The prime minister of Iran was a political post that had existed in Iran ( Persia ) during much of the 20th century. It began in 1906 during the Qajar dynasty and into the start of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1923 and into the 1979 Iranian Revolution before being abolished in 1989.
162-496: In the Qajar era, prime ministers were known by different titles. The post itself was mainly known as ataabak or ataabak-e a'zam (grand ataabak ), or sometimes sadr-e a'zam (premier) at the beginning, but became ra'is ol-vozaraa (head of ministers) at the end. The title of nakhost vazir (prime minister) was rarely used. The prime minister was usually called by the honorific title hazrat-e ashraf . Reza Khan Sardar Sepah became
324-730: A casus belli to attack the Empire. After many gains, the Sassanians were defeated at Issus, Constantinople, and finally Nineveh, resulting in peace. With the conclusion of the over 700 years lasting Roman–Persian Wars through the climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 , which included the very siege of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople , the war-exhausted Persians lost the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah (632) in Hilla (present-day Iraq ) to
486-706: A 1392 km-long rail line connecting the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea, using foreign technicians from countries with no historic interest in Iran—principally Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States—and not using foreign loans. According to Makki Hossein, this north–south railway line was uneconomical, only serving the British, who had a military presence in the south of Iran and desired
648-577: A canal between the Nile and the Red Sea , a forerunner of the modern Suez Canal . He improved the extensive road system, and it is during his reign that mentions are first made of the Royal Road (shown on map), a great highway stretching all the way from Susa to Sardis with posting stations at regular intervals. Major reforms took place under Darius. Coinage , in the form of the daric (gold coin) and
810-570: A cane and physically stripped him of his rank. Nakhjavan was nearly shot by the Shah on the spot, but at the insistence of the Crown Prince, he was sent to prison instead. The Shah ordered pro-British Prime Minister Ali Mansur , whom he blamed for demoralising the military, to resign, replacing him with former prime minister Mohammad Ali Foroughi . Within days, Reza Shah ordered the military to cease resistance and entered into negotiations with
972-421: A cleric who had angrily admonished Reza Shah's wife for temporarily exposing her face a day earlier while on pilgrimage to Qom. In December of that year he instituted a law requiring everyone (except Shia jurisconsults who had passed a special qualifying examination) to wear Western clothes. This angered devout Muslims because it included a hat with a brim which prevented the devout from touching their foreheads on
1134-455: A contemporary intellectual and historian of constitutional movement, who had strongly criticized participation of Reza Shah in the 1909 siege of Tabriz . When he accepted the unpleasant responsibility of acting as defense attorney for a group of officers accused of torturing political prisoners, he stated: "Our young intellectuals cannot possibly understand and cannot judge the reign of Reza Shah. They cannot because they were too young to remember
1296-474: A decision was made by the League, the company and Iran compromised and a new concession was signed on 26 April 1933. Reza Shah previously hired American consultants to develop and implement Western-style financial and administrative systems. Among them was U.S. economist Arthur Millspaugh , who acted as the nation's finance minister. Reza Shah also purchased ships from Italy and hired Italians to teach his troops
1458-621: A decree asking foreign delegates to use the term Iran in formal correspondence, as Persia is a term used for a country identified as Iran in the Persian language . It was attributed more to the Iranian people than others, as Iran means "Land of the Aryans". This wisdom of this decision continues to be debated . Tired of the opportunistic policies of both Britain and the Soviet Union ,
1620-938: A few number of sites in Piranshahr , Alborz and Central Iran . During this time, people began creating rock art . Early agricultural communities such as Chogha Golan in 10,000 BC along with settlements such as Chogha Bonut (the earliest village in Elam) in 8000 BC, began to flourish in and around the Zagros Mountains region in western Iran. Around about the same time, the earliest-known clay vessels and modelled human and animal terracotta figurines were produced at Ganj Dareh, also in western Iran. There are also 10,000-year-old human and animal figurines from Tepe Sarab in Kermanshah Province among many other ancient artefacts. The south-western part of Iran
1782-466: A garden, she chose a design by French architect André Godard; however, the shah's approval was required for construction within the royal compound. Upon seeing a Latin name on the plans, Reza Shah became visibly angry. Despite assurances that Godard had lived in Iran long enough to be considered virtually Iranian, the shah tore up the plans and insisted that an Iranian architect design the garden. Along with
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#17327721540331944-500: 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 . In November 1919, he chose the last name Pahlavi , which later became
2106-675: A leading power once again. Persia's arch-rival during this time was the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire . Iran endured invasions by the Macedonians , Arabs , Turks , and Mongols . Despite these invasions, Iran continually reasserted its national identity and developed as a distinct political and cultural entity. The Muslim conquest of Persia (632–654) ended the Sasanian Empire and marked
2268-689: A meaningful institution, and instead became a decorative garb covering the nakedness of military rule." Reza Shah discredited and eliminated a number of his ministers. His minister of Imperial Court, Abdolhossein Teymourtash , was accused and convicted of corruption, bribery, misuse of foreign currency regulations, and plans to overthrow the Shah. He was removed as the minister of court in 1932 and died under suspicious circumstances while in prison in September 1933. The minister of finance, Prince Firouz Nosrat-ed-Dowleh III , who played an important role in
2430-643: A monarchy until the 1979 Iranian Revolution , when it officially became an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979. Since then, Iran has experienced significant political, social, and economic changes. The establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran led to the restructuring of its political system, with Ayatollah Khomeini as the Supreme Leader. Iran's foreign relations have been shaped by the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), ongoing tensions with
2592-535: A new art college (Honar Kadeh) in Tehran, where Andre Godard and Maxime Siroux were among the teachers; however, the second Pahlavi king, Mohammad Reza Shah , later relocated the art college to the basement of the faculty of engineering at the University of Tehran , returning the madrasa to the clerics. The devout were also angered by policies that allowed mixing of the sexes . Women were allowed to study in
2754-612: A number of historians who see the rule of the Umayyads as setting up the "dhimmah" to increase taxes from the dhimmis to benefit the Muslim Arab community financially and by discouraging conversion. Governors lodged complaints with the caliph when he enacted laws that made conversion easier, depriving the provinces of revenues. In the 7th century, when many non-Arabs such as Persians entered Islam, they were recognized as mawali ("clients") and treated as second-class citizens by
2916-472: A number of new concepts were introduced between 1923 and 1941. Some of these significant changes, achievements, concepts, and laws included: Reza Shah married, for the first time, Maryam Savadkoohi , who was his cousin, in 1895. The marriage lasted until Maryam's death in 1911, the couple had a daughter: Reza Shah's second wife was Nimtaj Ayromlou, later Tadj ol-Molouk (1896–1982). The couple married in 1916 and when Reza Khan became king, Queen Tadj ol-Molouk
3078-535: A period of more than 400 years, Iran was once again one of the leading powers in the world, alongside its neighbouring rival, the Roman and then Byzantine Empires . The empire's territory, at its height, encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq , Azerbaijan , Armenia , Georgia , Abkhazia , Dagestan , Lebanon , Jordan , Palestine , Israel , parts of Afghanistan , Turkey , Syria , parts of Pakistan , Central Asia , Eastern Arabia , and parts of Egypt . Most of
