Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

40 Anniv. of Iran's Shah Death in Egypt.. Here's Full Story


Sun 26 Jul 2020 | 09:31 AM
Yassmine Elsayed

Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, the late, and actually last, shah of Iran, who died in his exile in Cairo in July 27th 1980, after being overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.

The story of his death was recalled in a recent report by AFP, which sheds the light more on that incident.

The Shah of Iran died as a result of lymphoma, and Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat hosted his last ally's funeral ceremony in his exile.

After he remained in solid power for 37 years, Pahlavi was forced to flee Tehran 17 months prior to his death, following a revolution that hoped to make Iran the fifth greatest power in the world by the year 2000.

The late Shah moved between Morocco, The Bahamas, Mexico, the United States and Panama, then took refuge in Egypt on March 24th after being received by his "only friend" President Anwar El-Sadat.

The health condition of the Shah deteriorated and was transferred by helicopter to Maadi Military Hospital, where he underwent an operation to eradicate the spleen and began a long period of convalescence in one of the palaces in Cairo along with his wife, Shahbano Farah Diba, and their four children. But his health condition  worsened.

Hours after his death, Sadat announced in a message to the nation "with profound pain" the death of "a friend and brother."

"Let history rule the era of Mohamad Reza Pahlavi, but we in Egypt will show him the gratitude and respect that he deserves as a man and as a Muslim," he said.

Sadat stated that the late Shah "stood by Egypt in difficult times."

The friendship between the two men dates back to the 1970s. The Shah stood with Egypt during the Arab-Israeli war in October 1973 and sent medical aid and doctors, and despite being an ally of Washington, Soviet planes were allowed to fly over Iran to supply Cairo with military equipment.

On July 29, after the Iranian imperial national song was played, the Egyptian President led the funeral and transported the coffin draped in the Iranian flag placed on top of a six-horse cannon, from the presidential palace to the Rifai Mosque.

Behind Sadat, the majestic funeral was attended by the family of the Shah of Iran, members of former royal families such as the former King of Greece, Constantine II, and thousands of Egyptian soldiers.

No head of state attended the funeral, and the United States, France, Britain, Japan, Australia and Israel sent ambassadors to represent them.

Among the invitees was former US President Richard Nixon, who denounced the administration’s hesitant policy toward the Shah of Iran, who “has been a loyal ally and friend of the United States in more than three decades.”

Under a burning sun, during the funeral procession, popular neighborhoods filled with people within a distance of two kilometers. One hundred thousand people rallied along the motorcade route, amidst tight security.

In front of the mosque, Sadat and the son of the Shah accompanied the coffin inward, while 21 artillery rounds were fired. The Shah was buried in the place where his father Reza Shah, the founder of Selah Pahlavi, was buried for years, until the early 1950s after his death in exile in South Africa.

On the other hand, Iranian radio announced a brief news about the death of the Shah.

"Even on the street, there was a shy and limited reaction to the news of his death," an AFP correspondent in Iran then wrote.

The next day, his death made headlines in the Iranian newspapers.

"The death of the pharaoh" was written by the Azabegan newspaper, while the Tehran Times headline "The vampire of the century is gone." The "Islamic Republic" accused the United States of killing the Shah in his exile.

The President of the Shura Council, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, declared the only official who commented on the death of the Shah, "For us, the death of the Shah is a small and insignificant problem."