She has lived in exile for nearly half a century. Will she ever see Iran again?
She was the beauty who for years adorned magazine covers around the world. Farah Diba, born in Tehran in 1938, later Queen of Iran under the name Farah Pahlavi. She is now 87. From her exile in the United States, she follows the drama unfolding in her homeland hour by hour.
It is said that she lives a quiet life, dividing her time between properties in Paris and Washington, D.C. Yet she still attends cultural events for Iranian exiles and until recently has appeared together with her eldest son, Reza Pahlavi.
Farah Pahlavi has never returned to Iran since she and the Shah left the country in 1979. In interviews she says that her longing for her homeland remains strong. One of her most frequently quoted remarks is: “I live in exile, but Iran always lives in my heart.”Many years ago, in 2004, she published the book An Enduring Love: My Life With the Shah. It is both a personal memoir and a defense of her husband, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and of the monarchy that collapsed in 1979. She recounts that she grew up in a fairly well-to-do family and, as a young woman, had the opportunity to study architecture in Paris.
One day in 1959 she was invited to a reception in the French capital with the Shah as the guest of honor.
“When I met him, he seemed shy and almost a little lonely. I immediately sensed that he carried an enormous responsibility on his shoulders,” she wrote.
That brief meeting soon developed into something more. The Shah had been married twice before. He divorced his first wife, Princess Fawzia of Egypt, because the marriage faltered and she wished to return home. His next wife, Soraya, was half Iranian and half German, but she could not have children. Doctors in Europe and the United States tried to help, but without success. The Shah therefore had to find a new life partner.
“I quickly realized that she was the woman I had long been searching for, and the queen my country needed,” the Shah later said of Farah in an interview.
Their wedding in December 1959 naturally became a major national event, and journalists from around the world flocked to Tehran. She was 21, he was 40. The following year she gave birth to a son, and both her husband and millions of Iranians breathed a sigh of relief.
A large part of the book deals with Farah Pahlavi’s role as empress. She sought to use her position to promote art and culture, and she worked especially for women’s rights. “I did not want to be merely a symbolic figure. I wanted to help build a modern Iran in which women and men could participate on equal terms.”
She also describes the Shah’s working habits and personality. We read that he was far more sensitive and uncertain than the authoritarian image many people had of him. “He carried a loneliness that few people around him understood.”
Understandably, she writes nothing about the political repression, the Shah’s secret police, the prisons, and the torture.
The Shah had already become Iran’s ruler in 1941, after his father, Reza Shah, was forced to abdicate during the British-Soviet occupation of Iran in the Second World War. But the young Shah believed that the country first had to stabilize before a grand coronation ceremony could be held. He therefore waited until 1967.
In the meantime, Iran had experienced phenomenal economic growth. Yet not everyone had shared in it — something that would prove costly in the years to come. The country was also marked by strong religious tensions that the Shah tried to restrain, often by harsh means.
The coronation at Golestan Palace was a dazzling spectacle and reached its climax when the Shah placed the heavy Pahlavi crown upon his head — a masterpiece of emeralds, rubies, pearls, and several hundred diamonds. In Persian tradition it was customary for the ruler to crown himself. By lifting the crown and placing it on his own head, he signaled that his authority did not come from a priest or a church, but from the state and from history.
Shortly afterward he crowned Farah Pahlavi as Empress. It was the first time in Iran’s history that a woman received that title.
“When the Shah lifted the crown and placed it upon my head, I felt its weight — not only of gold and diamonds, but of responsibility. In that moment I felt that I no longer represented only myself, but also the women of Iran and their hopes for the future.”
That evening she went to bed with a headache because the crown had been so heavy.
Four years later the Shah organized a celebration that is still considered one of the most extravagant in modern history.
The occasion was the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy. The festivities took place near the ruins of the ancient capital Persepolis in southern Iran — a site charged with symbolism from the old Persian Empire.
For the occasion, a temporary luxury city was built in the desert. The complex consisted of about fifty large tents shaped like stars. They were like palaces, equipped with air-conditioning, marble bathrooms, and costly furniture and carpets. The tent city was arranged in a circle around a fountain, and a garden was planted with thousands of trees and flowers from around the world — even rare birds that soon died in the dry desert heat.
More than sixty kings, princes, and presidents were invited. Norway, my own country, was represented by King Olav. The highlight was an extravagant banquet served in the largest tent ever erected. The dishes were prepared by the famous restaurant Maxim’s de Paris, which flew in chefs and waiters from France. The cost of the event is still debated; some estimates suggest around 100 million dollars in the value of the time.
Farah wrote that the idea behind the jubilee was not to showcase luxury but to celebrate Iran’s long history. The Shah wished to link modern Iran with the legacy of Cyrus the Great (c. 600–530 BCE) and the ancient Persian Empire. She believed many Iranians were proud of this heritage. At the same time, she was aware that the celebration provoked reactions.
“When I look back today, I understand that many people perceived the celebration differently from how we did,” she added.
The most dramatic part of the book deals with the revolution of 1978–1979. Farah describes how the mood in the country gradually changed.
The demonstrations grew stronger, and many of the Shah’s supporters began to doubt. Even the Shah himself eventually felt bewildered. “He did not want to use violence against his own people. But without the use of force he also lost control.”
She describes their departure from Iran in January 1979 as one of the most painful moments of her life:
“When the plane took off from Tehran, I looked down at the country that had been my home. I did not know if I would ever see it again.”
The final part of the book deals with life after the revolution. Farah recounts the restless journeys from country to country — to Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, the United States, and Panama. She also describes the last months of her cancer-stricken husband.
“He had once been one of the most powerful men in the world. Now we lived as guests in other people’s countries, without a secure future.”
The Shah died in Cairo in July 1980, eighteen months after their flight from Tehran. He had suffered from lymphoma for several years without the public knowing about it. The diagnosis had been known only to a small circle of doctors and advisers.
“At that moment I felt that not only my husband was gone, but that an entire era in Iran’s history had come to an end.”
Farah Pahlavi and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had four children, two sons and two daughters. Only two of them are still alive — Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi (65) and Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi (53). The other two, Princess Leila Pahlavi and Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi, died by suicide in 2001 and 2011 respectively. It was said that they felt rootless after losing their homeland.
Now the former empress places her hopes for the future in her eldest son. From exile in the United States, Reza Pahlavi says he is ready to lead Iran into a new era. In several interviews he has stressed that Iran’s future form of government must be decided by referendum.
“My goal is not to become king or president. What matters most is that the country becomes democratic.”
His supporters view him as a symbol of a secular and Western-oriented Iran, as the country was before the revolution of 1979. But he faces a difficult task because the opposition is highly fragmented. Many Iranians do not want him at all, and for the clerical leadership in Tehran he is like a red rag to a bull.
And in the White House sits a president who says it makes no difference to him whether Iran becomes a democracy or not. What matters most to Donald Trump is that the next regime serves the United States — and himself.