3240-575: A propagandist and then to revolt on their behalf. He took Merv defeating the Umayyad governor there Nasr ibn Sayyar . He became the de facto Abbasid governor of Khurasan. During the same period, the Dabuyid ruler Khurshid declared independence from the Umayyads but was shortly forced to recognize Abbasid authority. In 750, Abu Muslim became the leader of the Abbasid army and defeated the Umayyads at
3402-655: A publication from 1926 speaks of him as the "gholam of His Presence the Dutch Consul" and noted his very keen interest in Western politics. Reza 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
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#17327721540333564-552: 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, when he was 25 years old, he is reported to have been guard and servant to the Dutch consul general Fridolin Marinus Knobel . Maurits Wagenvoort, who met and spoke to Reza at a meeting of the "Babi-circle of Hadsji Achont" in Tehran in 1903, in
3726-743: A situation report to the British War Office saying that a capable Persian officer was in command of the Cossacks and this "would solve many difficulties and enable us to depart in peace and honour". Reza Khan spent the rest of 1921 securing Iran's interior, responding to a number of revolts that erupted against the new government. Among the greatest threats to the new administration were the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, which had been established in Gilan , and
3888-414: A striving for an Iran which—according to scholar Ervand Abrahamian —would be "free of clerical influence, nomadic uprisings, and ethnic differences", on the one hand, and on the other hand would contain "European-style educational institutions, Westernized women active outside the home, and modern economic structures with state factories, communication networks, investment banks, and department stores." Reza
4050-465: A time right after the establishment of the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk in 4500 BC. The general perception among archaeologists is that Susa was an extension of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk , hence incorporating many aspects of Mesopotamian culture. In its later history, Susa became the capital of Elam, which emerged as a state founded 4000 BC. There are also dozens of prehistoric sites across
4212-560: A turning point in Iranian history, leading to the Islamization of Iran from the eighth to tenth centuries and the decline of Zoroastrianism . However, the achievements of prior Persian civilizations were absorbed into the new Islamic polity. Iran suffered invasions by nomadic tribes during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period , negatively impacting the region. Iran was reunified as an independent state in 1501 by
4374-686: A unified empire of the Medes and Persians, leading to the Achaemenid Empire (c.550–330 BC). Cyrus the Great overthrew, in turn, the Median , Lydian , and Neo-Babylonian empires, creating an empire far larger than Assyria. He was better able, through more benign policies, to reconcile his subjects to Persian rule; the longevity of his empire was one result. The Persian king, like the Assyrian ,
4536-661: A university. Reza Shah immediately tasked Hekmat with establishing one, allocating a budget of 250,000 Toman. Before, Shah had ordered ten students annually to study in Europe and the United States. Reza Shah advised against sending more students abroad, suggesting the establishment of a university in Tehran instead. From 1937, the University of Tehran admitted both men and women to study law, medicine, pharmacology, and literature. Ali Asghar Hekmat enlisted Godard to design
4698-617: Is a new Yezid ". For four full days local police and army refused to violate the shrine. The standoff was ended when troops from Iranian Azerbaijan arrived and broke into the shrine, killing dozens and injuring hundreds, and marking a final rupture between the clergy and the Shah. Some of the Mashed clergy even left their jobs, such as the Keeper of the Keys of the shrine Hassan Mazloumi, later named Barjesteh, who stated he did not want to listen to
4860-586: Is said to have avoided political participation and consultation with politicians or political personalities, instead embracing the slogan "every country has its own ruling system and ours is a one man system". He is also said to have preferred punishment to reward in dealing with subordinates or citizens. Reza Shah's reign has been said to have consisted of "two distinct periods". From 1925 to 1933, figures such as Abdolhossein Teymourtash , Nosrat ol Dowleh Firouz , and Ali-Akbar Davar and many other western-educated Iranians emerged to implement modernist plans, such as
5022-496: The Allied powers ( United Kingdom and the Soviet Union ) invaded and occupied neutral Iran by a massive air, land, and naval assault without a declaration of war . By 28–29 August, the Iranian military situation was in complete chaos. The Allies had complete control over the skies of Iran, and large sections of the country were in their hands. Major Iranian cities (such as Tehran) were suffering repeated air raids. In Tehran itself,
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5184-602: The Babylonian king Nabopolassar invaded Assyria and laid siege to and eventually destroyed Nineveh , the Assyrian capital, which led to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Urartu was later on conquered and dissolved as well by the Medes. The Medes are credited with founding Iran as a nation and empire, and established the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established
5346-615: The Battle of the Zab . Abu Muslim stormed Damascus , the capital of the Umayyad caliphate, later that year. The Abbasid army consisted primarily of Khorasanians and was led by an Iranian general, Abu Muslim Khorasani . It contained both Iranian and Arab elements, and the Abbasids enjoyed both Iranian and Arab support. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750. According to Amir Arjomand, the Abbasid Revolution essentially marked
5508-728: The First Persian invasion of Greece , the Persian general Mardonius re-subjugated Thrace and made Macedon a full part of Persia. The war eventually turned out in defeat, however. Darius' successor Xerxes I launched the Second Persian invasion of Greece . At a crucial moment in the war, about half of mainland Greece was overrun by the Persians, including all territories to the north of the Isthmus of Corinth , however, this
5670-616: The Iran hostage crisis , but mentioned that it has not been the sole reason, and the decision for mass resignation had been reached one day before the invasion of the United States embassy by the Iranian students. The post was left empty until Abolhassan Banisadr became president in January 1980 and chose Mohammad-Ali Rajai as his prime minister, mainly because of pressures imposed by Majlis representatives, especially those close to
5832-745: The Iranian plateau before the emergence of Iranian peoples during the Early Iron Age . The Early Bronze Age saw the rise of urbanization into organized city-states and the invention of writing (the Uruk period ) in the Near East. While Bronze Age Elam made use of writing from an early time, the Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, and records from Sumer pertaining to Elam are scarce. Russian historian Igor M. Diakonoff stated that
5994-651: The Islamic Republic Party . Rajai served in the post until Banisadr's impeachment in June 1981, and was elected as president in the elections of July 24, 1981. Rajai chose Mohammad Javad Bahonar as his prime minister, but they were assassinated together in the Prime Minister's office only a few weeks later on August 30, 1981. When Ali Khamenei became president in the elections of October 1981, he first introduced right-leaning Ali Akbar Velayati to
6156-549: The Kurds of Khorasan . From the beginning of the appointment of Reza Khan as the minister of war, there was ever increasing tension with Zia ol Din Tabatabaee , who was prime minister at the time. Zia ol Din Tabatabaee wrongly calculated that when Reza Khan was appointed as the minister of war, he would relinquish his post as the head of the Persian Cossack Brigade , and that Reza Khan would wear civilian clothing instead of
6318-556: The Majlis to depose and formally exile Ahmad Shah, and instate him as the next Shah of Iran. Initially, he had planned to declare the country a republic , as his contemporary Atatürk had done in Turkey, but abandoned the idea in the face of British and clerical opposition. The Majlis, convening as a constituent assembly , declared him the Shah (King) of Iran on 12 December 1925, pursuant to
6480-688: The Middle Paleolithic period, which mainly have been found in the Zagros region and fewer in central Iran at sites such as Kobeh, Kunji, Bisitun Cave , Tamtama, Warwasi , and Yafteh Cave. In 1949, a Neanderthal radius was discovered by Carleton S. Coon in Bisitun Cave. Evidence for Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic periods are known mainly from the Zagros Mountains in the caves of Kermanshah and Khorramabad and
