Word: reza
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Imperial Majesty, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, ceremoniously hammered a golden spike into a railway tie last week. Later, excited Iranians in Teheran watched the first train to make the trip from Bandar Shahpur, on the inlet Khor Musa of the Persian Gulf, pull in to Iran's inland capital. Thus the Trans-Iranian Railway, most spectacular, most expensive railroad enterprise undertaken since the World War, was pronounced completed. The railroad is the dream come true of a westernizing, wilful ruler who still believes in the 19th-Century notion that railroad-building is a matter of national prestige...
Engaged. Princess Fawziya, 16, eldest sister of King Farouk of Egypt; and Shahpoor Mohammed Reza, 18, Crown Prince of Iran...
Most Lofty. Almost illiterate when he came to the throne, speaking only Persian with a smattering of Russian, Reza Shah Pahlavi had a strong historical sense, pictured himself as a 20th-century Darius even when he was still only a cavalry colonel. When he became Minister of War in a Shah-less government (the former do-nothing Shah had moved to Paris), he acted more like the great Persian monarch. He imposed his will on hitherto independent fierce tribes, hanging dozens of warring sheiks, making other suspected local chieftains his permanent "guests." On a group of disobedient mullahs (Moslem priests...
...knowledge of time-honored Iranian political methods with a passion for reform and an incorrigible interest in blue prints. Despiser of meddling, dictating European governments, he nevertheless admires Western habits and dress, Western technical achievements. Just as Kamal Atatürk had ordained in Turkey a few years before, Reza Shah Pahlavi ordered jail sentences for turban-wearers, forbade veils for Iranian women. Robed, turbaned mullahs were obliged to carry licenses. The Iranian habit of contracting temporary marriages, sanctioned by the Shiah sect of Mohammedanism, was so curtailed by the Shah that polygamy became difficult. The number of wives decreased...
Once healthy, abstemious Shah Reza considered outlawing opium smoking, but factors other than reform weighed heavily. Important was the fact that an estimated half of the adult population smokes opium, that it is used as solace for the famine victim, to quiet crying babies and pleading children, to deaden the pain of a disease-ridden population largely unserved by doctors or hospitals, as well as for sheer pleasure. More important was that the opium trade, transported by camel caravan into Russia, then carried over the Tran-siberian Railroad to China by the obliging Soviets, accounted for more than half...