{{Short description|Iranian princess (1917–1996)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox royalty | image = شمس_پهلوی.jpg | caption = Princess Shams in the 1940s | birth_name = Khadijeh Pahlavi<ref>{{cite web|url=https://rc.majlis.ir/fa/law/show/90870?keyword=%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AA%20%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%DB%8C|title=Exemption from court fees in lawsuits against the heirs and relatives of the deceased king|work=Islamic Parliament Research Center of The Islamic Republic of IRAN|access-date=21 April 2021|language=fa|archive-date=18 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211118201737/https://rc.majlis.ir/fa/law/show/90870?keyword=%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AA%20%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%DB%8C|url-status=dead}}</ref> | birth_date = {{birth date|1917|10|28|df=y}} | birth_place = Tehran, Sublime State of Iran | death_date = {{death date and age|1996|2|29|1917|10|18|df=y}} | death_place = Santa Barbara, California, U.S. | house = Pahlavi | father = Reza Shah | mother = Tadj ol-Molouk | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Fereydoun Djam|1937|1944|reason=div}} * {{marriage|Mehrdad Pahlbod|1945}} }} | issue = Shahbaz Pahlbod<br/>Shahyar Pahlbod<br/>Shahrazad Pahlbod }} '''Shams Pahlavi''' ({{langx|fa|شمس پهلوی}}; {{Birth date|1917|10|28|df=yes}} – {{Death date|1996|2|29|df=yes}}) was an Iranian royal and the elder sister of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. During her brother's reign, she was the president of the Red Lion and Sun Society.<ref>{{cite web |author=Mehdi Sharif|title=I cannot blame them|publisher=The Iranian|access-date=5 November 2012 |url=https://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2002/June/Quake/index.html|date=24 June 2002}}</ref> She left Iran for the United States after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
==Biography== Princess Shams was born in Tehran on 28 October 1917.<ref name=fou/> She was the elder daughter of Reza Shah and his consort Tadj ol-Molouk.<ref name=fou/>
When the Second Eastern Women's Congress was arranged in Tehran in 1932, Shams Pahlavi served as its president and Sediqeh Dowlatabadi as its secretary.
[[File:Rezaschahwifedaughters.jpg|thumb|left| Shams, her mother, and her sister Ashraf leaving the palace the day that wearing the chador was officially prohibited in Iran (January 7, 1936).]] On 8 January 1936, she and her mother and sister, Ashraf, 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.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Lois Beck|editor2=Guity Nashat|title=Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic|isbn=978-0-252-07189-8 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tLRgXf_e_CEC&pg=PP16|year=2004|publisher=University of Illinois Press |page=16|chapter=Introduction|location=Urbana and Chicago, IL|author=Guity Nashat}}</ref>
Shams Pahlavi married Fereydoun Djam, son of then-prime minister of Iran Mahmoud Djam, under strict orders from her father in 1937, but the marriage was unhappy, and the couple divorced immediately after the death of Reza Shah.<ref name=fou>{{cite web|title=Shams Pahlavi|url=http://fouman.com/Y/English_Persian_History_Glossary-Shams%20Pahlavi.htm|publisher=Fouman|access-date=21 February 2013|archive-date=16 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131216182835/http://fouman.com/Y/English_Persian_History_Glossary-Shams%20Pahlavi.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Following the deposition of Reza Shah after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941, Shams and her husband accompanied her father during his exile to Port Louis, Mauritius, and later Johannesburg, South Africa.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Shaul Bakhash|title='This is a Prison…A Death in Life': Reza Shah's troubled exile on the Island of Mauritius|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|date=2019|volume=55|issue=1|page=128 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2018.1501681|s2cid=150341032 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2018.1501681|url-access=subscription}}</ref> She published her memoir of this trip in monthly installments in the ''Ettela'at'' newspaper in 1948.