6642-440: The Neo-Assyrian Empire and its records of incursions from the Iranian plateau. As early as the 20th century BC, tribes came to the Iranian plateau from the Pontic–Caspian steppe . The arrival of Iranians on the Iranian plateau forced the Elamites to relinquish one area of their empire after another and to take refuge in Elam, Khuzestan and the nearby area, which only then became coterminous with Elam. Bahman Firuzmandi say that
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6804-438: The Nuremberg Laws , as they were considered to be the only people besides Germans to be "pure Aryans". In 1939, Hitler provided Iran with their German Scientific Library, which contained over 7,500 books on eugenics "to convince the Persians of the kinship between Germans and the Persians, the modern Aryans and the ancient Aryans". In various pro-Nazi publications, lectures, speeches, and ceremonies, parallels were drawn between
6966-420: The Persian Constitution of 1906 . Three days later, on 15 December, he took his imperial oath and thus became the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty . Reza Shah's coronation took place much later, on 25 April 1926. It was at that time that his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , was proclaimed crown prince . While the Shah left behind no major thesis, or speeches giving an overarching policy, his reforms indicated
7128-400: The Safavid dynasty , which established Shia Islam as the empire's official religion, marking a significant turning point in the history of Islam . Iran functioned again as a leading world power, especially in rivalry with the Ottoman Empire . In the 19th century, Iran lost significant territories in the Caucasus to the Russian Empire following the Russo-Persian Wars . Iran remained
7290-399: The Second Herat War of 1856. Abbas-Ali died suddenly on 26 November 1878, when Reza was 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
7452-437: The Trans-Iranian Railway were built, modern education was introduced and the University of Tehran , the first Iranian university, was established. The number of modern industrial plants increased 17-fold under Reza Shah (excluding oil installations), and the number of miles of highway increased from 2,000 to 14,000. He founded 100,000-man army (previously, the shah had relied on tribal forces who were rewarded with plunder from
7614-481: The shekel (silver coin) was standardized (coinage had already been invented over a century before in Lydia c. 660 BC but not standardized), and administrative efficiency increased. The Old Persian language appears in royal inscriptions, written in a specially adapted version of the cuneiform script . Under Cyrus the Great and Darius I , the Persian Empire eventually became the largest empire in human history up until that point, ruling and administrating over most of
7776-538: The 4th millennium BC. There is a large quantity of objects decorated with highly distinctive engravings of animals, mythological figures, and architectural motifs. The objects and their iconography are considered unique. Many are made from chlorite , a grey-green soft stone; others are in copper , bronze , terracotta , and even lapis lazuli . Recent excavations at the sites have produced the world's earliest inscription which pre-dates Mesopotamian inscriptions. There are records of numerous other ancient civilizations on
7938-415: The Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo. In a 2015 documentary From Tehran to Cairo , his daughter-in-law, Empress Farah , claimed that the remains of the late Reza Shah remain in the town of Ray. After the 1979 revolution and during the period of the Interim Government of Iran , Iran faced a series of rampages at the hand of an extremist mob led by the cleric Sadeq Khalkhali . During this rampage, happening all over
8100-435: The Allies to withdraw, Iran would have to expel the German minister and his staff should leave Tehran; the German, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian legations would be closed; and all remaining German nationals (including all families) would be handed over to the British and Soviet authorities. The last order would mean almost certain imprisonment or, in the case of those handed to the Soviets, possible death. Reza Shah stalled on
8262-461: The Army, by which he was known until he became Shah. While Reza Khan and his Cossack brigade secured Tehran, the Persian envoy in Moscow negotiated a treaty with the Bolsheviks for the removal of Soviet troops from Persia. Article IV of the Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship allowed the Soviets to invade and occupy Persia, should they believe foreign troops were using it as a staging area for an invasion of Soviet territory. The coup d'état of 1921
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#17327721540338424-418: The British and Soviets, Germany was always in good terms with Iran. On the eve of World War II , Germany was Iran's largest ally and trading partner. The Germans agreed to give the Shah the steel factory he coveted and considered a sine qua non of progress and modernity. They began to form a stronger alliance as Iran started helping the Axis forces and Adolf Hitler 's cabinet declared Iranians to be immune to
8586-457: The British and Soviets. Foroughi was disobliged towards Reza Shah, having been previously forced into retirement years earlier for political reasons with his daughter's father in-law being executed by firing squad. When he entered into negotiations with the British, instead of negotiating a favorable settlement, Foroughi implied that both he and the Iranian people wanted to be "liberated" from the Shah's rule. The British and Foroughi agreed that for
8748-444: The Cossack Brigade, based in Niyarak , Qazvin, and Hamadan, to Tehran and seized the capital . He forced the dissolution of the previous government and demanded that Zia ol Din Tabatabaee be appointed prime minister. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was as commander of the Iranian Army, which he combined with the post of Minister of War . He took the title Sardar Sepah ( Persian : سردار سپاه ), or Commander-in-Chief of
8910-429: The Crown Prince) fled to Isfahan . The collapse of the army that Reza Shah had spent so much time and effort creating was humiliating. Many Iranian commanders behaved incompetently, others secretly sympathized with the British and sabotaged Iranian resistance. The army generals met in secret to discuss surrender options. When the Shah learned of the generals' actions, he beat armed forces chief General Ahmad Nakhjavan with
9072-437: The European Scythians around the Danube river. In 512/511 BC, Macedon became a vassal kingdom of Persia. In 499 BC, Athens lent support to a revolt in Miletus , which resulted in the sacking of Sardis . This led to an Achaemenid campaign against mainland Greece known as the Greco-Persian Wars , which lasted the first half of the 5th century BC, and is known as one of the most important wars in European history . In
9234-420: The Great (r. 712–728), managed to hold his domains during his long struggle against the Arab general Yazid ibn al-Muhallab , who was defeated by a combined Dailamite-Dabuyid army, and was forced to retreat from Tabaristan. With the death of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 743, the Islamic world was launched into civil war. Abu Muslim was sent to Khorasan by the Abbasid Caliphate initially as
9396-400: The Great . Reza Shah's reforms opened new occupations to Jews and allowed them to leave the ghetto . Contradicting this are claims that he was behind anti-Jewish incidents in parts of Tehran during September 1922. He forbade photographing aspects of Iran he considered backwards such as camels, and he banned clerical dress and chadors in favor of Western dress. Parliamentary elections during
9558-415: The Iranian plateau participated in the traditional ancient Near East with Elam (in Ilam and Khuzestan ), Kassites (in Kuhdesht ), Gutians (in Luristan ) and later with other peoples such as the Urartians (in Oshnavieh and Sardasht ) in the southwest of Lake Urmia and Mannaeans (in Piranshahr , Saqqez and Bukan ) in the Kurdish area. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called
9720-418: The Iranian plateau pointing to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the fourth millennium BC. One of the earliest civilizations on the Iranian plateau was the Jiroft culture in southeastern Iran in the province of Kerman . It is one of the most artefact-rich archaeological sites in the Middle East. Archaeological excavations in Jiroft led to the discovery of several objects belonging to
9882-414: The King's morale in exile by telling him that he was suffering from chronic indigestion and not heart ailment. He lived on a diet of plain rice and boiled chicken in the last years of his life. After his death, his body was carried to Egypt , where it was embalmed and kept at the royal Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo (also the future burial place of his son, the exiled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ). In May 1950,
