Princess ashraf pahlavi biography

Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, the twin sister of the late Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was born in Iran in 1919, when patriarchal norms and traditional values still dominated all aspects of Iranian polity and society. She grew up to love and admire her twin brother and in turn received his affection and unwavering support. She was ever kind and generous to her friends, respected her aides and went out of her way to help them in time of need.  She was known for her sharp mind, modesty, and unsparing straight talk.  Daring and often defiant, she would not fathom failure; rather, she sought and drew on all talents available to achieve her goal. She welcomed friends’ constructive criticism and dismissed enemies’ ill willed spite.

Princess Ashraf devoted a significant part of her life to promoting the rights and freedoms of Iranian women and helping to improve the living standards of the downtrodden. As the honorary president of the Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI), she played an active role in promoting the organization’s educational, cultural, legal and political objectives. Her support helped enable WOI to mobilize Iranian women, who in turn sought and achieved significant rights and freedoms that enabled them increasingly to participate in their country’s political, social and economic affairs.  On the eve of the Islamic revolution, the rights and freedoms gained by Iranian women had no equal in the Muslim majority countries in the world.  WOI’s lasting impact is evidenced by the courageous struggle of Iranian women over the decades of Islamist rule to regain the rights and freedoms that were so cruelly wrested from them by the Islamic regime.

In her travels to different parts of Iran in early 1940s, the young Princess was deeply touched by the extent of poverty and deprivation she witnessed in Iran’s villages and urban ghettos. Assisted by several of her friends she founded the Imperial Organization for

Iranian royal

Ashraf ol-Molouk Pahlavi (Persian: اشرف‌الملوک پهلوی, Ašraf Pahlavi, 26 October 1919 – 7 January 2016) was the twin sister of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late Shah of Iran (Persia), and a member of the Pahlavi dynasty. She was considered the "power behind her brother" and was instrumental in the 1953 coup that overthrew Prime MinisterMohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah. She served her brother as a palace adviser and was a strong advocate for women's rights. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, she lived in exile in France, New York, Paris and Monte Carlo and remained outspoken against the Iranian Islamic Republic.

Early life

Ashraf Pahlavi was born in Tehran on 26 October 1919, five hours after her brother Mohammad Reza. Her parents were Reza Pahlavi, a military commander, who would become the Shah of Persia, and Tadj ol-Molouk, the second of his four wives. She had 10 siblings and half-siblings.

In the early 1930s, Ashraf Pahlavi, her older sister Shams, and their mother were among the first significant Iranian women to cease wearing the traditional veil. On 8 January 1936, she and her mother and sister played a major symbolic role in the Kashf-e hijab (the abolition of the veil) which was a part of the shah's effort to include women in public society, by participating in the graduation ceremony of the Tehran Teacher's College unveiled.

In 1932, she hosted the Second Eastern Women's Congress, which was arranged by the Jam'iyat-e Nesvan-e Vatankhah.

Ashraf Pahlavi was not permitted to attend university and instead was married in 1937, at the age of 18, to Mirza Khan Ghavam, whose family was politically allied with her father.

Politics

1953 coup

Main article: 1953 Iranian coup d'état

In 1953, Ashraf Pahlavi played an important role i

The death of Princess Ashraf Pahlavi at the age of 96 on Thursday marks the end of an era in more than one sense.

The now standard assessment of the twin sister of the late Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, that she “was a close ally and staunch defender of her brother … throughout his reign”, and that “she also played a crucial role in the British-and American-inspired military coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 and restored her brother to the throne” will be a fair summation of who she was and what she represented.

That assessment, however, will fall much short of the fictive power of history that has always underlined any attempt at judicious historiography.

Ashraf Pahlavi outlived the Pahlavi dynasty (1926-1979), which her father founded and her twin brother ended. She has now joined a history that harbours a proclivity far more acutely fictive than factual. She was and she died a phenomenon that prevents anyone ever reaching a consensus about her character.

Power monger?

Her supporters will celebrate her as a champion of women’s rights, a patron of the arts, and a beacon of social modernity, while her detractors will dismiss her as a monstrous power monger who played a key role in reinstalling her brother’s dictatorial reign and benefited lucratively under his tyrannical rule.

READ MORE: Afghan first lady in shadow of 1920s queen?

Two competing narratives will thus chase her memory out of reality and into the realm of fiction. The ruling regime in Iran will continue to demonise her beyond any semblance of reality, while her monarchist biographers will lionise her beyond any semblance of truth.

The ruling regime in Iran will continue to demonise her beyond any semblance of reality, while her monarchist biographers will lionise her beyond any semblance of truth.

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She therefore outlived not just the Pahlavi dynasty. She outlived the time in which she