Ashraf Pahlavi

Princess Ashraf Pahlavi died on 7 January 2016 in Monte Carlo at the age of 96. She had suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Her death was announced by her nephew and the imperial family's head, Reza Pahlavi on his Facebook page.

Her funeral took place on 14 January 2016 in the Cimetière de Monaco in Monaco, attended by members of the Pahlavi family, including Empress Farah Pahlavi.

She also attacked U.S President Jimmy Carter and the United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim for not giving their support to her late brother the Shah during the start of the Revolution. In 1994 she attended the funeral of former president Richard Nixon.

In her 1980 memoirs, Pahlavi acknowledges the poor conditions of women in Iran and expresses concern, as she writes, "the news of what was happening to Iran's women was extremely painful…[they] were segregated and relegated to second-class status…many were imprisoned or exiled."

In 1980, Pahlavi wrote an article for The New York Times, in which she came out in defense of herself and her family's financial situation. In the article, she argued that her wealth was not accumulated through "ill-gotten gains" and attributed her fortune to inherited land, which "drastically increased in value with the development of Iran and the new prosperity that was there for all". She asserted that many other Iranians profited from the sale of their own real estate, but were not accused of financial misconduct because of close ties to the clergy and Khomeini. She also defended her brother, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, stating that, contrary to the claims made by some Khomeini supporters, the Shah did not profit from the Pahlavi Foundation. The Princess wrote that she planned to "fight these slanders with all my means and through whatever judicial means are available."

In a 1980 interview with The New York Times journalist Judy Klemesrud, Pahlavi stated, "I have never been a good mother. Because of my way of life, I was not with my children very much".

Her three books were published following her 1980 The New York Times article "I Will Fight These Slanders". In accordance with her promise to fight the "slanders" about her and her family, her books are largely concerned with clearing up what she viewed as misconceptions about the Pahlavi dynasty. She again addressed questions about her personal financial situation, writing in her most widely read book, her memoir Faces in a Mirror, "I had inherited about $300,000 when my father died (and about 1 million square meters of land near the Caspian Sea, as well as properties in Gorgan and Kermanshah, which would later become extremely valuable)." In the introduction to this book, Pahlavi writes that she wants "very much to explain to Western readers what they have failed to understand about the nature of Iran's culture and heritage…about the nature of the so-called Islamic revolution". Generally, her books are viewed as too autobiographical and steeped in emotion to be used as serious historical references: The Library Journal called Pahlavi's Faces in a Mirror, "little more than a personalized homily on the Pahlavis' virtues and the perfidy of nearly everyone else in the world."

After the 1979 revolution, Ashraf Pahlavi asked David Rockefeller to support her brother Mohammad Reza's attempts to find asylum.

Before the 1979 revolution, Pahlavi translated several books from French into Persian, including books on nursing and child care.

In 1979, The New York Times reported that a document dated 17 September 1978 from Ashraf's office requested a transfer of $708,000 from her Bank Melli account to her account at the Union Bank of Switzerland in Geneva under the code name 'SAIPA', which, in French, her preferred foreign language, stands for: S-on, A-ltesse, I-mperiale, P-rincesse, A-shraf.

Ashraf Pahlavi was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt in the summer of 1977 at her summer home on the French Riviera, during which fourteen bullets were fired into the side of her Rolls-Royce automobile. Her Lady-in-waiting was killed but Pahlavi left the scene unharmed.

Ashraf Pahlavi's women's rights stance was called into question after the publication of her 1976 The New York Times op-ed piece, "And Thus Passeth International Women's Year." In a March 1976 article in The Nation, writer Kay Boyle criticized Ashraf for her touting of International Women's Year as succeeding in widening the global vision of sisterhood, while approximately 4,000 of the Princess's own "sisters" were political prisoners in Iran with virtually no hope of a military trial.

Ashraf Pahlavi was a strong supporter of women's rights in Iran and the world during her brother's reign. In 1967, Pahlavi worked with the United Nations as the Iranian delegate to the Commission on Human Rights as well as the Economic and Social Council. In 1975, she was heavily involved with the International Women's Year, and addressed the United Nations.

