Iran, previously known as Persia for over 2,500, has a storied history of royals from the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE) to the Medieval Persian Dynasties to the later monarchies such as the Qajar Dynasty. Prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the final royal family to rule the country was the Pahlavi Dynasty.
Founded by Reza Shah Pahlavi, it was under the Pahlavi Dynasty that the country’s name changed from Persia to Iran in 1935. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, succeeded his father in 1941 and ruled until the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when the monarchy was abolished and replaced with the Islamic Republic.
During his reign, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was married three times firstly to Fawzia of Egypt from 1939 to 1948, then to Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary from 1951 to 1958 and finally he wed his third wife Farah Pahlavi in 1959, who became the last Empress of Iran.
Widely known for having one of the most extraordinary couture wardrobes of any royal in the 20th century, as well as being a patron of the arts, Farah’s life spans from humble beginnings to extraordinary wealth during Imperial Iran to life in exile.
Who is Farah Pahlavi, the final Empress of Iran?
Farah – née Farah Diba – was born in Tehran in 1938 into a well-connected Iranian family. According to her memoir which she published later in life, her father, Captain Sohrab Diba, was a high-ranking military officer in the Iranian Armed Forces. Her mother was Farideh Ghotbi, who was a descendant of the Sufi scholar, Qutb al-Din al-Ashkawari.
An only child, Farah’s father died when she was just 10-years-old from pancreatic cancer. The death of her father, according to Farah, put herself and her mother in financial hardship. So much so, she and her mother had to leave their family home and live in an apartment of her mother’s brothers.
During her formative schooling years, she attended three different schools in Tehran – the Tehran Italian School, Jeanne d’Arc School and then Lycée Razi.
After graduating from school, Farah then moved to Paris to study architecture at the École Spéciale d’Architecture. At the time, many international students were sponsored by the state of Iran, which involved special visits from the Shah himself.
Meeting the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
It was during one of these visits in the summer of 1959 at the Parisian Iranian Embassy, she met the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. At the time, she was 20-years-old and he was nearly 20 years her senior, aged 39.
They announced their engagement in November 1959 and wed less than a month later on December 21, 1959 in Tehran. She was 21 and he was 40.
Less than a year later in October 1960, they welcomed their first child, a son Reza Pahlavi, who would go on to become the exiled Crown Prince of Iran. They went on to have three more children: Farahnaz born in 1963, Ali born in 1966 and Leila born in 1970, all of whom were raised in Iran until the family was exiled in 1979.
Becoming Queen & Empress of Iran
During her time as Empress of Iran, Farah took an active part in raising people’s concerns regarding education, especially women’s and children’s education. She worked on arts preservation and contributed to the building of museums and the beautification of Iranian architectural heritage.
In particular, Farah was instrumental in the creation of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened 1977. It was under her patronage that she curated works from a plethora of modern Western artists including Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Jason Pollock and more.
Life in exile
However, in 1979, Farah and her family and the whole of the country experienced a major upheaval in 1979 with the Islamic revolution and the entire monarchy was abolished.
The family initially fled to Egypt, where the following year the Shah passed away at a hospital in Cairo due to cancer.
Following the death of her husband, Farah became a figurehead for the wider Iranian diaspora for many.
Basing herself between France and the USA, Farah went on to write An Enduring Love in 2004 – a memoir about her life before she met the Shah, their marriage, becoming the Queen and later Empress of Iran.
To date, she is currently 87-year-old and still lives between the USA and Europe.
This story first appeared on GRAZIA Middle East.
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