Reza Shah

Reza Khan was born on 15 March 1878 in the town of Alasht in Savadkuh County, Mazandaran province, to Major Abbas-Ali Khan and his wife Noush-Afarin.

His mother, Noush-Afarin Ayromlu, was an immigrant from Georgia or Yerevan (then part of the Russian Empire), whose family had emigrated to Qajar Iran when it was forced to cede all of its territories in the Caucasus following the Russo-Persian Wars several decades prior to Reza Shah's birth. His father was a Mazanderani, and a member of the Palani clan, who was commissioned in the 7th Savadkuh Regiment, and served in the Second Herat War of 1856.

Abbas-Ali died suddenly on 26 November 1878, when Reza was 8 months old. Upon his father's death, Reza and his mother moved to her brother's house in Tehran. She remarried in 1879 and left Reza to the care of his uncle. In 1882, his uncle in turn sent Reza to a family friend, Amir Tuman Kazim Khan, an officer in the Persian Cossack Brigade, in whose home he had a room of his own and a chance to study with Kazim Khan's children with the tutors who came to the house. When Reza was sixteen years old, he joined the Persian Cossack Brigade. In 1903, when he was 25 years old, he is reported to have been a guard and servant to the Dutch consul general Fridolin Marinus Knobel. Maurits Wagenvoort, who met and spoke to Reza at a meeting of the "Babi-circle of Hadsji Achont" in Tehran in 1903, in a publication from 1926 speaks of him as the "gholam of His Presence the Dutch Consul" and noted his very keen interest in Western politics.

Reza served in the Imperial Army. His career started as a private under Qajar Prince Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma's command. Farman Farma noted that Reza had potential and sent him to military school where he gained the rank of gunnery sergeant. In 1911, he gave a good account of himself in later campaigns and was promoted to First Lieutenant. His proficiency in handling machine guns elevated him to the rank equivalent to captain in 1912. By 1915, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. His record of military service eventually led him to a commission as a Brigadier General in the Persian Cossack Brigade. In November 1919, he chose the last name Pahlavi, which later became the name of the dynasty he founded.

Reza Shah married, for the first time, Maryam Savadkoohi, who was his cousin, in 1895. The marriage lasted until Maryam's death in 1911. the couple had a daughter:

Princess Hamdam al-Saltaneh Pahlavi (1903–1992)

Reza Shah's second wife was Nimtaj Ayromlou, later Tadj ol-Molouk (1896–1982). The couple married in 1916 and when Reza Khan became king, Queen Tadj ol-Molouk was his official wife. They had four children together:

Princess Shams Pahlavi (1917–1996)

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919–1980)

Princess Ashraf Pahlavi (1919–2016)

Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi (1922–1954).

The third wife of Reza Shah was Turan Amirsoleimani (1905–1994), who was from the Qajar dynasty. The couple married in 1922 but divorced in 1923 and together they had a son:

Prince Gholam Reza Pahlavi (1923–2017)

Reza Shah's fourth and last wife, Esmat Dowlatshahi (1905–1995), was a member of the Qajar dynasty. She married Reza Shah in 1923 and accompanied him to his exile. Esmat was Reza Shah's favorite wife, who resided at Marble Palace. The couple had five children:

Prince Abdul Reza Pahlavi (1924–2004)

Prince Ahmad Reza Pahlavi (1925–1981)

Prince Mahmoud Reza Pahlavi (1926–2001)

Princess Fatemeh Pahlavi (1928–1987)

Prince Hamid Reza Pahlavi (1932–1992).