Rezā Shāh

Although (internally) the country had been referred to as Iran throughout much of its history, many countries including the English-speaking world, knew the country as Persia; a legacy of the Greeks who referred to the entire region after the province of Pars (present-day Fārs). While Persians are only one of several Indo-Iranian ethnic groups in Iran, their home province Pars (Fārs) was a center of political power in ancient times under the Achaemenid Empire and Sassanid Empire as well as other Iranian dynasties hence the, somewhat misleading, usage of the name Persia (in other countries) up to 1935 when referring to Iran as a whole.

A man as vigorous and authoritarian as the Shahanshah (Persian: شاه شاهان) was bound to have detractors. They contended he was nothing more than another Oriental despot, who caused several of his enemies to be murdered, tortured, kidnapped, and imprisoned. They claim he slapped Cabinet Ministers, assaulted priests, kicked irksome subjects in the crotch (it is said that, for tiresome gabbing, he once even booted Crown Prince Mohammed Reza into a palace fountain). They insist that Iran was ruled entirely by fear; bribery was still prevalent, taxation overpowering and Iran's 136-man National Assembly, the Majlis, and the Cabinet solidly puppetized. By this time, they contend, the One-Man New Deal had turned into a One-Man Corporate State, owning everything worth owning. Read Less

He lived on a diet of plain rice and boiled chicken in the last years of his life.) He was sixty-six years old at the time of his death.

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). Many years later, the remains were flown back to Iran, where the embalming was removed, and buried in a beautifully designed and decorated mausoleum built in his honor at town of Ray, in the southern suburbs of the capital, Tehran. Satellite map The Iranian parliament (Majlis) later designated the title "the Great" to be added to his name. On January 14, 1979, shortly before the Iranian Revolution, the remains were moved back to Egypt and buried in the Al Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo. Read Less