Queen Soraya’s Birthday and the Old Question of Pahlavi Succession

Iran’s wronged queen has found a new life in the age of social media.

Mohammadreza Shah Pahlavi and Soraya married in 1951. (Getty Images)
Mohammadreza Shah Pahlavi and Soraya married in 1951. (Getty Images)
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Queen Soraya’s Birthday and the Old Question of Pahlavi Succession

Mohammadreza Shah Pahlavi and Soraya married in 1951. (Getty Images)
Mohammadreza Shah Pahlavi and Soraya married in 1951. (Getty Images)

In recent years, Soraya Pahlavi has been a subject of intense attention among Iranian users on social media for a variety of reasons, the most common of which is her “beauty.”

From when she left Iran on February 13, 1958 to when the revolution broke out in 1979, there was a total news and image embargo on Queen Soraya. In the age of internet, however, the story of her life, quotes from her memoirs and her pictures have now become widely available and met with a rapturous welcome from a new generation.

On Monday, June 22, Queen Soraya’s birthday, her images seemed to fill my Instagram feed: Who was Soraya Esfandiari, second wife of late Mohammadreza Shah Pahlavi?

Soraya Esfandiari Bakhtiari was born on June 22, 1932 in Isfahan from an Iranian father and German mother.

The attention shown to a woman that has had seemingly little role in the contemporary history of our country gave me an excuse to, on the occasion of her birthday and spreading around of her beautiful and attractive pictures, revisit her life and pose a question: How did her marriage to the young Shah affect Iranian history? On social media, most users seemed to be more interested in her wealth and how she had little interest in Iran or Iranians; otherwise why did she not donate her wealth to the Iranian people and instead gave them to charities who help the disabled in France or dogs in Paris?

The Shah of Iran is said to have been madly in love with Queen Soraya. After seven years of marriage, under pressure from his family and the Senate, he divorced Soraya. The monarchy needed an heir and Soraya had failed to produce one.

There is no detailed account of why the Shah got a divorce from his first wife. Based on accounts by those close to the court, Queen Fawzia got the divorce on the insistence of her brother (King Farouk) and pressure from the Egyptian court.

The good Iranian-Egyptian relations had been tarred. Fawzia was called to Egypt and not allowed to go back to Tehran. From this first marriage of the Shah, a daughter, Shanaz, was born who stayed in Iran and, during Shah’s marriage to Soraya, was sent to dorm schools in Switzerland.

Shah’s marriage to Soraya started with love. The 17-year-old girl, from a Bakhtiari tribal background; granddaughter of Ali Qoli Khan, the legendary chieftain and revolutionary; stole the heart of the young Shah with her emerald eyes. She was Shah’s only wife who used the title Malake. i.e. Queen (Shah’s next wife, Farah Diba, gained the title “Shahbanoo” or empress).

According to the doctors, Soraya had no fertility problem. Why couldn’t she bear a child then? Perhaps typhoid fever, nervous reasons, stress of marrying a royal family or the chaos that ensued Iran following the coup d’etat of August 1953 and Shah’s sudden leaving of Iran for Italy during those heady days.

Whatever the reason, the young woman who had married a king at the age of 17 was not so lucky.

The Imperial State of Iran created an all-female order in her honor, named the Order of the Pleiades. The title referred to her name since Soraya is a Persian name for the famed star cluster of Taurus, Pleiades (in English, it’s sometimes called the Seven Sisters). The order is made of blue enamel, decorated with seven diamond stars that stand for the star cluster.

But the number seven didn’t augur well for Queen Soraya’s life. Her marriage also only lasted exactly seven years. On the very day after the seventh anniversary of her marriage to the Shah, on February 13, 1958, she left Iran forever.

Queen Soraya left Iran with a broken heart. Whenever I think of her life, I am filled with sadness for how much unkindness she saw. One day she was a Queen, revered everywhere; then suddenly turned into a divorcé whose infertility was known everywhere. All media could talk about was her divorce and her inability to bear a child. No woman can accept such humiliation; especially since she was not an ordinary woman and had become known around the world.

