Word: reza
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...country is more anxious to demonstrate its freedom than Iran, no ruler anywhere is more conscious of his dignity, more jealous of his sovereignty, than His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah-in-Shah ("King of Kings") of Iran...
Emancipator of his country from British domination, Shah Reza has commanded world attention during the last twelve years by deeds which, in other times, would have spurred British naval and military forces to action. Fresh proof that once-helpless Persia, now aggressive, heavily-soldiered Iran, could stand manfully up to her former master came early this month. A giant, trimotored Junkers low-wing monoplane, with swastikas gleaming on tail, roared down to Teheran airport, inaugurating Lufthansa's new commercial airline between isolated, mountainous Iran and the Near East and Europe...
...Imperial Britain, Iran shook off Russian influence when Cossack officers retired from the country at the end of the World War, but waited five years for the British-officered South Persia Rifles to disband. With a newly-created army of 40,000 men, commanded in person by the then Reza Khan, supplied with secondhand rifles, machine guns, tanks, Iran first dealt with her own warring, rebellious Kurds, Kashgais and Bakhtiaris, then began shaking a determined fist at Great Britain...
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...