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#173277215403310044-405: The Majlis as his prime minister, but he was voted down by the then left-leaning majority of the parliament, which then forced their preferred prime minister to Khamenei, namely Mir-Hossein Mousavi . The dispute finally ended following intervention by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who advised the president to accept Mousavi. Mousavi served under the title until 1989, when the constitution
10206-526: The Parthian cavalry was most notably feared by the Roman soldiers, which proved pivotal in the crushing Roman defeat at the Battle of Carrhae . On the other hand, the Parthians found it difficult to occupy conquered areas as they were unskilled in siege warfare. Because of these weaknesses, neither the Romans nor the Parthians were able completely to annex each other's territory. The Parthian empire subsisted for five centuries, longer than most Eastern Empires. The end of this empire came at last in 224 AD, when
10368-475: The Persians the "first Historical People". The Iranian empire began in the Iron Age with the rise of the Medes , who unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), founded by Cyrus the Great , was the largest empire the world had seen, spanning from the Balkans to North Africa and Central Asia . They were succeeded by the Seleucid , Parthian , and Sasanian empires, who governed Iran for almost 1,000 years, making Iran
10530-399: The Qajar government, whose ministers Ahmad Shah was often unable to control. By 1920, the government had lost virtually all power outside its capital: British and Soviet forces exercised control over most of the Iranian mainland. In late 1920, the Soviets in Rasht prepared to march on Tehran with "a guerrilla force of 1,500 Jangalis , Kurds , Armenians , and Azerbaijanis ", reinforced by
10692-478: The Qajars and from his rivals and into his own estates. The corruption continued under his rule and even became institutionalized. Progress toward modernization was spotty and isolated as it could only take place with Shah's approval. Eventually, the Shah became totally dependent on the military and secret police to retain power; in return, these state organs regularly received funding up to 50 percent of available public revenue to ensure their loyalty. In August 1941
10854-433: The Roman Empire. During this time, the Sassanian and Romano-Byzantine armies clashed for influence in Anatolia, the western Caucasus (mainly Lazica and the Kingdom of Iberia ; modern-day Georgia and Abkhazia ), Mesopotamia , Armenia and the Levant. Under Justinian I, the war came to an uneasy peace with payment of tribute to the Sassanians. However, the Sasanians used the deposition of the Byzantine emperor Maurice as
11016-454: The Romans at the Battle of Edessa in 260 and took emperor Valerian prisoner for the remainder of his life. Eastern Arabia was conquered early on. During Khosrow II 's rule in 590–628, Egypt , Jordan , Palestine and Lebanon were also annexed to the Empire. The Sassanians called their empire Erânshahr ("Dominion of the Aryans", i.e., of Iranians ). A chapter of Iran's history followed after roughly six hundred years of conflict with
11178-409: The Sasanian Empire and led to the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. Over time, the majority of Iranians converted to Islam. Most of the aspects of the previous Persian civilizations were not discarded but were absorbed by the new Islamic polity. As Bernard Lewis has commented: "These events have been variously seen in Iran: by some as a blessing, the advent of the true faith,
11340-405: The Sasanian Empire's lifespan was overshadowed by the frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars , a continuation of the Roman–Parthian Wars and the all-comprising Roman–Persian Wars ; the last was the longest-lasting conflict in human history. Started in the first century BC by their predecessors, the Parthians, and Romans, the last Roman–Persian War was fought in the seventh century. The Persians defeated
11502-644: The Sasanian throne under the two prominent generals Bahrām Chōbin and Shahrbaraz , it remained loyal to the Sasanians during their struggle against the Arabs, but the Mihrans were eventually betrayed and defeated by their own kinsmen, the House of Ispahbudhan , under their leader Farrukhzad , who had mutinied against Yazdegerd III. Yazdegerd III fled from one district to another until a local miller killed him for his purse at Merv in 651. By 674, Muslims had conquered Greater Khorasan (which included modern Iranian Khorasan province and modern Afghanistan and parts of Transoxiana ). The Muslim conquest of Persia ended
11664-655: The Sassanian Persians into the broader Muslim world. In 633, when the Sasanian king Yazdegerd III was ruling over Iran, the Muslims under Umar invaded the country right after it had been in a bloody civil war. Several Iranian nobles and families such as king Dinar of the House of Karen , and later Kanarangiyans of Khorasan , mutinied against their Sasanian overlords. Although the House of Mihran had claimed
11826-714: The Shah and Hitler, and praises were given to the charisma and the virtue of the Führerprinzip . Reza Shah's foreign policy, which had consisted largely on playing the Soviet Union off against the United Kingdom, failed when the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, resulted in those two powers becoming sudden allies in the fight against the Axis powers. Seeking to scold this new Axis ally, and to guarantee
11988-548: The Shah circumscribed contacts with foreign embassies. Relations with the Soviet Union had already deteriorated because of that country's commercial policies, which in the 1920s and 1930s adversely affected Iran. In 1932, the Shah cancelled the agreement under which the Anglo-Persian Oil Company produced and exported Iran's oil. Although a new and improved agreement was eventually signed, it did not satisfy Iran's demands and left bad feeling on both sides. Unlike
12150-487: The Shah's reign were not democratic. The general practice was to "draw up, with the help of the police chief, a list of parliamentary candidates for the interior minister. The interior minister then passed the same names onto the provincial governor-general. ... [who] handed down the list to the supervisory electoral councils that were packed by the Interior Ministry to oversee the ballots. Parliament ceased to be
12312-601: The Soviet Red Army . This, along with various other unrest in the country, created "an acute political crisis in the capital". On 14 January 1921, the commander of the British Forces in Iran, General Edmund "Tiny" Ironside , promoted Reza Khan, who had been leading the Tabriz battalion, to lead the entire brigade. About a month later, under British direction, Reza Khan led his 3,000-4,000 strong detachment of
12474-532: The Soviets entered the city on 17 September. The British wanted to restore the Qajar dynasty to power, but the heir to Ahmad Shah Qajar since that last Qajar Shah's death in 1930, Hamid Hassan Mirza , was a British subject who spoke no Persian . Instead (with the help of Foroughi), Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the oath to become the Shah of Iran. The British left the Shah a face-saving way out: "Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favor of his son,
12636-728: The United States, and its nuclear program, which has been a point of contention in international diplomacy. Despite economic sanctions and internal challenges, Iran remains a key player in Middle Eastern and global geopolitics. The earliest archaeological artifacts in Iran were found in the Kashafrud and Ganj Par sites that are thought to date back to 10,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. Mousterian stone tools made by Neanderthals have also been found. There are more cultural remains of Neanderthals dating back to
12798-567: The University of Tehran, using the 200,000-square-meter Jalaliyah Garden for the project. In 1935, the Ebne Sina Medical School opened first, adorned with calligraphy from Nezami ’s poems praising knowledge. Despite strong opposition from conservative clerics who opposed the dissection hall, efforts by figures like Hekmat ensured the school’s opening. Dr. Bakhtiar, a surgeon and deputy, had to discreetly visit hospitals, retrieve corpses, load them into his car, and transport them to
12960-757: The Women's Awakening are linked to the Marriage Law of 1931 and the Second Congress of Eastern Women in Tehran in 1932. Reza Shah was the first Iranian Monarch in 1400 years who paid respect to the Jews by praying in the synagogue when visiting the Jewish community of Isfahan ; an act that boosted the self-esteem of the Iranian Jews and made Reza Shah their second most respected Iranian leader after Cyrus
13122-426: The ability to transfer their troops north to Russia, as part of their strategic defence plan. Instead, the Shah's government should have developed what critics believe was an economically justifiable east–west railway system. In the decades that followed and continuing into the present, north-south transit is considered far more economically vital in comparison to west–east transit. On 21 March 1935, Reza Shah issued
