Crowning the “Sun of the Aryans”: Mohammad Reza Shah's Coronation and Monarchical Spectacle in Pahlavi Iran
Robert Steele
Crowning the “Sun of the Aryans”: Mohammad Reza Shah's Coronation and Monarchical Spectacle in Pahlavi Iran - Volume 53 Issue 2
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On the morning of 26 October 1967, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's forty-eighth birthday, in a ceremony in the Museum Hall of Gulistan Palace in Tehran, the shah crowned himself and his queen. Every aspect of the event was designed to convey the idea that the shah was at once traditional and modern; the custodian of a 2,500-year-old tradition of monarchy, and a revolutionary. He was hailed by the Pahlavi ideologues as “one of the most brilliant people in the history of the contemporary world,” and was compared in the accompanying literature to Cyrus the Great.Footnote 1 By the time of the coronation, this had become standard rhetorical flourish, but one author went even further, arguing that “No king of Iran, not even Cyrus or Shah ʿAbbas, has done more to give the Iranians a sense of purpose and a stake in the future of their fatherland than Shahanshah Mohammad Reza.”Footnote 2 The monarchy as an institution and the monarch as its figurehead were presented as the true harbingers of Iranian glory. If Iran was to continue growing in wealth and power, it would have to rely, as it had in the past, on guidance from the throne.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had become shah in 1941, after his father, Reza Shah, had been forced to abdicate following the Anglo-Russian invasion. The twenty-one-year-old, however, found himself in a precarious position, with neither a strong political support base in Iran nor the confidence of the Allies; indeed, the British had even considered either re-instating the Qajar dynasty or supporting the accession to the throne of a lesser Pahlavi prince.Footnote 3 The British finally accepted his succession precisely because he was considered a weak and innocuous figure.Footnote 4 Having been deprived of the powers his father enjoyed, the new shah pledged to reign as a constitutional monarch, rather than rule as an absolute sovereign. In this turbulent political climate, in which the very future of the Pahlavi dynasty was in doubt, it was inconceivable that a coronation ceremony would take place. Therefore, the coronation, when it was finally held in 1967, although it had the symbols and accoutrements of a traditional ceremony, was an expression of the shah's coming of age, his rise to the pinnacle of political authority, rather than simply his ascension to the throne. It was as much an opportunity for political spectacle as it was observance of traditional rite.

Political spectacle is a powerful means used by those in power to communicate with their subjects, and it is often akin to theatrical performance, with each aspect choreographed to project an image or deliver a message.Footnote 5 By using drama, political leaders are able, in the words of David E. Apter, to “transform incipient alternatives into preferred modes of action, using political theater to round up and collectivize individuals and groups by converting otherwise random or singular views into a more common understanding.”Footnote 6 The political spectacle, which can be a somber occasion, such as a funeral, or a joyous occasion, such as a coronation or inauguration ceremony, gives life to a narrative. A strong message is important, but as in theater a good production also relies on capable performers, a skilled director, and a rousing setting. As Apter further observes, “the sound of language is as important as the meaning of its words.”Footnote 7 Much of the scholarship on state nationalism under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi deals with texts authored by the shah, texts authored by ideologues in the service of the court, state-commissioned architecture, and cultural and educational policies implemented by the regime.Footnote 8 This paper builds on this scholarship of nationalism in late Pahlavi Iran, and aims to show how the shah's regime also used political spectacles, specifically here the coronation, to articulate its nationalist discourse to a domestic and global audience.

Although most European monarchies had been abolished at the end of World Wars I and II, those that had survived, such as the British and the Dutch, had paid attention to spectacle as a way of rousing support for the institution. The funeral of George VI of England in 1952, for instance, had profound significance in shaping attitudes toward the monarchy, and in its solemn grandiosity it sought to incite strong national appreciation of a man who, as David Cannadine writes, “had not wished to be king, but had triumphed over war and a stammer by a strong sense of duty.”Footnote 9 Even today the approval ratings of the Dutch and British monarchies lie around 65 percent.Footnote 10 In fact, the highest approval ratings for the Dutch monarchy in recent years was in 2013, the year King Willem-Alexander was inaugurated, when 78 percent of the Dutch population expressed support for the monarchy. Such widespread support for the crown was what the shah wanted to replicate in Iran, and the organizers tried to encourage broad participation in the coronation festivities.

By the time of the coronation in 1967, the White Revolution had taken hold and attempts were made to codify a particular state ideology based on the glory of the monarchy and the veneration of Iran's ancient kings.Footnote 11 The shah adopted titles such as Aryamihr (Sun of the Aryans), linking him to an ancient tradition of kingship, and implemented modernizing reforms such as the redistribution of land and granting women increasing legal rights. In his imagined ideal Iranian society, which he termed the Great Civilization (Tamaddun-i Buzurg), the imperial family was presented as the archetypal Iranian family; a model for others to look to.Footnote 12 Queen Farah was the ideal woman in this Pahlavi utopia. She was beautiful and elegant, cared for her husband and children, and dutifully served her country. The crowning of his queen, therefore, was not only a striking example of the shah's use of ceremony to marry tradition with modernity, but it also was a way in which his family could be presented to the nation and the world as the quintessential modern Iranian family.

During the 1960s, opposition to several of the Pahlavi state's reforms, for example the White Revolution in 1963 and the Family Protection Act of 1967, came from the ʿulamaʾ. As a result, the Pahlavi state sought with increasing urgency to curtail the influence of the ʿulamaʾ through such means as controlling religious endowments and regulating the training of clerics, bringing religious education into the state bureaucracy.Footnote 13 This policy constituted “an attempt to replace the existing Shiʿa hierarchy with a new structure,” as Michael Axworthy has written, “whose defining characteristic would be loyalty to the regime—a din-e dowlat (state religion).”Footnote 14 The shah spoke in this period of his regime promoting the “true meaning of Islam,” in contrast to the “demagogic and reactionary” abuse of its principles by some of the ʿulamaʾ.Footnote 15 In addition to the gradual emergence of a body of clerics trained by the state, a religious corps was established in 1971, which would help to spread this state religion all over the country. Only this “Pahlavist Islam,” as Zhand Shakibi terms it, “could have a presence in the political arena, serving state interests.”Footnote 16 Although the coronation ceremony in 1967 was not an overtly religious event, religion did play a role. The extent to which this reflected the shah's attitude toward religion and the place of religion within his political ideology will be examined in this article.