Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

محمد رضا بهلوي

–

Cairo

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) was the last shah of Iran, reigning from 1941 until the Iranian Revolution overthrew him in 1979. The son of Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi state, he pursued the White Revolution reforms on the strength of oil revenues and the American alliance, left Iran in January 1979, moved between several countries in exile, and died in Cairo on 27 July 1980; he is buried in the al-Rifa'i Mosque there.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
Ruler
Region
Persia & Central Asia
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review

Life in time

1875190019251950197520002025
The Colonial Era · The Contemporary Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda · Abd al-Rahman Badawi · Abd al-Razzaq Nawfal · Abd Allah ibn al-Siddiq al-Ghumari · Abdul Aziz Mollazadeh

In space

Cairo

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Reign

    Born in Tehran, the son of Reza Shah, he came to the throne in 1941 when his father was forced to abdicate. His reign brought the White Revolution reforms, financed by oil revenues and aligned with the United States, and widening conflict with the clerical establishment and the bazaar, whose opposition the Persian article describes. 1 2

    Exile and death

    He left Iran in January 1979 as the revolution gathered force, and moved through Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, the United States — where he received medical treatment — and Panama, before returning to Egypt, where President Anwar Sadat gave him refuge. He died of lymphoma in Cairo on 27 July 1980 and was buried in the al-Rifa'i Mosque there. 1 2

    Religion

    His faith is recorded as unknown. The English infobox gives his religion as Twelver Shia Islam and the Arabic infobox gives the same school, and Wikidata carries the same value — but infobox fields and their structured echo are a single source family, and no text in any of the four editions names his personal affiliation: the English text quotes the oath he swore as shah to protect Shia Islam, a state act, and reports a biographer's account of his childhood dreams of the Twelve Imams. Neither is a textual attestation of a personal school. 1 3 4

    Sources

    • The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
    • Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.

    Connections

    Explore the connections

    Died in
    Cairo

    People and things also explored

    Al-Azhar Mosque· The Dar al-Hikma of Cairo· Baybars takes the sultanate, 658 AH· Capture of Cairo· death of Asad al-Dīn Shīrkūh — Saladin chosen vizier in his place· The great earthquake of Egypt, 608 AH· Egypt's famine and epidemic, 695· Four madhhab qadis appointed in Egypt, 663

    Sources

    1. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — English Wikipedia
    2. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — Persian Wikipedia
    3. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — Arabic Wikipedia
    4. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — Wikidata Q128245
    • Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — Urdu Wikipedia
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Mohammad Reza Pahlavi”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/mohammad-reza-pahlavi/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-27.

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    Related

    Al-Azhar Mosque

    Al-Azhar at Cairo: founded by the Fatimids as the mosque of their da'wa, then turned by the vizier Ya'qub ibn Killis in 378 into a university teaching the sciences and letters — from a pulpit reserved for the Fatimid call into one of Egypt's foremost centres of learning beside the mosques of Amr, Ibn Tulun and al-Hakim.