13284-495: The age of 14, Reza Shah joined the Persian Cossack Brigade , and also served in the army. In 1911, he was promoted to first lieutenant; he was elevated to the rank of captain by 1912, and he became a colonel by 1915. In February 1921, as leader of the entire Cossack Brigade based in Qazvin province , he marched towards Tehran and seized the capital . He forced the dissolution of the government and installed Zia ol Din Tabatabaee as
13446-466: The casualties had been light, but the Soviet Air Force dropped leaflets over city, warning the population of an upcoming massive bombing raid and urging them to surrender before they suffered imminent destruction. Tehran's water and food supply had faced shortages, and soldiers fled in fear of the Soviets killing them upon capture. Faced with total collapse, the royal family (except the Shah and
13608-432: The chaotic and desperate conditions out of which arose the autocrat named Reza Shah." Clarmont Skrine , a British civil servant who accompanied Reza Shah on his 1941 journey to British Mauritius , writes in his book World War in Iran : "Reza Shah Pahlavi, posthumously entitled 'The Great' in the annals of his country was indeed, if not the greatest, at any rate one of the strongest and ablest men Iran has produced in all
13770-490: The city, and underwrite industrial enterprises." In 1923, Reza Khan, then Sardar Sepah (Commander in Chief), visited Susa , the main site of French excavation in Iran. Enraged by the sight of a large European castle with a French flag, he remarked, "Did they intend to position an army there up on the hill?" He also received multiple reports of French looting of Susa's antiquities and taking them to France. When Reza Khan ascended
13932-568: The colleges of law and medicine, and in 1934 a law set heavy fines for cinemas, restaurant, and hotels that did not open their doors to both sexes. Doctors were permitted to dissect human bodies, in defiance of the Quranic ban on necropsy (the Shah even forced his cabinet members to "accompany him to the university's pathology lab to view two cadavers in a vat"). He restricted public mourning observances to one day, banned self-flagellation during Ashura, and required mosques to use chairs instead of
14094-549: The concession to German-owned Lufthansa Airlines . The next year, 1932, he surprised the British by unilaterally canceling the oil concession awarded to William Knox D'Arcy (and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company ), which was slated to expire in 1961. The concession granted Persia 16% of the net profits from APOC oil operations. The Shah wanted 21%. The British took the dispute before the League of Nations . Before
14256-573: The construction of key cultural and educational sites in Iran, including the University of Tehran, the Ancient Iran Museum (later the Iran National Museum), and the tombs of Ferdowsi , Hafez , and Saadi . His account of building the university and the medical school’s first dissection hall reveals the cultural challenges faced during Iran's modernization. In a 1934 ministerial meeting, Hekmat pointed out that Tehran lacked
14418-517: The construction of railways, a modern judiciary and educational system, and the imposition of changes in traditional attire, and traditional and religious customs and mores. In the second half of his reign (1933–1941), which the Shah described as "one-man rule", strong personalities like Davar and Teymourtash were removed, and secularist and Western policies and plans initiated earlier were implemented. During Reza Shah's sixteen years of rule, major developments, such as large road construction projects and
14580-525: The continued supply for United Kingdom and in order to secure a route of supply to provide Soviet forces with war material, the two allies jointly launched a surprise invasion in August 1941 . Caught off guard, out gunned, and diplomatically isolated, Reza Shah was defeated by the Anglo-Soviet invasion, ordering his forces to surrender to prevent the world war from reaching Iran, and was forced to abdicate
14742-781: The country had been referred to as Iran throughout much of its history since the Sasanian Empire , many countries including the English-speaking world knew the country as Persia, largely a legacy of the Ancient Greeks name for the Achaemenid Empire . Support for the Shah came principally from three sources. The central "pillar" was the military, where the shah had begun his career. The annual defense budget of Iran "increased more than fivefold from 1926 to 1941." Officers were paid more than other salaried employees. The new modern and expanded state bureaucracy of Iran
14904-520: The dissection hall. In the Western world , Persia (or its cognates) was historically the common name for Iran . In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and League of Nations to use the term Iran ("Land of the Aryans "), the endonym of the country, used by its native people, in formal correspondence. Since then, the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in the Western world. This also changed
15066-461: The educational system of Iran and also to the industrialization of the country. He knew that the system of the constitutional monarchy in Iran after him had to stand on a solid basis of the collective participation of all Iranians, and that it was indispensable to create educational centers all over Iran. Reza Shah attempted to forge a regional alliance with Iran's Middle Eastern neighbors, particularly Turkey . The death of Ataturk in 1938, followed by
15228-722: The empire's organization had loosened and the last king was defeated by one of the empire's vassal peoples, the Persians under the Sasanians. However, the Arsacid dynasty continued to exist for centuries onwards in Armenia , the Iberia , and the Caucasian Albania , which were all eponymous branches of the dynasty. The first shah of the Sasanian Empire, Ardashir I , started reforming the country economically and militarily. For
15390-617: The empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India and also playing a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art. This influence carried forward to the Muslim world . The dynasty's unique and aristocratic culture transformed the Islamic conquest and destruction of Iran into a Persian Renaissance. Much of what later became known as Islamic culture, architecture, writing, and other contributions to civilization, were taken from
15552-469: The empire. The city of Baghdad was constructed on the Tigris River , in 762, to serve as the new Abbasid capital. The Abbasids established the position of vizier like Barmakids in their administration, which was the equivalent of a "vice-caliph", or second-in-command. Eventually, this change meant that many caliphs under the Abbasids ended up in a much more ceremonial role than ever before, with
15714-576: The end of the Arab empire and the beginning of a more inclusive, multi-ethnic state in the Middle East. One of the first changes the Abbasids made after taking power from the Umayyads was to move the empire's capital from Damascus , in the Levant , to Iraq . The latter region was influenced by Persian history and culture, and moving the capital was part of the Persian mawali demand for Arab influence in
15876-642: The end of the age of ignorance and heathenism; by others as a humiliating national defeat, the conquest and subjugation of the country by foreign invaders. Both perceptions are of course valid, depending on one's angle of vision." After the fall of the Sasanian Empire in 651, the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate adopted many Persian customs, especially the administrative and the court mannerisms. Arab provincial governors were undoubtedly either Persianized Arameans or ethnic Persians; certainly Persian remained
16038-414: The enemy), 90,000-man civil service. He set up free, compulsory education for both males and females and shut down private religious schools—Islamic, Christian, Jewish, etc. He confiscated land and real estate from the wealthy shrine endowments at Mashhad and Qom, etc. In Mashhad, the revenues of the sanctuary of Imam Reza helped finance secular education, build a modern hospital, improve the water supply of
16200-522: The first acts of the new government after the 1921 entrance into Tehran was to tear up the treaty with the Soviet Union . In 1934, he made an official state visit to Turkey and met Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk . During their meeting Reza Shah spoke in Azerbaijani , and Atatürk in Turkish . In 1931, Reza Shah refused to allow Imperial Airways to fly in Persian airspace, instead giving
16362-561: The first three years of his reign, was convicted on similar charges in May 1930, and also died in prison, in January 1938. Ali-Akbar Davar , his minister of justice, was suspected of similar charges and committed suicide in February 1937. The elimination of these ministers "deprived" Iran "of her most dynamic figures ... and the burden of government fell heavily on Reza Shah" according to historian Cyrus Ghani. Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Hekmat funded