thumb|left|Princess Shams, 1950 Shams was deprived of her ranks and titles for a brief period of time after her second marriage to Mehrdad Pahlbod, and lived in the United States from 1945 to 1947. Later, a reconciliation with the court was achieved and the couple returned to Tehran only to leave again during the upheavals of the Abadan Crisis. She converted to Catholicism in the 1940s.<ref>{{cite book|author=Fakhreddin Azimi|title=Quest for Democracy in Iran: A century of struggle against authoritarian rule|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gt-Gwo1w_AkC&pg=PA237|date=2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-02036-8|page=237|location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> Princess Shams was persuaded to convert by Ernest Perron, the best friend of the Shah.<ref>Abbas Milani. (2011). ''The Shah'' , London: Macmillan, p. 49.</ref> Her husband and children adopted Catholicism after her.
Shams dedicated most of her time to developing the Red Lion and Sun Society (Iran's Red Cross), making it the country’s largest charitable organization.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Archives |first=L. A. Times |date=1996-03-03 |title=Princess Shams Pahlavi; Red Cross Leader, Shah's Sister |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-03-03-mn-42531-story.html |access-date=2024-03-02 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>
[[File:Shams Pahlavi and Mehrdad Pahlbod.jpg|thumb|Shams and her husband Mehrdad Pahlbod in 1978]] After returning to Iran following the 1953 coup which re-established the rule of her brother, she maintained a low public profile, contrary to that of her sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, and confined her activities to the management of the vast fortune she inherited from her father. In the late 1960s, she commissioned the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation architects to build her the Pearl Palace in Mehrshahr near Karaj, and Villa Mehrafarin in Chalous, Mazandaran, which was built during the 1970s.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mehrazan |title=The Pearl Palace (Morvarid palace) - Contemporary Architecture of Iran |url=https://www.caoi.ir/en/projects/item/225-pearl-palace-morvarid-palace-in-mehrshahr-architect-william-wesley-peters.html |access-date=2024-03-02 |website=www.caoi.ir |language=en-gb}}</ref>
right|thumb|Santa Barbara estate, 1981 [[File:Pearl Palace -Kakh e Morvarid- Karaj Iran.jpg|thumb|Pearl Palace, 2014]] She left Iran for the United States after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. She and her family settled in Santa Barbara in 1984.<ref name=":0" /> In 1996, she died of cancer at 77 years of age in her Santa Barbara estate.
== Other roles ==
* Honorary president of the Hospital for Protection of Disadvantaged Children (Iran)<ref name=":0" /> * Honorary president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals<ref name=":0" />
===Honours === *Order of the Pleiades (Neshaan-e haft peikar), 2nd Class, (1957, Iran) *Order of Aryamehr (Neshān-e Āryāmehr), 2nd Class, (26 September 1967, Iran)
==See also== *List of Iranian women royalty
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{Commons-inline}} * [https://iranscope.ghandchi.com/Fun/OldTehran/ot.htm Picture of a young Princess Shams Pahlavi] {{S-start}} {{s-npo}} {{s-bef|before=Mohammad Reza Pahlavi}} {{s-ttl|title=Chairwoman of the Iranian Red Lion and Sun Society|years=1949–1979}} {{s-aft|after=Kazem Sami}} {{S-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pahlavi, Shams}} Category:1917 births Category:1996 deaths Category:20th-century Iranian women Category:20th-century Roman Catholics Category:Burials at Santa Barbara Cemetery Category:Children of prime ministers of Iran Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Shia Islam Category:Daughters of kings Category:Exiled royalty Category:Exiles of the Iranian Revolution in the United States Category:Grand Cordons of the Order of the Precious Crown Category:Iranian former Shia Muslims Category:Iranian Roman Catholics Category:Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Category:Pahlavi princesses Category:Mazandarani people Category:Red Cross personnel Category:Royalty from Tehran Category:People of the Iranian Revolution Category:Women in the Iranian Revolution