Old News: After 26-year rule, Shah of Iran crowns himself ‘King of Kings’

Old News is a new initiative by Amwaj.media to connect the past to the present. Through “reporting” on pivotal moments in history, we aim to provide a richer backdrop for current dynamics in the region.

 

The story: Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi has crowned himself Iran’s “King of Kings,” and his wife as Empress. The event took place at a lavish ceremony in Tehran's Golestan Palace, 26 years after becoming head of state. Observers say Pahlavi has delayed his coronation to await the birth of a male heir, and to initiate enough progress and reform in Iran to legitimize his rule. The coronation has drawn national and international praise for reforms implemented as part of the Shah’s “White Revolution,” though he is also facing domestic criticism for his policies and autocratic rule.

The coverage: Pahlavi crowned himself Shahanshah, “King of Kings” of the Imperial State of Iran, on Oct. 26 1967—marking his 48th birthday.

• The monarch also gave his wife, Farah Pahlavi, the new title of Shahbanu, meaning Empress.
  
  
• During the coronation, Pahlavi placed the crown atop his own head. Tehran’s Friday prayer leader presented a Quran. The monarch’s father and predecessor, Reza Pahlavi, also performed this gesture at his 1926 coronation at the same palace.

In the weeks before the coronation, an assembly was convened to grant the Empress constitutional power to rule in case the Shah dies or is incapacitated before six-year-old Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi turns 20. No woman has held that role in modern Iran.

• The constitutional provision is notable given that the Shah has survived two assasination attempts thus far, one in 1949 and the other as recently as 1965.

The lavish ceremony took place at midday at the Golestan Palace’s Coronation Hall, after months of planning and renovations to the Tehran complex.

• Preparations included the commissioning of the Empress's crown from the Parisian Van Cleef & Arpels, her gown from Christian Dior, as well as a replica of the Habsburg Imperial Carriage brought in from Vienna to serve as the Coronation Coach.
  
  
• It is reported that Empress Farah consulted coronation traditions of Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden when planning the Pahlavi ceremony in Iran.

The ceremony was attended by a 500-person audience of government officials, clergymen and other members of the royal family.

• Some foreign diplomats were present, amongst them George Ball—who until last year served as US undersecretary of state, and British Ambassador Sir Denis Wright.

In a four-minute address at the ceremony, the Shah pledged to "bring the Iranian nation up to the level of the most progressive and prosperous societies of the world."

• Alluding to the assasination attempts, Pahlavi said in his coronation speech that he will “withhold nothing, not even my life," in his efforts to bring grandeur to the nation.
  
  
• Speeches were also delivered by Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda; Senate leader Jafar Sharif-Emami; Majles Speaker Abdollah Riazi; and lastly by the poet Professor Lutf-Ali Suratgar of the University of Tehran.

After the ceremony, a procession led by the crowned monarchs went through the Golestan Palace gardens and the streets of Tehran to the Marble Palace.

• It is reported that crowds lined the streets to watch the royal couple’s procession, chanting “long live the Shahanshah.”

Foreign dignitaries will present gifts to the new monarchs at an event at Sa’dabad Palace in two days, where representatives of Asian and European countries are expected to be in attendance.

• Tehran-based Ettelaat daily reports that Pakistan and the Soviet Union have praised the Shahanshah. Streets in Pakistan and Turkey have also been named after the Emperor and Empress.
  
  
• Western states, including Poland, the United States and the Vatican, have hailed Pahlavi’s leadership and reforms. US Vice President Hubert Humphrey was quoted by Iranian media as calling Iran one of America’s “most reliable allies.”
  
  
• A ceremony was held at the United Nations in New York to honor the coronation, hosted by Iran’s permanent mission to the world body.

A seven-day and night period of celebration has been announced to commemorate the occasion, with parties and carnivals scheduled to take place throughout the country.

• The government has also granted amnesty to six political prisoners and thousands of convicts; taken out life insurance policies for babies born on Coronation Day in Gilan, the northern birthplace of the Empress’s mother; and, inaugurated schools and hospitals to honor the coronation.

The context/analysis: Pahlavi first ascended to the throne in 1941, during the Second World War. The then-21-year-old took over from his father who was forced to abdicate under immense pressure from Britain and the occupying Soviet Union, primarily over alleged Nazi sympathies.

• The young monarch fled his country in Aug. 1953, in the aftermath of failed efforts to dismiss Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. The latter nationalized Iran’s oil industry in 1951, thereby inviting a British-led embargo, while strengthening the authority of the Majles.
  
  
• After escaping to Rome via Baghdad, the Shah returned to Iran following a coup weeks later instigated by London and Washington. Mossadeq was detained by forces loyal to the new prime minister, Gen. Fazollah Zahedi.

Pahlavi has delayed his coronation until now for a number of reasons. His sudden rise to power with significant foreign backing has led some to question the legitimacy of his rule.

• There are claims that the Iranian Constitution does not allow for a monarch to be crowned until the birth of a male heir, however there is no such provision. Nonetheless, it is only in the Shah’s current third marriage to Empress Farah that his son, Reza, was born on Oct. 31, 1960.
  
  
• The Shah’s first two marriages, to Princess Fawzia of Egypt in Cairo in 1939, and then to Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary, in Tehran in 1951, bore no male heirs.

The main reason to push back his crowning, according to the monarch himself, is that he has wanted to achieve a level of social and economic progress in Iran before being able to justify it.

• This social and economic progress has come in the form of numerous reform programs implemented throughout this decade under the Shah’s “White Revolution.”
  
  
• Financed by profits from Iran’s lucrative oil industry, the “White Revolution” has included modernization spanning land redistribution, literacy and health, more legal rights for women and rapid secularization.

The future: Though popular internationally, the Shah’s rule and reforms have drawn criticism, including from disenfranchised landowners who form part of the country’s prominent clerical class.

• Apart from sparking tension with land-owning elites, poorly implemented land redistribution has resulted in crop failures. In search of work, villagers have steamed into Iran’s rapidly industrializing major cities.
  
  
• Affected clergymen and poor laborers, who believe the country’s rising oil revenues are not fairly trickling down, form a growing opposition to the Shah’s rule.
  
  
• Many clerics are also growingly dissatisfied with the country’s rapid secularization and westernization, criticizing the shrinking role religion is allotted in matters of the state.

65-year-old cleric Ruhollah Khomeini and his allies in the holy city of Qom have been vocal critics of the “White Revolution” and the suppression of political dissent by the Shah’s secret police, SAVAK.

• Following a scathing speech against a new Majles law giving US military personnel immunity from Iranian courts, Khomeini was in Nov. 1964 exiled to Turkey. After a year mainly spent in the city of Bursa, the dissident cleric was permitted to move to the shrine city of Najaf in Iraq, where he remains based.
  
  
• There are unconfirmed rumors that in the weeks before the coronation, Khomeini penned a letter from Najaf to Prime Minister Hoveyda, criticizing the Shah’s policies as well as the crowning.
  
  
• Khomeini’s exile, alongside growing opposition inside Iran over social divides and the speed of westernization, demonstrates the significance of the potential threat to the Shah’s rule.