16524-523: The ground during salat as required by Islamic law. The Shah also encouraged women to discard hijab . He announced that female teachers could no longer come to school with head coverings. One of his daughters reviewed a girls' athletic event with an uncovered head. Reza Shah confiscated some religious madrasas from clerics. Esmail Meraat , the Minister of Culture, converted the Marvi Madrasa into
16686-518: The heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution." The Anglo-Soviet invasion was instigated in response to Reza for having denied the request to remove the German residents, who could threaten the Abadan refinery. Reza Shah further refused the Allies' requests to expel German nationals residing in Iran and denied
16848-505: The hypothetical Zayandeh River Culture . Parts of what is modern-day northwestern Iran was part of the Kura–Araxes culture (circa 3400 BC—ca. 2000 BC), that stretched up into the neighbouring regions of the Caucasus and Anatolia . Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of Iran and the world. Based on C14 dating, the time of the foundation of the city is as early as 4395 BC,
17010-474: The implementation of many reforms demanded since the failed constitutional revolution of 1905–1911. The preservation and promotion of the country's historic heritage, the provision of public education, construction of a national railway, abolition of capitulation agreements, and the establishment of a national bank had all been advocated by intellectuals since the tumult of the constitutional revolution. The later years of his reign were dedicated to institutionalizing
17172-416: The intricacies of naval warfare. He also imported hundreds of German technicians and advisors for various projects. Mindful of Persia's long period of subservience to British and Russian authority, Reza Shah was careful to avoid giving any one foreign nation too much control. He also insisted that foreign advisors be employed by the Persian government, so that they would not be answerable to foreign powers. This
17334-566: The invading Muslim forces. The Sasanian era, encompassing the length of Late Antiquity , is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran, and had a major impact on the world. In many ways, the Sassanian period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization and constitutes the last great Iranian Empire before the adoption of Islam. Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during Sassanian times, their cultural influence extending far beyond
17496-497: The landed aristocracy lost most of their influence during Reza Shah's reign, his regime aroused opposition not from them or the gentry but from Iran's: "tribes, the clergy, and the young generation of the new intelligentsia. The tribes bore the brunt of the new order." Among the tribes forcibly settled where the Bakhtiari, Qashqai, Lur, Kurd, Baluchi. According to Sandra Mackey, the settling "shattered tribal economic and undermined
17658-534: The language of official business of the caliphate until the adoption of Arabic toward the end of the seventh century, when in 692 minting began at the capital, Damascus . The new Islamic coins evolved from imitations of Sasanian coins (as well as Byzantine ), and the Pahlavi script on the coinage was replaced with Arabic alphabet . During the Umayyad Caliphate, the Arab conquerors imposed Arabic as
17820-624: The last Shah of the Qajar dynasty , and amended Iran's 1906 constitution to allow the election of Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran. He founded the Pahlavi dynasty that lasted until overthrown in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution . In the spring of 1950, he was posthumously named as Reza Shah the Great ( رضا شاه بزرگ ) by Iran's National Consultative Assembly . His legacy remains controversial to this day. His defenders say that he
17982-601: The last demand, choosing instead to secretly evacuate German nationals from the country. By 18 September, most of the German nationals had escaped via the Turkish border. In response to the Shah's defiance, the Red Army on 16 September moved to occupy Tehran. Fearing execution by the Communists, many people (especially the wealthy) fled the city. Reza Shah, in a letter handwritten by Foroughi, announced his abdication , as
18144-427: The last prime minister of the Qajar dynasty in 1923. For a list of Iranian 'prime ministers' prior to 1907 see List of grand viziers of Persia . In 1925, Reza Shah became the Shah of Iran. He installed Mohammad Ali Foroughi as the prime minister. In 1941 his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah. He installed Mohammad-Ali Foroughi as the prime minister too. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh became Prime Minister but
18306-463: The military attire. This erroneous calculation by Zia ol Din Tabatabaee backfired and instead it was apparent to people who observed Reza Khan, including members of parliament, that he (and not Zia ol Din Tabatabaee) was the one who wielded power. By 1923, Reza Khan had largely succeeded in securing Iran's interior from any remaining domestic and foreign threats. Upon his return to the capital he
18468-537: The modern inhabitants of Iran are descendants of mainly non-Indo-European groups, more specifically of pre-Iranic inhabitants of the Iranian Plateau: "It is the autochthones of the Iranian plateau, and not the Proto-Indo-European tribes of Europe, which are, in the main, the ancestors, in the physical sense of the word, of the present-day Iranians." Records become more tangible with the rise of
18630-492: The modernization of the nation, Reza Shah was the ruler during the time of the Women's Awakening (1936–1941). This movement sought the elimination of the chador from Iranian working society. Supporters held that the veil impeded physical exercise and the ability of women to enter society and contribute to the progress of the nation. This move met opposition from the Mullahs from the religious establishment. The unveiling issue and
18792-751: The name of the dynasty he founded. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution , Persia had become a battleground. In 1917, Britain used Iran as the springboard to launch an expedition into Russia as part of their intervention in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement . The Soviet Union responded by annexing portions of northern Persia, creating the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic . The Soviets extracted ever more humiliating concessions from
18954-434: The nation, any construction depicting or even citing the name of the Shah and his family was destroyed. This included the destruction of Reza Shah's mausoleum but were unable to find his dead body. In 2018, a mummified body believed to be Reza Shah's was found in the vicinity of his former mausoleum site in Tehran. An official said that the body belonged to Reza Shah and was buried in the same area. Under Reza Shah's reign,
19116-450: The new prime minister. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was commander-Afaqn-chief of the army and the minister of war. [[Afaq hussain rathore]] Two years after the coup, Seyyed Zia appointed Reza Pahlavi as Iran's prime minister, backed by the compliant national assembly of Iran. In 1925, Reza Pahlavi was appointed as the legal monarch of Iran by the decision of Iran's constituent assembly. The assembly deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar ,
19278-657: The orders of a dog. From 1925 to 1941, enrollment of "theology students in the traditional madresehs"—roughly the equivalent in age level of secondary schools—declined from 5984 to 785. The Shah also intensified his controversial changes following the incident with the Kashf-e hijab decree, banning the chador and ordering all citizens, rich and poor, to bring their wives to public functions without head coverings. Reza Shah initiated change in foreign affairs as well. He worked to balance British influence with other foreigners and generally to diminish foreign influence in Iran. One of
19440-419: The predominant and official language of the country was the Persian language , many did not consider themselves ethnic Persians , whereas "Iranians" made for a much more neutral and unifying reference to all the ethnic groups of Iran ; furthermore, "Persia" (locally known as Pars ) was geographically confusing at times as it was also the name of one of Iran's significant cultural provinces. Although internally
19602-536: The primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf , who was not happy with the prevalence of the Persian language in the divan , ordered the official language of the conquered lands to be replaced by Arabic, sometimes by force. In al-Biruni 's From The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries for example it is written: "When Qutaibah bin Muslim under the command of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef
