Aryamehr (Persian: آریامهر Āryāmehr‎) was the title used in the Pahlavi dynasty by Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Shah of Iran. It means Light of the Aryans.

History[link]

It was granted as a secondary title by a session of the joint Houses of Parliament (Majles) on September 15, 1965, to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, reigning since he took the oath at the Majles on September 17, 1941, before his coronation at Teheran on October 26, 1967.

On July 27, 1980, Prince Reza Cyrus Pahlavi nominally succeeded his father, in exile because the Iranian Revolution had made Iran an Islamic Republic; he assumed, as Reza Pahlavi II, the titles of Shahanshah and Aryamehr, together with the style of His Imperial Majesty.

During the riots that lead to the 1979 Islamic revolution, the phonetically similar term 'Ary-az-mehr' (meaning void-of-compassion) was used by demonstrators to refer to the Shah. This term was used in condemnation of the brutality of the Shah's intelligence forces, that was widely viewed to be sanctioned by the Shah himself.

Associated order[link]

The Neshān-e Āryāmehr, Nešâne Āryāmehr or Nishān-i Āryāmehr, meaning 'the Order of Light of the Aryans', was the third and last Imperial order of knighthood which the last Shah founded on 26 September 1967 (This date, given in most publications, is plausibly the date of revival, not of institution: photographs of the Imperial wedding celebrations in 1939 show the Queen Mother Taj ul-Mulk wearing an almost identical star. Reza Shah may well have founded the order at the same time as the Order of Pahlavi in 1932) in honour of his consort. Empress Farah Diba was awarded the high honour restricted to ladies only. The first class was restricted to female Sovereigns or consorts of reigning rulers, the second class to princesses.

See also[link]

• Nishan-e-Aqdas
• Order of the Lion and the Sun
• order of Aftab

References[link]

External links[link]

• Imperial Persian Orders