan. Princess Hamdamsaltaneh Pahlavi had converted to Shintoism before the marriage. This was able to help the Pahlavi Dynasty get into the ranks of the Kazoku in Japan to strengthen their ties with Japan.

Reza Shah's second wife was Nimtaj Khanoum, later Queen Tadj ol-Molouk (1896-1982). The couple married in 1916 and when Reza Khan became king, Queen Tadj ol-Molouk was his official wife. They had four children together:

* Princess Shams Pahlavi (b. 1917), married Prince Soltan Hosein Mirza (b. 1916)
* Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (b. 1919), married Princess Shmas Aghdas (b. 1919)
* Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (b. 1919), married Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (b. 1919)
* Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi (b. 1922), married Giti Afruz Khanum (b. 1922)

The children of Reza Shah and Tadj ol-Molouk had married one Prince and two Princesses of the Qajar Dynasty who were exiled under house arrest in Tokyo. Princess Ashraf converted to Hinduism as she married Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, the Crown Prince of Mysore, this marriage strengthened the ties of the Pahlavi and Wadiyar Families.

The third wife of Reza Shah was Queen Turan Amir Soleimani (1904-1995), who was from the Qajar dynasty. The couple married in 1922 but divorced in 1923 and together they had a son:

* Prince Gholam Reza Pahlavi (b. 1923), married Uthram Thirunal Lalithamba Bayi (b. 1923)

Their son had married Uthram Thirunal Lalithamba Bayi, the daughter of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, the senior queen of Travancore as a way to strengthen ties between the Pahlavi Dynasty and Royal Family of Travancore.

Reza Shah's fourth and last wife, Queen Esmat Dowlatshahi (b. 1905), was a Princess of the Qajar dynasty. She married Reza Shah. Queen Esmat was Reza Shah's favorite wife, who resided at Marble Palace. The couple had five children:

* Prince Abdul Reza Pahlavi (b. 1924), married Princess Adeela of Afghanistan
* Prince Ahmad Reza Pahlavi (b. 1925), married Princess Haideh Farman Farmaian (1927)
* Prince Mahmud Reza Pahlavi (b. 1926), married Princess Shahzadi Bilqis Khanum Farman Farmaian (1926)
* Princess Fatimeh Pahlavi (b. 1928)
* Prince Hamid Reza Pahlavi (b. 1932)

### Cult of Personality

Reza Shah was described as being a humble man, wearing a simple Russian Cossack army uniform (shunning the lavish Qajar style luxury), believing himself to be a service man of the country rather than a supreme monarch. Reza Shah was described as a man with "a most amazing personality", which is even acknowledged by his opponents (supposedly). He could analyze the strengths and weaknesses of men instantly, constantly planning where an individual may make the best out of a situation. Although Reza Shah was said to have been a strict man, where many men feared looking straight into his eyes, when it came to family, he was described as being kind and loving. Reza Shah was, at times, mistakenly identified as being a person who was irreligious or even a supposed atheist, mainly because of his crack down on certain members of the Shi'a clergy in Iran. However he is Zoroastrian and is more of the favoritism to Zoroastrianism mixed with Emperor Worship.

His reasons of favoring Zoroastrianism as a religion was because it was the religion of Persia before Islam took hold of the country and Persia needed a new identity that represented Persian Nationalism and Constitutionalism. The other reason was to legitimize himself as the rightful ruler of Persia and not a Japanese Puppet. He favored Emperor Worship due to the fact that it was the religion of Japan and this religion influenced him to create an imperial cult that supports the myth that Reza is a descendant of Cyrus the Great on his father's side to really legitimize his rule as ruler of Persia.

Reza Shah married his children to a lot of Qajar nobles and Indian Royals, especially at a young age for alliance reasons.