19764-447: The region. For over 150 years Assyrian kings of nearby Northern Mesopotamia had been wanting to conquer Median tribes of Western Iran. Under pressure from Assyria, the small kingdoms of the western Iranian plateau coalesced into increasingly larger and more centralized states. In the second half of the seventh century BC, the Medes gained their independence and were united by Deioces . In 612 BC, Cyaxares , Deioces ' grandson, and
19926-418: The remains were flown back to Iran where the embalming was removed, and buried in a mausoleum built in his honor in the town of Ray , in the southern suburbs of the capital, Tehran. The Iranian parliament (Majlis) later designated the title "the Great" to be added to his name. There were reports that on 14 January 1979, shortly before the Iranian Revolution , the remains were moved back to Egypt and buried in
20088-411: The ruling Arab elite until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate. During this era, Islam was initially associated with the ethnic identity of the Arab and required formal association with an Arab tribe and the adoption of the client status of mawali . The half-hearted policies of the late Umayyads to tolerate non-Arab Muslims and Shias had failed to quell unrest among these minorities. However, all of Iran
20250-624: The southern Iranians might be intermixed with the Elamite peoples living in the plateau. By the mid-first millennium BC, Medes , Persians , and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau. Until the rise of the Medes, they all remained under Assyrian domination, like the rest of the Near East . In the first half of the first millennium BC, parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaijan were incorporated into Urartu . In 646 BC, Assyrian king Ashurbanipal sacked Susa , which ended Elamite supremacy in
20412-402: The start of World War II shortly thereafter, prevented these projects from being realized. The parliament assented to his decrees, the free press was suppressed, and the swift incarceration of political leaders like Mossadegh, the murder of others such as Teymourtash, Sardar Asad , Firouz, Modarres, Arbab Keikhosro and the suicide of Davar, ensured that any progress towards democratization
20574-592: The successful Greek repelling of the Second Invasion with numerous Greek city-states under the Athens' newly formed Delian League , which eventually ended with the peace of Callias in 449 BC, ending the Greco-Persian Wars. In 404 BC, following the death of Darius II , Egypt rebelled under Amyrtaeus . Later pharaohs successfully resisted Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt until 343 BC, when Egypt
20736-789: The suppression of several ethnic and social groups. Although he was of Iranian Mazanderani descent, his government carried out an extensive policy of Persianization trying to create a single, united and largely homogeneous nation, similar to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 's policy of Turkification in Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire . Reza Shah Pahlavi was born in the town of Alasht in Savadkuh County , Mazandaran province , in 1878, to son of Major Abbas-Ali Khan and wife Noush-Afarin. His mother, Nush Afarin Ayromlu ,
20898-531: The then known world, as well as spanning the continents of Europe , Asia, and Africa. The greatest achievement was the empire itself. The Persian Empire represented the world's first superpower that was based on a model of tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions. In the late sixth century BC, Darius launched his European campaign, in which he defeated the Paeonians , conquered Thrace , and subdued all coastal Greek cities, as well as defeating
21060-613: The throne in 1925, his court minister, Teymourtash , suggested ending the French monopoly on excavation granted by Qajar government and appointing a Frenchman as the director of a new archaeological institute. Consequently, the French monopoly was abolished in 1927, and André Godard was appointed director of the archaeological service as a compromise. The Iranian Parliament voted on 29 April 1928, to hire Godard for five years starting from 18 November 1928. Reza Shah preferred Iranian architects. When his favorite daughter, Princess Shams , wanted
21222-492: The throne in favor of his son. Reza Shah then was banished into exile while Iran would remain under Allied occupation until 1946. The Shah's reign is sometimes divided into periods. All the efforts of Reza Shah's reign were either completed or conceived in the 1925–1938 period. Abdolhossein Teymourtash assisted by Farman Farma , Ali-Akbar Davar and a large number of modern educated Iranians, proved adept at masterminding
21384-478: The throne on 16 September 1941. Reza Shah's main critics were the "new intelligentsia", often educated in Europe, for whom the Shah "was not a state-builder but an 'oriental despot' ... not a reformer but a plutocrat strengthening the landed upper class; not a real nationalist but a jack-booted Cossack trained by the Tsarists and brought to power by British imperialists." His defenders included Ahmad Kasravi ,
21546-600: The traditional sitting on the floors of mosques. By the mid-1930s, Reza Shah's rule had caused intense dissatisfaction of the Shia clergy throughout Iran. In 1935, a rebellion erupted in the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad . Responding to a cleric who denounced the Shah's "heretical" innovations, corruption and heavy consumer taxes, many bazaaris and villagers took refuge in the shrine, chanting slogans such as "The Shah
21708-408: The traditional social structure. ... people and herds, ill adapted to a sedentary lifestyle and dependent for hygiene and health on moving campsites from time to time, died in terrible numbers. None have forgotten." As his reign became more secure, Reza Shah clashed with Iran's clergy and devout Muslims on many issues. In March 1928, he violated the sanctuary of Qom 's Fatima Masumeh Shrine to beat
21870-429: The two and a half milleniums of her history." Like his son after him, Reza Shah died in exile. After the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Iran on 25 August 1941, the British offered to keep his family in power if Reza Shah agreed to a life of exile. Reza Shah abdicated and the British forces quickly took him and his children to Mauritius , where he lived at Château Val Ory on Bois-Cheri Road in
22032-399: The usage of the names for the Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from Persian to Iranian. In 1959, the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , Reza Shah Pahlavi's son and successor, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably, nonetheless use of "Iran" continued to supplant "Persia", especially in the West. Although
22194-468: The use of the railway to the Allies. According to the British embassy reports from Tehran in 1940, the total number of German citizens in Iran from technicians to spies was no more than one thousand. Because of its strategic importance to the Allies, Iran was subsequently called "The Bridge of Victory" by Winston Churchill . Reza Shah was forced by the invading British to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who replaced his father as Shah on
22356-486: The village of Moka . The Chateau Val Ory is still an Iranian property, albeit in a decrepitated state with the Iranian government refusing to sell it to the Mauritian government . Subsequently, he was sent to Durban and then to a house at 41 Young Avenue in the Parktown neighborhood of Johannesburg , South Africa, where he died at the age of sixty-six on 26 July 1944 of a heart ailment about which he had been complaining for many years. His personal doctor had boosted
22518-570: The vizier in real power. A new Persian bureaucracy began to replace the old Arab aristocracy, and the entire administration reflected these changes, demonstrating that the new dynasty was different in many ways from the Umayyads. By the 9th century, Abbasid control began to wane as regional leaders sprang up in the far corners of the empire to challenge the central authority of the Abbasid caliphate. The Abbasid caliphs began enlisting mamluks , Turkic-speaking warriors, who had been moving out of Central Asia into Transoxiana as slave warriors as early as
22680-478: Was amended to abolish the title of Prime Minister and divide his responsibilities between the president and a newly created title of first Vice President . Reza Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was an Iranian military officer and the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty . As a politician, he previously served as minister of war and prime minister of Qajar Iran and subsequently reigned as Shah of Pahlavi Iran from 1925 until he
22842-502: Was Reza Shah's favorite wife, who resided at Marble Palace . The couple had five children: Following the overthrow of the Qajar dynasty and becoming the Shahanshah of Iran, he commanded all offices of Iran to address him with his surname and title, "Reza Shah Pahlavi". In the spring of 1950, after the foundation of the National Consultative Assembly , he was given the title "Reza Shah the Great". History of Iran#Late modern period The history of Iran (or Persia , as it
