Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi | Biography, History, & White Revolution
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Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, shah of Iran (1941–79). A power struggle between him and Mohammad Mosaddegh led to the latter’s ouster in 1953, with help from the United States and the United Kingdom. The shah’s White Revolution fostered development but harmed many Iranians. He was ousted in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
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Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

shah of Iran

Top Questions

How did Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi come to power?

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was the eldest son of Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran’s ruler and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925). Educated in Switzerland, Mohammad Reza returned to Iran in 1935. After the Soviet Union and Great Britain occupied Iran in 1941, Reza Shah was forced into exile, and Mohammad Reza ascended Iran’s throne.

What were Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s accomplishments?

From 1960 to 1963 Mohammad Reza carried out a national development program called the White Revolution, which expanded transportation networks, fostered dam and irrigation projects, helped eradicate disease, boosted literacy, and encouraged industrial growth and land reform. In subsequent decades, Iranian personal income skyrocketed and oil revenue funded industrial development projects.

How did Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi die?

Mohammad Reza traveled to Egypt, Morocco, The Bahamas, and Mexico before entering the United States on October 22, 1979, for medical treatment of lymphatic cancer. Before he passed away on July 27, 1980, he traveled to Panama and then Cairo, seeking asylum. He was finally granted asylum by Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat.

Why was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi so significant?

Mohammad Reza instituted reforms but presided over a tumultuous period. Discontent with his policies sparked rioting, allowing Ruhollah Khomeini to assume control in February 1979. That November, militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehrān, took American hostages, and demanded Mohammad Reza’s extradition from the U.S. in return for their release. The U.S. rejected the demand.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (born October 26, 1919, Tehrān, Iran—died July 27, 1980, Cairo, Egypt) was the shah of Iran from 1941 to 1979, who maintained a pro-Western foreign policy and fostered economic development in Iran.

Mohammad Reza was the eldest son of Reza Shah Pahlavi, an army officer who became the ruler of Iran and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. Mohammad Reza was educated in Switzerland and returned to Iran in 1935. In 1941 the Soviet Union and Great Britain, fearing that the shah would cooperate with Nazi Germany to rid himself of their tutelage, occupied Iran and forced Reza Shah into exile. Mohammad Reza then replaced his father on the throne (September 16, 1941).

Policies

In the early 1950s a struggle for control of the Iranian government developed between the shah and Mohammad Mosaddegh, a zealous Iranian nationalist. In March 1951 Mosaddegh secured passage of a bill in the Majles (parliament) to nationalize the vast British petroleum interests in Iran. Mosaddegh’s power grew rapidly, and by the end of April Mohammad Reza had been forced to appoint Mosaddegh premier. A two-year period of tension and conflict followed. In August 1953 the shah tried and failed to dismiss Mosaddegh and, after riots broke out, fled the country. Several days later, however, Mosaddegh’s opponents, with the covert support and assistance of the United States and the United Kingdom, restored Mohammad Reza to power.

Under Mohammad Reza, the nationalization of the oil industry was nominally maintained, although in 1954 Iran entered into an agreement to split revenues with a newly formed international consortium that was responsible for managing production. With U.S. assistance, Mohammad Reza then proceeded to carry out a national development program, called the White Revolution, that included construction of an expanded road, rail, and air network, a number of dam and irrigation projects, the eradication of diseases such as malaria, the encouragement and support of industrial growth, and land reform. He also established a literacy corps and a health corps for the large but isolated rural population. In the 1960s and ’70s the shah sought to develop a more independent foreign policy and established working relationships with the Soviet Union and eastern European nations.

Overthrow and exile

The White Revolution solidified domestic support for the shah, but he faced continuing political criticism from those who felt that the reforms did not move far or fast enough and religious criticism from those who believed Westernization to be antithetical to Islam. Opposition to the shah himself was based upon his autocratic rule, corruption in his government, the unequal distribution of oil wealth, forced Westernization, and the activities of SAVAK (the secret police) in suppressing dissent and opposition to his rule. These negative aspects of the shah’s rule became markedly accentuated after Iran began to reap greater revenues from its petroleum exports beginning in 1973.

Widespread dissatisfaction among the lower classes, Shiʿi clergy, bazaar merchants, and students led in 1978 to the growth of support for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiʿi religious leader living in exile in Paris. Rioting and turmoil in Iran’s major cities brought down four successive governments as the Iranian Revolution gained momentum. On January 16, 1979, the shah left the country, and Khomeini assumed control. Although the shah did not abdicate, a referendum resulted in the declaration on April 1, 1979, of an Islamic republic in Iran. The shah traveled to Egypt, Morocco, The Bahamas, and Mexico before entering the United States on October 22, 1979, for medical treatment of lymphatic cancer. Two weeks later Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehrān and took hostage more than 50 Americans, demanding the extradition of the shah in return for the hostages’ release (see Iran hostage crisis). Extradition was refused, but the shah later left for Panama and then Cairo, where he was granted asylum by Pres. Anwar Sadat.

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The shah had two marriages that ended in divorce when they failed to produce a male heir to the throne. In October 1960 a third wife, Farah Diba, gave birth to the crown prince, Reza.

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