The title Queen was taken away from her and instead she was allowed to be called a “Shahzade Khanum” like the sisters of the Shah.

After the divorce, all her pictures were ordered to be taken down from streets and schoolbooks. The media were not allowed to report on the former queen.

She wasn’t allowed to travel back to Iran either. Soraya had to be obliterated from history so that Shah’s new wife could appear unrivaled. It is said that Mohammadreza and Shah, as humans, loved each other to the last day. Queen Soraya never took off the diamond ring of marriage the Shah gave her. According to a credible source, she wanted to come see the Shah in Cairo in his last days but was never able to.

For a woman born and bred in Iran, and educated there, it must have been so difficult to be barred from the homeland. At the age of 15, when her father was made ambassador to Berlin, Esfandiaris left Iran. She was 16 when Shah’s sister saw Soraya in a party organized by the embassy in London and thought her a suitable match for her brother.

Shah married Soraya seven years after he had divorced Fawzia. His marriage with Soraya also lasted seven years. Two years after their divorce, he married Shahbanoo Farah Pahlavi.

The heir to the throne was born one year after Shah and Farah had married; the crown prince was born more than 20 years after his father had been on the throne. At the time of the revolution, the crown prince was too young to assume the throne for his father; an event that could have help change Iranian history.

Fate has many games in store. The Shah of Iran, following three marriages and five kids, was unable to see his son ascend to the Peacock Throne. From the two sons that came out of Shah’s marriage to Farah, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi is the only one alive. His younger brother, Prince Alireza, ended his life in Boston in January 2011.

The political future of Reza Pahlavi, the only remaining son of the late Shah, and his views on the monarchical system, is a question often asked by Iranians today.

When he turned 20, Reza Pahlavi could now assume the throne, based on Iran’s old constitution. In Cairo, he swore loyalty to the constitution.

From the very first days when the Shah ascended the throne, the succession issue became key to many political and social debates. Forty-three years after the 1979 revolution ended the monarchy, the debate continues and engages proponents and opponents of the monarchical system.

Recently, a voice file was published in which Reza Pahlavi could be heard saying: “I personally prefer a republic to a hereditary monarchy.” This led to many reactions. Was the crown prince resigning from the monarchy?

Reza Pahlavi also has no male heir or nephew. His brother’s only child was a daughter.

On the 89th birthday of Queen Soraya, a woman driven away because she couldn’t give birth and replaced by a woman who could give Iran a crown prince, we have revisited the debates on succession in the Pahlavi dynasty; a debate that has never left Iranians ever since Mohammadreza Shah married the Egyptian princess Fawzia in 1939. Almost a century later, the debate still goes on.

Queen Soraya died on October 26, 2001 in Paris. She was 69 years old.



Some European Firms Retreat from Israel-Linked Finance amid War Pressure

 An Israeli national flag flies over a city highway during rush hour, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 4, 2024. (Reuters)
An Israeli national flag flies over a city highway during rush hour, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 4, 2024. (Reuters)
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Some European Firms Retreat from Israel-Linked Finance amid War Pressure

 An Israeli national flag flies over a city highway during rush hour, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 4, 2024. (Reuters)
An Israeli national flag flies over a city highway during rush hour, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 4, 2024. (Reuters)

Several of Europe's biggest financial firms have cut back their links to Israeli companies or those with ties to the country, a Reuters analysis of filings shows, as pressure mounts from activists and governments to end the war in Gaza.

While banks and insurers are often vocal about their environmental and governance aims, they are less forthcoming about disclosing their potential exposure to war.

UniCredit put Israel on a "forbidden" list as the conflict escalated in October last year, said a source familiar with the matter, confirming a study by Dutch NGO PAX.

While in line with the Italian bank's defense-sector policy of not directly financing arms exports to any country involved in conflict, it goes beyond Italy's guidelines on arms exports to Israel.