Pahlavi married a third and final time on 5 June 1960 (at the Iranian Embassy in Paris) to Mehdi Bushehri (1916–?), who was the director of the Maison d'Iran (House of Iran), Paris. He was a nephew of Javad Bushehri, a politician. Pahlavi and Mehdi Bushehri had no children together, and were often separated while Pahlavi lived in exile in New York City and Mehdi Bushehri remained in Paris.

In 1953, Ashraf Pahlavi played an important role in Operation Ajax as the one who changed Mohammad Reza Shah's mind in giving consent to the CIA and SIS to start the operation. The Shah had originally opposed the operation and for a while resisted accepting it. In early 1953, she met with CIA agents who asked her to talk to her brother since she was the only one who was able to influence him. As historian Stephen Kinzer's book All the Shah's Men recounts, "Ashraf was enjoying life in French casinos and nightclubs when one of Kermit Roosevelt's best Iranian agents, Assadollah Rashidian, paid her a call. He found her reluctant, so the next day a delegation of American and British agents came to pose the invitation in stronger terms. The leader of the delegation, a senior British operative named Norman Darbyshire, had the foresight to bring a mink coat and a packet of cash. When Ashraf saw these emoluments, Darbyshire later recalled, "her eyes lit up and her resistance crumbled." By her own account, Pahlavi was offered a blank check if she agreed to return to Iran from her enforced exile in France, but refused the money and returned of her own accord.

Pahlavi's first marriage was to Mirza 'Ali Muhammed Khan Ghavam, Nasir ud-Daula (1911–?). They were married in March 1937 and divorced in 1942. Ghavam was the Assistant Military Attaché for Iran in 1941 in Washington, DC, and the eldest son of Mirza Ibrahim Khan Ghavam, Qavam ul-Mulk. She had one son from her first marriage, Prince (Vala Gohar) Shahram Pahlavi-Nia (born 18 April 1940, Tehran). In 1966 he married 16-year-old Niloufar Afshar, and the couple had one son, Cyrus, in 1969. Pahlavi-Nia had another son, Amir Ebrahim (born 1974) out of wedlock with Naz Alam, a daughter of the Shah's longtime minister of court and confidante, Asadollah Alam. In 1987 Shahram and Naz had an Islamic marriage ceremony in the US Virgin Islands.

Ashraf Pahlavi was not permitted to attend university and instead was married in 1937, at the age of 18, to Mirza Khan Ghavam, whose family was politically allied with her father.

In the early 1930s, Ashraf Pahlavi, her older sister Shams, and their mother were among the first significant Iranian women to cease wearing the traditional veil. On 8 January 1936, she and her mother and sister played a major symbolic role in the Kashf-e hijab (the abolition of the veil) which was a part of the shah's effort to include women in public society, by participating in the graduation ceremony of the Tehran Teacher's College unveiled.

In 1932, she hosted the Second Eastern Women's Congress, which was arranged by the Jam'iyat-e Nesvan-e Vatankhah.

Ashraf ol-Molouk Pahlavi (Persian: اشرف‌الملوک پهلوی, Ašraf Pahlavi, 26 October 1919 – 7 January 2016) was the twin sister of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran (Persia), and a member of the Pahlavi dynasty. She was considered the "power behind her brother" and was instrumental in the 1953 coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah. She served her brother as a palace adviser and was a strong advocate for women's rights. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, she lived in exile in France, New York, Paris and Monte Carlo and remained outspoken against the Iranian Islamic Republic.

Ashraf Pahlavi was born in Tehran on 26 October 1919, five hours after her brother Mohammad Reza. Her parents were Reza Pahlavi, a military commander, who would become the Shah of Persia, and Tadj ol-Molouk, the second of his four wives. She had 10 siblings and half-siblings.

Pavlavi's second marriage was to (Sahib ul-Izza) Ahmed Chafik Bey (21 September 1911 – 1976). He was the director-general of Civil Aviation and fourth son of (Hazrat Sahib ul-Sa'ada) Ahmad Shafiq Pasha, the minister of the Khedivial Court of Egypt. They married in 1944 in Cairo, and divorced in 1960; he went on to a second marriage to Deloris Pianezzola, and died of cancer in 1976, in Tehran. They had two children, Captain Prince (Vala Gohar) Shahriar Mustapha Chafik (15 March 1945 – 7 December 1979), assassinated in Paris, and Princess (Vala Gohari) Azadeh Pahlavi-Chafik (1951–2011).