23004-417: Was also " King of Kings ", xšāyaθiya xšāyaθiyānām ( shāhanshāh in modern Persian) – "great king", Megas Basileus , as known by the Greeks . Cyrus's son, Cambyses II , conquered the last major power of the region, ancient Egypt , causing the collapse of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt . Since he became ill and died before, or while, leaving Egypt , stories developed, as related by Herodotus , that he
23166-510: Was also turned out in a Greek victory, following the battles of Plataea and Salamis , by which Persia lost its footholds in Europe, and eventually withdrew from it. During the Greco-Persian wars, the Persians gained major territorial advantages. They captured and razed Athens twice , once in 480 BC and again in 479 BC. However, after a string of Greek victories the Persians were forced to withdraw, thus losing control of Macedonia , Thrace and Ionia . Fighting continued for several decades after
23328-505: Was an essential reunifying and modernizing force for Iran, while his detractors (particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran) 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 nearly four decades later, which ended 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy . Moreover, his insistence on ethnic nationalism and cultural unitarism, along with forced detribalization and sedentarization , resulted in
23490-407: Was an immigrant from Georgia or Iravan (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 Mazanderani , a member of the Palani clan, who was commissioned in the 7th Savadkuh Regiment , and served in
23652-506: Was another source of support. Its ten civilian ministries employed 90,000 full-time government workers. Patronage controlled by the Shah's royal court served as the third "pillar". This was financed by the Shah's considerable personal wealth which had been built up by forced sales and confiscations of estates, making him "the richest man in Iran". On his abdication Reza Shah "left to his heir a bank account of some three million pounds sterling and estates totaling over 3 million acres". Although
23814-535: Was appointed prime minister, which prompted Ahmad Shah to leave Iran for Europe, where he would remain (at first voluntarily, and later in exile) until his death. It induced the Parliament to grant Reza Khan dictatorial powers, who in turn assumed the symbolic and honorific styles of Janab -i-Ashraf (His Serene Highness) and Hazrat -i-Ashraf on 28 October 1923. He quickly established a political cabinet in Tehran to help organize his plans for modernization and reform. By October 1925, Reza Khan succeeded in pressuring
23976-477: Was based upon his experience with Anglo-Persian, which was owned and operated by the British government. In his campaign against foreign influence, he annulled the 19th-century capitulations to Europeans in 1928. Under these, Europeans in Iran had enjoyed the privilege of being subject to their own consular courts rather than to the Iranian judiciary. The right to print money was moved from the British Imperial Bank to his National Bank of Iran (Bank-i Melli Iran), as
24138-404: Was forced to abdicate after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Mohammad Reza Shah . A modernizer, Reza Shah clashed with the Shia clergy and introduced many social, economic, and political reforms during his reign, ultimately laying the foundation of the modern Iranian state . As a result, he is regarded by many as the founder of modern Iran. At
24300-409: Was his official wife. They had four children together: The third wife of Reza Shah was Turan Amirsoleimani (1905–1994), who was from the Qajar dynasty . The couple married in 1922 but divorced in 1923 and together they had a son: Reza Shah's fourth and last wife, Esmat Dowlatshahi (1905–1995), was a member of the Qajar dynasty. She married Reza Shah in 1923 and accompanied him to his exile. Esmat
24462-433: Was known in the Western world) is intertwined with Greater Iran , a sociocultural region spanning from Anatolia to the Indus River and from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf . Central to this area is modern-day Iran , which covers the bulk of the Iranian plateau . Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BC. The western part of
24624-425: Was overthrown in a counter-coup d'état in 1953 . Amir-Abbas Hoveyda became Prime minister of Iran in 1965 and remained in office until 1977. Shapour Bakhtiar was the last Prime Minister of the Pahlavi era. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini installed Mehdi Bazargan as the Prime Minister of an interim government , which served until November 1979. The government resigned during
24786-539: Was part of the Fertile Crescent where most of humanity's first major crops were grown, in villages such as Susa (where a settlement was first founded possibly as early as 4395 cal BC) and settlements such as Chogha Mish , dating back to 6800 BC; there are 7,000-year-old jars of wine excavated in the Zagros Mountains (now on display at the University of Pennsylvania ) and ruins of 7000-year-old settlements such as Tepe Sialk are further testament to that. The two main Neolithic Iranian settlements were Ganj Dareh and
24948-419: Was partially assisted by the British government, which wished to halt the Bolsheviks' penetration of Iran, particularly because of the threat it posed to the British Raj . It is thought that the British provided "ammunition, supplies and pay" for Reza's troops. On 8 June 1932, a British Embassy report states that the British were interested in helping Reza Shah create a centralizing power. General Ironside gave
25110-400: Was reconquered by Artaxerxes III . From 334 BC to 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III in the battles of Granicus , Issus and Gaugamela , swiftly conquering the Persian Empire by 331 BC. Alexander's empire broke up shortly after his death, and Alexander's general, Seleucus I Nicator , tried to take control of Iran, Mesopotamia , and later Syria and Anatolia . His empire
25272-428: Was sent to Khwarazmia with a military expedition and conquered it for the second time, he swiftly killed whoever wrote the Khwarazmian native language that knew of the Khwarazmian heritage, history, and culture. He then killed all their Zoroastrian priests and burned and wasted their books, until gradually the illiterate only remained, who knew nothing of writing, and hence their history was mostly forgotten." There are
25434-428: Was still not under Arab control, and the region of Daylam was under the control of the Daylamites , while Tabaristan was under Dabuyid and Paduspanid control, and the Mount Damavand region under Masmughans of Damavand . The Arabs had invaded these regions several times but achieved no decisive result because of the inaccessible terrain of the regions. The most prominent ruler of the Dabuyids, known as Farrukhan
25596-418: Was stillborn and organized opposition to the Shah, impossible. Reza Shah treated the urban middle class, the managers, and technocrats with an iron fist; as a result his state-owned industries remained underproductive and inefficient. The bureaucracy fell apart, since officials preferred sycophancy, when anyone could be whisked away to prison for even the whiff of disobeying his whims. He confiscated land from
25758-445: Was struck down for impiety against the ancient Egyptian deities . After the death of Cambyses II, Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the legitimate Achaemenid monarch Bardiya , and then quelling rebellions throughout his kingdom. As the winner, Darius I , based his claim on membership in a collateral line of the Achaemenid Empire. Darius' first capital was at Susa, and he started the building program at Persepolis . He rebuilt
25920-478: Was the Seleucid Empire . He was killed in 281 BC by Ptolemy Keraunos . The Parthian Empire —ruled by the Parthians, a group of northwestern Iranian people—was the realm of the Arsacid dynasty. This latter reunited and governed the Iranian plateau after the Parni conquest of Parthia and defeating the Seleucid Empire in the late third century BC. It intermittently controlled Mesopotamia between c. 150 BC and 224 AD and absorbed Eastern Arabia . Parthia
26082-421: Was the administration of the telegraph system, from the Indo-European Telegraph Company to the Iranian government, in addition to the collection of customs by Belgian officials. He eventually fired Millspaugh, and prohibited foreigners from administering schools, owning land or traveling in the provinces without police permission. Not all observers agree that the Shah minimized foreign influence. Reza Shah built
26244-471: Was the eastern arch-enemy of the Roman Empire and it limited Rome's expansion beyond Cappadocia (central Anatolia). The Parthian armies included two types of cavalry : the heavily armed and armored cataphracts and the lightly armed but highly-mobile mounted archers . For the Romans, who relied on heavy infantry , the Parthians were too hard to defeat, as both types of cavalry were much faster and more mobile than foot soldiers. The Parthian shot used by
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