UniCredit declined to comment on its move and the Israeli finance ministry also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Norwegian asset manager Storebrand and French insurer AXA have sold shares of some Israeli firms, including banks.

Although corporate filings offer only a glimpse into such exposures, they show companies have been readjusting.

"We don't know whether this represents the beginning of a shift in the industry, one that recognizes the power banks have in choosing where to allocate capital, and where not," said Martin Rohner, executive director at the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, which focuses on sustainable financing.

"Investing in the production and trade of weapons is fundamentally opposed to the principles of sustainable development," Rohner added.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a press briefing last week that although there are challenges to Israel's economy, firms are still raising money. "I sit with foreign investors and they believe in our economy," he said.

Reuters has reported that Israel's investor base has narrowed since it entered Gaza last year in response to attacks by Hamas, and it is feeling the effects of rising borrowing costs.

The potential wider effects can be seen in the approach taken by Storebrand, which a filing showed divested a holding worth about $24 million in Palantir, citing the risk of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights.

US group Palantir, which provides technology to Israel's military, did not respond to a request for comment.

Storebrand's annual investment review said that, as of the end of 2023, it had excluded 24 firms, including Israeli companies, across its portfolios in relation to the occupation of Palestinian territories.

The International Court of Justice, the United Nations' highest court, ruled in January of plausible risk of irreparable harm to Palestinian rights to be protected from genocide.

The same court said in July that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories including the settlements is illegal.

Israel has rejected the rulings, which combined with growing pressure from activists and governments, are nevertheless having an impact on investment decisions.

AXA, one of Europe's largest insurers, British bank Barclays and German insurer Allianz have increasingly been targeted by campaigners.

"Increasing demand for greater transparency and scrutiny can only mean that financial institutions will intensify and broaden their self-assessment of their commercial associations with arms-related businesses or states," said David Kinley, professor and chair of human rights law at the Sydney law school.

The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) has exited six Israeli companies, selling holdings which amounted to about 3 million euros ($3.26 million), including some of Israel's largest banks, a spokesperson told Reuters.

Earlier this year, the 15-billion-euro Irish fund said that the risk profile of such investments were no longer within its investment parameters.

And Norway's $1.8 trillion wealth fund, the world's biggest, may divest shares of companies that aid Israel's operations in the occupied Palestinian territories which violate its ethics standards for businesses.

WAR EXPOSURE

Investments in Israeli banks are also under scrutiny.

The UN included them in 2020 in a list of companies with ties to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as part of its mission to review the implications on Palestinian rights.

A study by research firm Profundo, commissioned by corporate watchdog Ekō, shows that AXA sold almost all of its holdings in Israeli banks stocks earlier this year, retaining only a marginal stake in Bank Leumi.

Reuters verified the data with LSEG. A representative for Bank Leumi did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for AXA declined to comment on whether AXA had cut its holdings, adding that it is not invested in the banks targeted by activists. The UN list is among the criteria AXA takes into account for investment decisions, they added.

'A CLEAR LINE'

Foreign direct investment into Israel fell by 29% in 2023 to its lowest since 2016, UN Trade and Development data shows.

While UNCTAD 2024 figures are not available, credit ratings agencies have flagged the war's unpredictable impact on investment in Israel as a concern.

Although the US remains Israel's biggest military and financial backer, Spain, Ireland and Norway have recognized a Palestinian state, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an arms export halt and Britain has suspended some licenses.

When it comes to international politics, "it should be down to the governments to take a clear line," said Richard Portes, professor of economics at London Business School, adding: "To put the burden on the private firms, where does this end?"

In an example of how activists are targeting companies directly, Barclays came under pressure from a campaign in Britain, prompting it to withdraw sponsorship from summer music festivals, while the Financial Times reported in August that it considered pulling out of an Israeli government bond sale.

Barclays said in a statement that it remained "fully committed" to its role as a primary dealer and that such activities fluctuated each quarter. The bank fell out of the top five dealers of Israeli bonds in the second and third quarters, after ranking third in 2023.