Encyclopedia of Islam

Reza Shah Pahlavi

  

591  J

---

and 

edUcation

 reforms, mandated a Western 

dress code, and abolished the wearing of the 

veil

. He created a strong central government by 

destroying the old fiefdoms that had divided the 

country internally and he limited the 

aUthority

of Iran’s Shii religious institutions by control-

ling the tithes that functioned as their primary 

source of wealth. The shah’s reforms sparked 

Iran’s economy and reignited its sense of national 

sovereignty, making Iran one of the most stable 

and formidable powers in the Middle East. Yet, 

because of his lasting distrust of the British and 

Russians, Reza Shah Pahlavi chose not to assist 

the Allies in their fight against German forces 

during World War II. As a result, in the closing 

year of the war, the Allied forces reoccupied Iran, 

forced his abdication, and replaced him on Iran’s 

throne with his son, m

ohammad

 r

eza

 p

ahlavi

 (r. 

1944–79).

Reza Aslan

Further reading: Amin Banani, The Modernization of 

Iran (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961); 

Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah (London: 

I.B. Tauris, 1998); Homa Katouzian, State and Society in 

Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the 

Pahlavis (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000).

ridda

  See 

apostasy

.